STEAM for Home Educating Children ages 10 – 14 year olds
I popped into see the new STEAM + session with Anna the other day, that runs every Wednesday at 1pm. This group has been started because there were so many talented children moving up through our younger STEAM group, who needed something a bit more challenging! I was excited to watch the lesson and see these talented and creative young people in action!
What is STEAM?
If you are not yet familiar with it, the subject STEAM is the bringing together of Science, Technology, Engineering, Art and Mathematics. It allows children to work with both the creative and more fact orientated parts of their brains at the same time. It is great for someone who feels they are not so good at one of those subjects (as they will be exploring it without realising that they are!) and of course building those neuropathways in the brain!
Learning about STEAM
There was such a lovely balance in the class I watched- a mixture of high energy and lots of enthusiasm (the children were bursting with great ideas) alongside a calm and gentle atmosphere. Because it was the first session, Anna spent time allowing the children to introduce themselves (if they wanted to) and talk a little about why they had signed up and what they loved to build. There was plenty of time for children to share their ideas once they started building, but no pressure to share if they didn’t want to. Anna really is what I would call a “typical LLP” teacher, full of genuine praise and gentle encouragement. It was really easy to tell that she genuinely loves inspiring children to develop their STEAM skills and she really cares about the children.
Memphis Design
In this lesson, the children were learning about Memphis Design. There was a brief introduction to it and then Anna explained the 4 key features that they would need to incorporate in their own designs. The children were quick to catch on, talking about bold patterns, shapes and textures as well as the importance of understanding the purpose of one’s creation. There was plenty of time to start to mock up a design and some of the children were really happy to share what they were working on and talk about the decisions they were making along the way. Others were happy to be left to create their designs without interacting, focusing on their cardboard tubes and Sellotape!
Why choose STEAM classes with Anna?
If your child loves creating but you want them to engage their brain and think logically and mathematically about how they can make their design work, this class is a great choice. There was talk of future lessons including making different types of moving objects as well as robots! This also seemed a particularly pet friendly class, with one child showing an impressive cat tower that he had made for his cats and lots of the children introducing their pet dogs, cats and even a frog!
I spoke to Anna after watching the class, and loved what she had to say about the class! This is what she had to say. If your child attends this class (or if you are a child that attends this class) feel free to comment with your experiences of STEAM with Learn Laugh Play.
We had so much fun in our first class and I can’t wait to continue with this group and welcome new learners along the way (you can join at any time). On the horizon we have more hands on learning, real-world applications, developing your critical thinking skills as well as creating and testing your very own prototypes. If you want to do STEAM classes and you are under the age of 10, feel free to join my other STEAM class for 5 – 10 year olds on a Friday at 1pm!
