Brackitz is the only construction toy that lets you design any driving machine you can imagine. Anything.

The Brackitz Driver Set includes 43 pieces and directions for ten driving machines - from a spinning gyro-copter to a space rover to a wind-up blaster. With wheels, axles, hubs and rubber-band drivetrains, engineers of all ages can design and build machines that spin, explore space, fly through the air, or drive crazy fast. No driver's license required!

Parents are eager to help their children learn, but teaching young children complicated scientific and mathematical concepts can be intimidating. Simple STEAM helps parents realize they don't need to be engineers or scientists to support STEAM learning.

• Help children explore STEAM concepts with fun and engaging activities
• Discover STEAM learning opportunities in everyday activities and experiences
• Prepare children for kindergarten
• Build crucial 21st century learning skills, including collaboration, communication, creativity and problem solving, curiosity, and critical thinking

We have mashed-up a marble run and a pool table to design the Smartivity Roller Coaster Marble Slide S.T.E.M. Educational D.I.Y. Toy kit. This project is based on the fundamentals of gravity, centrifugal force and banking. The kit contains all the elements needed to assemble the Roller Coaster Marble Slide.

A mix of slider game and pool table, this project is loads of fun to build and play. Once built, a kid can raise marbles along the wheel, and release them. As the marble slides down the track, they can aim the marble with the help of levers on the two sides. On the marble-pool part of the game, kids can place marbles, in such a way that the striker marble coming from the slide track hits them and the strike sends them in the corner or side pockets

Have you ever wanted to jump inside your favorite book or travel back in time? Augmented reality is making it possible to bring stories and history to life! This technology uses cameras and computer programs to add pictures and sound to the reality we see around us. People can use augmented reality in museums, hospitals, and factories. Learn all about this incredible technology!

As part of the Searchlight Books collection, this series explores the latest and greatest in the world of technology. Fascinating text, vivid photos, and real-world examples bring these amazing breakthroughs to life!

Did you know that robots are working in factories, hospitals, and even space? There are large robots, tiny robots, and robots that look like humans. They are all around us, solving problems and completing difficult and dangerous tasks. Read all about the people building robots as well as how robots work and how they may continue to develop in the future.

As part of the Searchlight Books collection, this series explores the latest and greatest in the world of technology. Fascinating text, vivid photos, and real-world examples bring these amazing breakthroughs to life!

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

Perfect for Makerspace!

This kindergarten 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 kindergarten 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.