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Looking for ways to integrate STEM into your curriculum? We just wrote a blog about integrating engineering and fairy tales that might be helpful at your grade level. The ideas would actually work for just about any story or novel, but we happen to love using. fairy tales. http://www.getcaughtengineering.com/enchanted-engineering/ Wendy Get Caught Engineering

What a fantastic idea! I love the engineering ideas to solve the problems for the characters in the stories!! I shared this with my assistant principal who is trying to help teachers integrate more STEM thinking in their lessons. Thank you!!

Thank you!

There are many way to cross curriculums using PBL's!

Great idea!

Wow, such an interesting idea. I love it! This is why education is amazing. Such creative people putting together wonderful ideas. I'm definitely going to look more into this.

This is an interesting concept and very approachable. Thank you for sharing

How creative. Thank you for sharing this.

I love this idea! I will be using this in my class this year.

Very interesting idea, and am excited to use in my classroom!! Thank you for sharing!!

I love it also. I'm going to have a "Girls in Engineering" group after school and this will be perfect!

Thanks so much for sharing! This is a really great idea that can engage and motivate students. I never would've thought of anything like this, but now that I've seen your post, I know that I will definitely incorporate fairy tales into my teaching (when I start teaching, that is--I'm still in college at the moment)! Letting students choose which problem to solve, instead of asking every child to come up with a solution for the same problem, is also a great idea since it'll allow the children to pick one that specifically interests them. It also might be a good idea to occasionally ask them to come up with their own problems, which they would then have to solve. For example, instead of asking them to create an elevator for Rapunzel, a teacher could ask them which fairy tale character they think needs help, and ask them what that character needs. Thanks again for sharing!!

Thanks for sharing your Fourth Little Pig activity!  I am a Senior working towards my Bachelors in ECE.  I already have my AA degree in Theater and Speech in which I love.  I am glad to see how drama can be used to help students approach learning in a fun & creative way.  Thanks again.  I bet you had fun too?

What a great idea!! I think it would really help to engage the primary elementary grades in STEM, as well as the girls!

This blog is very interesting and I love the idea that the students are able to use their imagination and problem solving skills. Such a great STEM activity! 

This is definitely a cool idea! This taps more into their schema and would eventually help them add the new information. It is familiar to the students. The more the students can relate to something, the more engaging it is for them. Once students are engaged, they are set for learning!

Love this idea! Thank you so much for sharing. 

I think this is a fabulous idea to integrate STEM in the classroom, it incorporates reading and provides a common experience to the children making it meaningful to all of them. This idea also helps develop the different habits of mind, as they pose questions, think flexibly, create and imagine, etc… I will definitely try this out. 

I think it is great that students ideas and opinions are heard in the classroom. Everyone should feel like they are contributing in the classroom. 

Lakeshore has STEM kits based on Fairytales.  Has anyone tried them?

I love this idea! Such a good way to integrate STEM into something kids already love and further develop excitement about the topic. 

Y'all this is way cool!  I can definitely implement some of these ideas into my own science/literature/writing curriculum!

I think this is a fun and creative way to work from the students interests and at the same time not start from scratch.  It is fun for the students and these activities align with the standards as well.  It gets kids thinking outside the box with stories that are familiar to them, but being able to create new ideas on top of that.

Wow! My kids would love this activity. Thanks for sharing! They will be having so much fun that they won't realize they are doing math and science!! Whoohooo! That's what it's all about!

Wow, what a fantastic lesson. I love how many different concepts are covered in it!

I love any idea that integrates science with literacy, especially for young kids. I have worked at many child-centered programs where the curriculum is based on the students' interests. With there being so much popularity surrounding fairy tales, I think you did a great job highlighting the importance of connecting curriculum to students' interest to make their learning more meaningful.  In college, while taking a class on women studies, we looked at how fairy tales portray women as needing saving. I love your lessons because it gives the girls, who are especially drawn to fairy tales, to be the engineering problem-solvers. We need all kids to grow up with a strong science and engineering practice foundation, so they can apply those same critical thinking and problem-solving skills to real-world problems on a larger scale.  "One of the things that I really strongly believe in is that we need to have more girls interested in math, science, and engineering. We've got half the population that is way underrepresented in those fields and that means that we've got a whole bunch of talent...not being encouraged the way they need to." - President Barack Obama, February 2013

This is a free online resource that may be helpful for connecting STEM and fairy tales. 
http://www.starfisheducation.com/search?q=fairy+tales

The fourth pig STEM project sounds like an exciting and interesting way to help engage the students in their learning.  Having the children thinking deeper is something that I'm struggling with this year with my group.  They are not wanting to think beyond "is that the right answer" :(

This is a great idea. I have never thought about incorporating fairy tales and STEM. Students can create alternative solution to fairy tales. Math can also be incorporated by using the story characters. They can engineer the stories house or setting using only a few resources provided by the teacher.  Great forum! 

