At SchoolAmanda Vaden
Three girls work on a storytelling activity with indi in their classroom.

Keeping students engaged and motivated in the days leading up to any holiday break is hard, but mix in the sheer excitement of summer being around the corner, and it’s all but impossible to get through the planned curriculum. In other words, the before-break crash is real! 

Fortunately, teachers don’t have to forego learning objectives altogether: it’s possible to tailor class content ahead of summer break with a focus on fun, hands-on lessons.  

Summer Break STEM Activities with Sphero

Here are some ideas for pre-summer-break lessons and activities that are both entertaining and educational, with a focus on STEM. 

Gone Fishing with Blueprint 

Gone Fishing is a great pre-summer break activity for students in grades 6-10, particularly if they have been learning about simple machines like pulleys and gears. In this activity, students are grouped in teams and invited to build their own fishing rods using Blueprint. As they follow the engineering design process to build their fishing pole, they’ll integrate elements, like a hand crank, pulley, and rope. Give students a time limit for designing and building their fishing poles, and then put them to the test with a fishing challenge. For example, use weighted trusses from the Blueprint kit as fish and see how many the teams can reel in before the timer is up. Or switch it up and see which fishing pole can catch the heaviest fish.

This activity is also an opportunity for students to dive deeper and research the differences between saltwater and freshwater fish, the environmental impact of various fishing practices, or how something like the North Atlantic garbage patch affects fish in our oceans. 

Sequences in Nature with indi

When it comes to cycles in nature, they’re like nature's very own playlist on repeat—but way cooler and without the cheesy elevator music vibes. From the changing seasons to the water cycle, these patterns keep our world spinning (literally!). With this lesson on Sequences in Nature, your early learners (PK–2) can explore these cycles in a way that's hands-on, creative, and downright fun. Using indi and a set of color tiles, learners will identify cycles in nature, predict what comes next in a pattern, and bring their understanding to life by designing a looping sequence for indi to follow. Imagine programming indi to mimic the life cycle of a butterfly or the rhythm of day turning to night! It’s a colorful, interactive way to inspire curiosity and connect the dots in science, all while proving that learning can absolutely be a blast.

Write a Haiku with BOLT+

Get ready to turn poetry into pure magic with the Haiku with BOLT+ lesson! Here’s the deal: your elementary students will program BOLT+ to proudly display their very own haiku on its vibrant screen, transforming the words into a visual masterpiece. But wait, there’s more. Bring the poems to life by adding movements, lights, and sounds, making BOLT+ not just a poet but a true performer. Whether it’s a twirl for joy or a flash of color to match the mood, they’re in charge of every creative detail. Along the way, you’ll master the art of displaying text on the screen and explore how coding can add a whole new dimension to poetic expression. Time to show off those coding chops and poetic flair!

Guess Who with BOLT+

Ideal for middle school classrooms, Guess Who uses Sphero’s BOLT+ coding robot and involves programming (and ultimately playing) a guessing game. You can preview the game using an existing program that generates a random famous person’s name for one student to see. That student then has to get their team to guess who they are using clues. From there, students can customize the program, putting in names of their choosing and modifying other game mechanics, like sounds and the countdown timer. It’s a fun, competitive activity that can be played in pairs or in teams using as many BOLT+ robots as your classroom has. 

Sea Turtle Adventure with BOLT+ 

You might need to get your flip-flops out for this one. If you have a sandbox or area with rough terrain, a BOLT+ robot, and a bit of background on sea turtle conservation, this lesson is right up your alley. Get upper elementary and middle school students engaged in this activity by first telling them about the perils that newly hatched sea turtles face on their journey from the beach to the sea, from predatory birds and crabs to poachers. Then, get students to program BOLT+ robots as if they were baby turtles, creating different ways of reaching the “water” over the sandy terrain. You can then compare which programs got the turtles to the water fastest and which took too long. This multidisciplinary activity is also great paired with a lesson on sea turtle conservation efforts in places like Costa Rica. 

Lean Into It 

In the end, why fight the excitement and restlessness that comes ahead of summer break? Lean into it and funnel students’ excitement into activities that are at once fun and educational. You can find many more hands-on and play-focused STEM lessons in Sphero Central that will keep students engaged, whether it’s right before summer break or the middle of winter. 

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