STEM to STEAM to STREAM?

 Someone I know has a pet peeve about the acronyms I will use in the title of this week's blog post. This individual complains that if we add too many elements to STEM, it dilutes the original purpose of combining Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math.

At the risk of provoking ire, I wanted to play with this idea a bit.

I've often seen the A added to indicate the Arts - in my mind, purposeful, aesthetic designs can help STEM projects find mass appeal. I searched for a more official rationale, and the AI-generated answer cited this website as fodder for its response. According to Griddly Kids (which is a seller of STEM and STEAM toys and activities, so not necessarily an academic reference):

The rationale behind adding the arts to STEM lies in the way art impacts cognitive development. Studies show that activities like drawing, painting, and music can enhance brain functions, including memory, attention, and spatial-temporal skills. These skills are incredibly valuable in STEM fields where complex problem-solving and innovative thinking are required.

Moreover, the arts encourage students to explore their curiosity and express themselves uniquely, which can lead to more profound and original scientific inquiries and technological advancements.

Other reasons for the A include these I found:

• Discovery Education says "By adding the “A” (the Arts) to STEM, we can infuse creativity throughout the S-T-E-M and create a new way to look at STEM disciplines that girls can connect with and fully enjoy. It will also spark girls’ curiosity and show them how they can use STEM skills in areas they may not have considered before.
• an Edutopia article said the A was added in 2006 by Georgette Yakman and it's about creativity
• on RedDotBlog, they list research findings from a 2022 study that suggests arts and sciences should intertwine
• KidSparkEducation (another vendor) lists 4 reasons for including the arts
• 
  

I've even seen R added to the acronym. The R stands for Reading (or, as I've heard it, Research). This could be integrated into the science portion of the acronym, but I want to talk about how my recent lesson on research skills (hopefully) helped our STEM project.

The Challenge

In STEM this school year, we've been exploring a lot with the new Chomp Saw. We learned how to operate it safely, and the primary division students and I undertook two simple mini-projects: creating the first letter of our names and demonstrating how to connect cardboard without glue or tape. All of this is leading up to our STEM challenge: to use the Chomp Saw (technology) to design a "pigloo" (engineering) that will fit in the cage (math) for our pet skinny pigs to use and enjoy (science). 

The Research 

The science involves strong and stable structures, but it also involves understanding what is safe for the skinny pigs. I used our school's virtual library to pull a couple of articles from the databases and digital  encyclopedias we have access to in order to learn more about the animals we are trying to consider in our designs.

Dot jot or point form notes is a particular skill that many students don't have a lot of experience with creating. It's a useful technique to know and teacher-librarians are uniquely positioned to teach it.

I designed a graphic organizer for us to use so that together, we could gather notes for the project.

It was important to me that students not just copy down everything they read without question. That's why the right-side column is dedicated to our thoughts about the information we read. If we want to promote critical thinking, we must set up conditions that allow students to wonder and question. 

One of the students asked, "Don't you already know lots about skinny pigs?" I replied that we can always learn more. We learn more by reading (or research) and we can learn more through scientific observation. For instance, I tried out a bigger, roomier plastic shelter for the guinea pigs at school this week. They shunned it in favour of their smaller, more opaque habitat. All of the skinny pigs lately have been dragging their sleep sacks to act as doors or carpets for their hideouts; I hope the students notice this behaviour and consider it when they design their own cardboard creations. 

I'm excited to share photos of the students' designs and builds when they are done. Whatever we call this period, it's an educational time together. 

Social Studies Learning - From Dull to Dynamic

 Last week felt like "Meeting Week" - I had at least one meeting every day last week, (coordinating the translators we hire for parent-teacher interviews on Monday; CSLJ editorial board meeting on Tuesday, staff meeting on Wednesday, admin team SIP meeting all morning on Thursday, and a UNESCO MIL Alliance regional chapter meeting on Friday). However, I don't want to focus on the meetings for my reflection. I'd rather examine how I've been working to invigorate social studies lessons.

No offense to any social studies teachers out there, but the feedback I hear from both students and teachers is that social studies isn't the most thrilling subject. This is unfortunate because the subject has such potential to be fascinating. I try hard to infuse social studies teaching with my own personal philosophy of education (part of which is this: learning is fundamental - FUN before "da mental").

