Since we are still in the St. Patrick’s Day spirit, we thought you might like to try to STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, Math) project that our White Marsh school age students did to celebrate the holiday!
First, read the book “Jamie O’Rourke and the Big Potato” with your child. This is the story of Jamie O’Rourke, the laziest man in Ireland, who found himself growing the biggest potato in the world. He has to figure out what to do with the potato before it becomes too big to handle. HERE is a read-along video of the book.
Then, challenge your child to build a potato pully that will use a cup of pennies to lift the weight of a potato! Here’s what you’ll need: a potato, a plastic cup, 50 pennies, yarn, a toilet paper roll, a wooden skewer or dowel, and pipe cleaners.
This is a wonderful project to do together. You can discuss the problem, research online to understand how to build the pulley, talk about how many pennies you think it will take to lift the weight of the potato, and test your design and theory!
Download the full project from Brook Brown’s STEM in Literacy HERE!
As always, get as creative as you want, and above all else, have lots of fun learning together! Check out the rest of our STEAM Projects page for lots more activities that you can do at home together, and scroll through our website to see how CACC is Building Brighter Futures with the help of our amazing community!
