Home Phase 2

Ask your child, “What is an engineer?”
Your child may have ideas from school, home, or other places about who engineers are and what they do. If they don’t know, that’s okay! Tell them that engineers use math and science to solve problems. They use the design process to help them, and you can use the design process too!

Learn about engineering
Watch this video of NASA systems engineer Tracy Drain and Massachusetts teacher Dana Romanczyk. They talk about what engineers do, whether children can engineer, and how families can engineer at home. You’ll learn about the value of curiosity and why failure is a fantastic teaching tool.

Learn about the design process
Look at the picture of the design process above and talk about what it means to do each step. You can also sing this song created by the DevTech Research Group to the tune of ‘Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star’:

Ask and Imagine, Plan and Create, Test and Improve and Share what we make. (Repeat)

Choose one of the problems below to solve with your child:

1. The Beck Center is making plans for the Eighth of August Jubilee. They need a red carpet runway, a stage for the DJ, tents for the vendors, and a play area for kids. Help them design a Jubilee that will be fun for everyone!
2. HoLa Hora Latina is making plans for the HoLa festival at World’s Fair Park. They needs a stage for the kids, but they want to add a play area too. Help them design a play area next to the stage that will be fun for all the kids!

Below you will find some of the ways you can make the most out of this activity. We would love to hear what strategies worked for your child!

• Let your child explore/interact with the different objects in the kit while you are introducing the problem. If there are other events or problems that are more salient to your child and family, feel free to use that for this activity!
• This activity will most likely take several sittings or even days to complete. Try to use a space that will allow you to return to the activity when your child shows interest!
• Encourage your child to work through obstacles and spend time brainstorming solutions even when you aren’t working on the activity. Sometimes our most creative ideas come to us when we aren’t actively working on the project!

Ask your child, “Who can do math & science??”
Your child may have ideas from school, home, or other places about who engineers, computer scientists, and mathematicians are & what they do. Adults often think of themselves as “math people” or “not math people.” But everyone can do math and science!
It is important to remind children that they can do math & science, too! Tell them that you’ll be learning about some engineers, computer scientists, and mathematicians by reading books and watching videos together. Use these stories to help remind your child that they can do STEM!

Select a video or book (see below for ideas). Show the cover to your child and engage in a discussion. Ask: Who do you think this is? What do you think they might be famous for?

Note: We will send at least one book home for you to use. You can also visit the CRRAFT YouTube Channel for our STEM books video playlist!

Take some time to ask questions and discuss the story. Particularly, you may want to ask questions about the particular hardships faced by the main figure in the book/video, what their contributions were, and the ways the main figure engages in engineering, computer science, or math. Below are examples of other questions you might ask:

• Why do you think it was hard for _____ to become an engineer (or computer scientist,mathematician, or scientist)?
• How were they able to rise above the challenges?
• What did _______ do that relates to our life?
• How do you know that _______ is an engineer (or computer scientist, mathematician, or scientist)?
• What kinds of things do engineers (or computer scientists, mathematicians, or scientists) do?

Discuss with your child if they can see themselves as an engineer, computer scientist, mathematician, or scientist. Explore why or why not!

Spend some time learning about other famous figures such as Katherine Johnson, Raye Montague, Dorothy Vaughn, Ellen Ochoa, José Hernández, and Mary Jackson

Below you will find some of the ways you can make the most out of this activity. We would love to hear what strategies worked for your child!

• If you have a reading routine or times that you spend reading books and/or watching videos, use it! If not, it’s a great time to start. You can read books before bed, around mealtimes, or any time you have a few spare minutes!
• For longer stories, it is ok to read in parts. It may take you a few days to read a story together. If so, start each storytime by asking your child what they remember about the story so far.
• If you have time, present the story in both formats using the physical copies and virtual copies on our website and see if your child notices new things!

Ask your child, “What is a computer scientist?”
Your child should have some ideas already from school or other activities. Remind them that computer scientists are like engineers — they use the design process to solve problems. But instead of building things, they write programs or code. A computer program is an algorithm that a computer can understand. The program tells the computer what to do to solve problems or do a task. You and your child will work together to use the design process to write a program.

Start by building a simple maze using the foam mats from your coding game kit (see pictures below). Place a start arrow on the first mat, pointing into the maze. Next, place a robot to mark the endpoint!

Now that the game is set up, you are ready to use the design process and begin playing!

First, ASK your child: How can we get from the arrow to the robot?
Next, IMAGINE different ways to get to the robot. Work together to PLAN and CREATE your program by laying out the coding cards. Use the basic commands to start:

Third, assign roles to TEST your program! One person will be the coder ~ read the coding cards aloud one-by-one. The other person will be the mover ~ follow the commands and walk on the foam mats. Remember that turn means “turn and look,” not step.
If the mover does not make it to the robot, go back to IMPROVE the plan, create new steps, and try again!

Finally, don’t forget to SHARE! Invite other family members and friends to join in the fun and try out the programs you have created.

If your child masters the basic coding game, try out some of these fun ways to make the game more challenging!

Below you will find some of the ways you can make the most out of this activity. We would love to hear what strategies worked for your child!

• You can be more creative with more complex mazes. But even with a simple maze, you can have fun! For example, you can add some backward moves or wild cards.
• Encourage children to think of different ways to reach the same goal. This is a great way to promote creativity and show children that some problems have multiple solutions
• Remember to let them have fun and take the lead! It’s ok if they don’t use the activity set as it is fully intended to be used. They’ll have all year to continue to develop their understanding of programming. So keep it fun and celebrate small successes and creative ideas!