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Full STEAM ahead!

Staff photo by Connor Cummiskey Jen Dauer (left) encouraged her son Carter, (middle), to knock over a structure of building blocks using a plastic chain and wrecking ball. Carter’s brother Hunter (right) took notes as he was too big for the class according to Jen.

NEW ULM — About 11 families registered to come to the Full STEAM Ahead class at the Washington Learning Center (WLC) Monday.

Parents brought their kids to WLC to play with building blocks, a water table, catapults and more, while learning basic ideas for future classes.

“It is the idea that we want children to be prepared for science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM), and so the activities that we had out Monday night are all getting them to think about questions and how to solve those questions,” WLC Early Childhood Teacher Donna Henning said.

Each activity was set up at a different station. Families went to the stations, and parents watched their children as they figured out the problems posed by the activity.

“Each time you go to a table, the fun thing to see is that it does not look the same, because every family decides to do it a little bit different or ask different questions,” Henning said. “What we hope from this is that parents will go home and think ‘boy I can do some of this at home as well.'”

Kids could use gumdrops and toothpicks to build their own structures. Parents were able to look in the book “Dreaming Up: A Celebration of Building” by Christy Hale that was provided and see what real-world architecture was similar to their child’s creation.

Children also could build a catapult to take home. It was intended for students to be able to experiment at home with different ammunition.

The underlying purpose of the activities was to build students’ base understanding of scientific thought and engineering for when they enter more advanced STEM classes in Jefferson Elementary.

Even before the end of the night Henning reported already getting requests to make some of the materials available through the district’s lending library.

This was the first time the event was hosted at WLC. Henning hopes that the district will see fit to host more similar events.

Connor Cummiskey can be emailed at ccummiskey@nujournal.com.

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