Cycles in full swing

Sixth grade is trying something new this year: cycle classes. Sixth graders rotate through 30 minutes of either Spanish, STEM, Current Events, Movement, or Puzzles and Problems curriculum once a week. Kristy Friedman, the school’s Digital Citizenship instructor, also teaches STEM. Her class includes fun building challenges that students design based on engineering knowledge they pick up during her lessons.

“STEM requires some light preparation to ensure that we have the necessary materials for each build,” Friedman said.

Friedman has a huge cart in her room filled with different materials such as straws, wheels, rubberbands, and scissors. Friedman tries to reuse items, such as  plastic wheels, that are not damaged.

“My goal is to expose students to a variety of different STEM-related topics and allow them to become better problem solvers,” Friedman added.

Elisabeth Hill teaches problem solving skills in a fun way with her cycle called Puzzles and Problems. There is a rotation of puzzles in her room that students try to solve.

“Overall, students come to the Puzzles and Problems cycle excited to get to work!” Hill said. “There is definitely frustration when a puzzle is challenging to solve, but students are handling this frustration, by either sticking with it, and even continuing to work on the puzzle the next day, or simply putting it away and taking a break from it while they try something else.”

Hill said that students are focused, often working together, and when a puzzle is solved, a sigh of relief and cheer of excitement erupts in the room. Joe Martinez, the sixth grade Social Studies teacher, also teaches Current Events. He said cycles are going well.

“Students are meeting my expectations! They also seem to be enjoying the content which is important!” Martinez said.

“At the start of the year, it took me a similar amount of time to plan for Cycle as it does to plan for Social Studies, but because the cycles rotate and I start new every cycle, it does not take quite as much time as it did because for the most part, now I am making small changes and additions to my Cycle plans based on how the class has gone previously,” Martinez stated.