Maze-O's brightly-colored tiles with raised edges are perfect for small hands. Turns, branches, and dead-ends combine for countless labyrinths. Every piece connects to every other piece. Follow the fifteen, double-sided design cards. Create mazes from scratch. Use your own toy vehicles and action figures to travel along the newly-created passages. Kids will be a-mazed!

Maze-O 52-piece Starter Set includes: 16 Turn, 8 Branch, 8 Dead-end, 16 Straight, 4 Entrance-Exit, and 15 Double-sided design cards. Meets ASTM, US CPSC, and CPSIA safety standards.

Science, technology, engineering, art, and math work together to make learning fun in these STEAM lessons!

Perfect for Makerspace!

This first grade teacher resource book includes:

• A year's worth of teacher lesson plans
• STEAM design challenges that turn elementary students into inventors
• Easy-to-follow lesson format (with standards identified for each lesson)
• Classroom-tested lessons

The STEAM Design Challenges in this book follow engineering practices to teach students in Grade 1 to solve a problem by designing, creating, and justifying their designs. They also allow art to support and enhance the learning of science and math while the engineering process is followed.

These engaging STEAM lessons:

• Integrate the Next Generation Science Standards and national standards from other disciplines
• Enhance learning across various disciplines
• Facilitate students in collaborating to solve real-world scenarios
• Promote critical thinking, analytical thinking, and reflective thinking
• Incorporate the Five Es Instructional Model (engage, explore, explain, elaborate, evaluate)
• Are classroom tested

Engineering Design Process
The lessons in this book are intended to support the engineering design process in which teachers become a facilitator by encouraging and guiding students to work as a team to find a creative solution to a real-world problem without providing step-by-step instructions. Students are inspired to act as scientists and engineers through the use of sketches, diagrams, mathematical relationships, and literacy connections. By creating their very own models and products based on background information from their studies, students are immediately engaged through a meaningful, rewarding lesson.

More about the lessons
Each lesson begins by presenting students with a design challenge scenario in order to immediately excite students with a real-world situation that they are on a mission to solve. Students are then given a dilemma, mission, and blueprint design sheet and are asked to collaborate with team members to create several prototypes. Students present their prototypes to their teacher, construct their design, test their design, engage in a class discussion about their design, and then modify their design. Finally, teams create a justification piece in order to sell their new prototype (ex. persuasive letter, video, advertisement etc.).

About the Authors
The Steam Dreamers, a group of four classroom teachers, desired to create more interactive learning environments and science classrooms through student-centered problem-solving lessons. They created this collection of cross-curricular design challenge lessons to provide teachers and students with real-world scenarios that are driven by core learning standards and enriched through the inclusion of literacy and the arts.

• 2 bar magnets, 2 magnetic bugs, 4 ring magnets, horseshoe magnet, magnetic post, 2 snap-on cars, tray with maze, string, and 10 double-sided Activity Cards. Comprehensive activity guide with reproducible materials is also included.

• STEM-focused activity set challenges kids to build, test, and tweak their approaches to solving physics-based challenges
• Learn concepts of speed, angles, and distance during hands-on attempts at mastering included challenges
• Included activity booklet features challenges that scale and grow with your kids' own growing skill set
• Send balls flying through hoops and toward targets with kid-powered paddlewheel—no batteries, springs or rubber bands required

• The 15 grade-appropriate STEM challenges target life, Earth, and physical science concepts.
• Every unit is focused on a hands-on challenge in which students apply the STEM process of plan, create, test, and redesign.
• No-prep lessons and easy-to-find materials help you fit STEM learning into the busy school day.

• Teacher overview pages—Tips and directions for preparing students to complete a STEM challenge, as well as a materials list that suggests readily available items to gather.
• Reading selections for background knowledge—Foundational information that is relevant to the challenge that students are completing.
• Visual real-world examples—A visual literacy page with real-world images relevant to the STEM challenge.
• A STEM challenge overview—Introduces the specific task and goal of each STEM challenge and provides space for students to brainstorm.
• Design process worksheets—Activities guide students to plan, create, test, and evaluate their creation.
• A redesign page to evaluate their design—The worksheet guides students through each step of the design process and provides space to document plans, materials, results, evaluations, and revisions.

• Marble Roller Coaster (Physical Science concept: Force and Motion)
• Natural Homes (Earth Science Concept: Natural Homes)
• Insect Catcher (Life Science Concept: Studying Insects)

Students can design and build an endless variety of structures, from skyscrapers to submarines, dinosaurs to storybook characters using the kit's multi-use planks, rotating pieces and connecting hubs. 320 pieces.