Rainforest Animal Stories with KIBO’s Sound Recorder

Contributed by: Kelly Knight, teacher at Riverside Presbyterian Day School in Jacksonville, FL, http://www.rpds.com

Our first graders have been learning about the Amazon Rainforest in their homeroom classes. When they come to STEAM instruction once a week, we explore the themes they are learning about through creating.

In this activity, students utilized the KIBO Sound/Record Playback Module to help tell stories about the rainforest animals they created. They worked in groups to make a program that included both movement of the animal atop the KIBO, as well as their recordings with animal facts. They then shared their KIBO and rainforest animal creations to the class.

This activity lasted 3 classes over 3 weeks (I see them for 45 minutes each week):

• The first week we researched different animals that live in the Amazon ​​rainforest and began creating our animals from construction paper.
• The second week we finished making our animals and explored how to most effectively code the KIBOS to show and tell about the animals.
• In the last week we finalized our recordings and created the code for the KIBOS and attached our rainforest animal creations to the stage. Students worked together in groups of 2 or 3 to program their KIBOS, make their voice recordings, and attach the animals to the stage module. We shared as a class.

Note: Going into this, the students were able to draw on some prior experience. The 1st graders had been exposed to KIBO last year, over 4 meetings, where I went through discussing the blocks and modules, practicing scanning, and making simple programs. To review this year we did 3 classes of practicing programs and reviewing the use of sensors and the new sound recording module.