Last year, 4th-grade teachers Danielle Cardone and Courtney Harding were awarded a Hempfield Foundation grant to create soft starter kits to help students engage in critical thinking and STEM. Kits were built using STEM supplies like magnetic blocks, smart coins, bridge building, magnetic sticks, dominoes, lego dots, metal puzzles, button challenges, maze building, playing card challenges, lego building, and spur gears. Each kit includes task cards that require students to challenge their brains, think like engineers, and use creative thinking to think outside the box.

All 4th graders at LIC can use these kits (they are rotating among the 7 classes—about 175 students!) Students have shared “I love STEM day and I love getting to pick what I want to create!”…”I like being creative. I look forward to our STEM challenges!”

And Miss Cardone shared “I love seeing students’ excitement to try something that might be difficult at first, and then succeed through trial and error. I also love students have a variety of materials to work with so they are always engaged.”