Help the pirates get across the chasm of despair! Bridge Building STEM challenge

The pirate have found the treasure...but look out! monsters are chasing them! The only way to safety is to cross the chasm of despair! The chasm of despair is a dark dangerous place and if you fall in it spells certain doom!

Can you help the pirates get away from the monsters and get across the chasm of despair?

We had a really fun time this week with our Pirate Bridge Building STEM challenge. The task started off with a musical animation stimulus. The Pirate Bridge Building STEM song gave the children all the background information they needed to complete the challenge and it was a jolly good sing a along too!

There's nothing like a sing a long and a dance to get the brain stimulated to be creative and solve problems!

The pirates followed the treasure map and found the treasure but monsters chased them to the edge of the chasm of despair!

The only way across the chasm of despair is to build a bridge and cross it!

The children researched different types of bridges and designed a bridge that they thought would be appropriate to carry and support the weight of the pirates and their treasure across the chasm.

  

The children used the Google draw app to design their bridges.
Then they choose the materials they wanted to use to build their bridges.
We had a variety of designs such as suspension bridges, arch bridges, draw bridges (so they could be pulled up and the monsters not follow the pirates across) rope bridges and beam bridges.

They children then choose the materials they wanted to use to build their bridges and began construction.

Here is the chasm of despair if you fall in it's certain doom!

The children constructed some wonderful bridges. It was great to see and hear them collaborate so well and solve a variety of problems through trial and error. It was wonderful hands on multi sensory learning incorporating technology, music, movement, collaboration, problem solving and  construction.  Yes, the pirates got across the chasm of despair but the monsters are not happy! Look out for part 2! The monster are not going to give up that easily!  

So are you ready and willing to take the Pirate Bridge Building STEM Challenge? If so then let me know I would love to see what your class comes up with.

The clip art I used in the song video is by Hidesy's HIDESY'S CLIPART TPT store

For more great educational tunes Subscribe to my YouTube channel Rocking Dan Teaching Man YouTube 

Until next time,

rock on.

Rocking Dan Teaching Man

Fun night at Google's Australian Head office at the YouTube creators meeting

I had a great time at Google's Australian Head office at the YouTube creators meeting in Sydney on Friday night. It was a wonderful experience to see Google's Sydney office and network with other YouTube creators.  I got to meet so many different people with diverse YouTube channels and hear their stories. I had the opportunity to meet some other YouTube musicians and educators too which was excellent. I picked up some good tips about how to make my channel better and connect with more people. A big thank you to Google for putting on a fantastic fun and informative event.

It is a great thrill to have reached so many teachers and children from around the world through YouTube. My channel has had over 1.3 million views and currently has 1441 subscribers. It's always great to hear from teachers and parents about the positive impact my music is having on their classrooms and children's learning. 

Rocking Dan Teaching Man YouTube

My YouTube Channel Rocking Dan Teaching Man has given me many opportunities like winning The Frater Travel Scholarship from ACU in 2013 which allowed me to travel to Las Vegas and attended an international educational conference. Whilst in the United States I was able to meet legendary teacher and YouTube musician Pete Harry and see him present his educational session Teaching with YouTube. Pete's wonderful educational music channel has over 100 million views and has over 100 000 subscribers. Harry Kindergarten Music. 

YouTube has been a fantastic vehicle for allowing me to share my educational music and animations with a large audience and I am grateful to Google for that. It's led to me being interviewed by a few different magazines, newspapers and radio stations which has been great as I have been able to reach more teachers and as a result I have been able to help more children with their learning through music, movement and animation. 

ACU story on Rocking Dan Teaching Man

My YouTube channel gave me the opportunity to share my knowledge and understanding about how children learn  as a presenter at an EDTech Summit in Sydney last year. I was able to share how I use music, visuals and movement to help children's learning through the use of technology and YouTube. It's really great to be able to help other teachers with their professional development. 

As my YouTube channel has grown I've been contacted by other teachers which has led to more fantastic opportunities to share my teaching knowledge. In January I was lucky enough to lead an international twitter chat #teacherfriends on the importance of music and movement in the primary classroom. It was a great experience and I really enjoyed interacting and sharing ideas with other teachers.  

It has also been fantastic to hear stories about how educational presenters have used my YouTube songs and videos in their presentations and expressed their opinions about how they are great engaging teaching and learning tools for the classroom.  

I've also been amazed by teachers sending me photos of their students learning or completing a lesson based on one of my YouTube songs. 

My YouTube channel has also given me the chance to meet many wonderful teachers and play live music for their classes through video chat calls. It's really wonderful to interact with children by playing live music and singing a long with them in order to help them learn in a fun and engaging way.

Last year I received some fantastic recognition from the Australian Catholic University when I was awarded a highly commended community engagement award for integrating the primary curriculum with music, movement and technology through my YouTube channel. It was such a great thrill! 

I am really grateful to Google and YouTube for allowing me to reach so many teachers and help so  many children with their learning through a multi sensory approach by using Music, Movement and Visuals. It's truly wonderful to get feedback from parents and teachers who have contacted me to tell me that my songs and videos have helped their children with their writing, number skills, self regulation, routines and social skills.Without YouTube this would not be possible. Thank you Google! Now is a great time to visit my channel, subscribe to it and share it with your friends.Rocking Dan Teaching Man's YouTube channel

Until next time,

Rock on.

Rocking Dan Teaching Man

Rocking Dan Teaching Man's YouTube channel