Grade 6 Social Studies - Getting Active by Crossing the Burble Swamp

As part of our school's reorganization, I took on a Grade 6 social studies class as the primary teacher. Currently, our unit is on Canadian Communities, Past and Present. I decided to resurrect a favourite activity of mine that I co-taught last year with Nelani Kokularajan's Grade 6s and have done a few other times in the past: Crossing the Burble Swamp. I learned about this challenge many years ago as part of my Drama AQ. It's a very kinesthetic way to teach about push and pull factors related to migration. Students are crowded into a small area of the space and invited to go elsewhere, with a spacious and comfortable option in sight, but a version of "the floor is lava" is in effect. The papers that can get them across are scarce. How do they deal with it?

The students were very engaged, and the discussion was rich and meaningful. I'm also improving at facilitating this task in a way that prioritizes safety and making connections. When they had to write their reflections during the following class, they missed some of the connections we had mentioned before. I marked their work this weekend and will give them a second chance to add to their answers.

Grade 3-4 Social Studies - Explicit Instruction on Test-Taking

I'm also involved in co-teaching some social studies lessons with the Grade 3-4s and the Grade 2-3s. The Grade 3-4 teacher was concerned that her students had done poorly on a recent evaluation, so I contributed by filming a "How To Study for a Test" video for them on Google Classroom, and providing a test of my own design to cover the same content but with a different twist.

A side note: I tried to use Generative AI in an ethical way by having it generate a blank map of Ontario with its three main landform regions for students to label. I don't know if it's just that my prompts were ineffective, but the results that two of the tools we are permitted to use in my board were abysmal. I actually used one of these defective images as a bonus question for the test, inviting students to explain to me what the problem was with the visual.

Grade 2-3 Social Studies - Centering Ourselves 

The Grade 2-3 lesson began on a dynamic note from the start because of the way the homeroom teacher, Kerri Commisso, approached it. The question was simple: "Where are we?" and it proved to be an excellent diagnostic tool to see how much students knew about various regions and their relation to each other. For each spot, a circle was made so that students could see how a city is part of a province, for example, and that a province is bigger than a city. I wish I grabbed a copy of the final diagram that Mrs. Commisso and the students generated, because it was so meaningful to them.

Other Innovative Ideas for Social Studies Learning

In the past, I've tried to make social studies lessons interesting by doing things such as teacher-in-role, building large scale maps out of fabric, encouraging inquiry projects for the Heritage Fair event that resonate personally with students, and conducting scavenger hunts to reinforce map reading skills.

On Wednesday, November 19, 2025, I will be part of a panel in a series of webinars that OSLA runs called School Libraries Connect. The November session is called "Think Outside the Book: Innovative Program Ideas for Your SLLC". Not only will I mention ideas such as this, I'll talk about how I come up with the ideas. It's free for OSLA members but registration is required. Hope to see you there!

Spooky Season Co-Teaching

 I am so blessed to be able to work with Connie Chan. One day in the future, I will dedicate an entire post just on her, but for today's post, I want to focus on the work we have been doing with our multilingual learners. Connie and I have ESL as part of our teaching responsibilities. This year, we decided to coordinate our efforts, especially because we share some of our junior division students.

I'm usually not a "holiday activity" type of teacher. I'm often worried about prioritizing some festivities over others and accidentally alienating or offending people. This year, Connie and I leaned into some traditional October tasks and the students really loved them.

Pumpkin Carving

Connie purchased two pumpkins and together the Junior ESL class voted on which face to replicate and carved it. This coincided nicely with the non-fiction book writing assignment that they are undertaking. Connie wrote a sample non-fiction book about pumpkins that we read as a group to identify non-fiction text features and prepare them with helpful vocabulary.

My contribution to this carving involved word review (carving / voting), contemplative questions that lent themselves well to potential future STEM challenges (Why do we carve pumpkins? What other fruits would be good to carve?), documenting via photographs and offering a larger space to complete the carving. We also did some impromptu research to discover if skinny pigs are allowed to eat pumpkin.

Connie will follow up this event today (Monday, November 3) by seasoning and roasting the pumpkin seeds for the students to eat. I won't be there at that time, because I'll be teaching Guidance Education during those periods, but I know that the students will have a great time. They love to eat!

Halloween Hunt for Treats

I assembled some treat bags for all the students I see for ESL instruction and I included Connie's junior division ESL students into the mix. However, the students had to earn these goodies with some authentic reading using directional words.

Rather than hide the actual treat bags, I hid a giant stuffed turtle that each student had to locate based on their personalized clue. While individual students were searching, the rest of the students were creating "silly sentences" using dice, as well as playing a simple version of Battleship with house locations and Halloween subjects. Connie did a great job of monitoring the conversations between partners.

The students had a great time and there was a lot of learning that occurred. Thanks Connie for pushing me out of my "holiday-free zone" to embrace the current environment for engaging tasks.