This is incredibly creative. So many students feel that their either a left brain or a right brain student and will only focus on either STEM or the arts. I feel that when you find a way to combine the two you're inviting all students to give STEM subjects a try. 

I love this idea and found it extremely interesting and very different from anything ive ever seen done. I love the engineering problems because it will help get students to use critical thinking skills to solve problems! I would love to give this a try!

Thank you for the suggestion. I'm always looking for innovative STEM ideas.

What a wonderful way to integrate subjects! With ELA standards being very rigorous, it is becoming more difficult to create meaningful experiences for students. I am excited to use these ideas in my classroom this year.

I just finished teaching the Stemulate Camp at UCA and one of my co-teachers taught a fairytale unit. She was able to find many great resources on teacherspayteachers.com to utilize in her class. The students loved how they could connect engineering to fairy tales.

I recently came across DIY Holograms with a smart phone on YouTube that could be incorporated into Earth Science lessons. Students can work in pairs or small groups to make holograms that they can use to view 3-D images like the earth and sun, etc. I think this could be an engaging activity. S. Mullings

This is great! I have used STEM Tales with grades k-5...so they are not just for the early grades.  I have used them more as an engineering task....design a new bed for Goldilocks so she can visit the bears, design a new tower for Rapunzel now that she has found her prince, etc.  I really like this lesson with the fourth pig because it is linked directly to a science standard.  You can pull in science and math but also ELA...get those ELA teachers onboard.  I will be using the fourth little pig idea this year.  LOVE!

I took part in a STEM day during my sophomore year that incorporated the 3 little pigs into the activity. It was by far one of my most enjoyable and memorable experiences of the day. Students were give a choice between a variety of building materials such as Popsicle sticks, straws etc. and they had to design a house that could withstand the big bad wolf. They had even dressed a large fan up as the wolf and used the fan to test the students designs. The students were engaged and excited throughout the activity and it was truly inspiring the creations they came up with.

I love this idea. I will definitely keep it mind when teaching my students next year. Can't wait!

Such an interesting idea! I love this!

That's a really good idea! I like how you broke down STEM into something simpler that all students can relate to. Most students enjoy fairy tales and if you can incorporate fairy tales into science than that can lead the way for a love of science as well as so many more potential scientists!

I think that this is a wonderful idea! I think that incorporating fairy tales into a STEM lesson or unit would be particularly attention grabbing, especially for young girls that typically do not have a strong connection to STEM (at least in classrooms that I have experienced before and from personal experience). One activity I would have the children do would be to write their own fairy tale that incorporated some of the STEM concepts that they had learned over the course of the semester. This would not only qualify as an assessment of their STEM knowledge they have accumulated, but also as a writing assessment.

I love this idea! I never thought fairy tales and science could go together. There can be a disconnect between engineering or science and girls because of the misconceptions that science is for boys. I think fairy tales could be a great way to help girls make that connections because they would be able to see that we can find a way to include science in different things in life. I like the idea about having students write their own fairy tale and using it to assess students' STEM knowledge.

What an informative post. When I saw title I was already intrigued. I love the idea of bridging Language Arts and STEM. I think this may be the only way busy teachers can ever hope to fit it all in!

I love this idea because it is an example of interdisciplinary teaching! This will always be helpful for students because it helps them make connections. It also helps make these scientific concepts more relevant when they can relate it to a reading/text or lesson that they learned from that fairy tale.

Wow! those links were very nice and helpful!! I will definitely be referring back to them once i start teaching!

What a great way to promote STEM activities within lower grade levels!

Very helpful and such great ideas! will definitely be sharing with my CT and referring back to them once I have my own classroom.

My school is actually starting this STEM project at school, I think it's a wonderful idea. The students are also so excited when they bring in recycled materials from home. We haven't exactly started yet we are in the process. I can't wait to start and then share my thoughts on it after, but I will share this with my cooperating teacher.

Thanks very much for all of the great ideas. I agree that fairy tales and hands-on are a great match for our primary scientists and moving towards non-fiction literature for the upper grades.

This is such an awesome idea! I think incorporating fairy tales in STEM is a great way to get students interested in science because almost all children are familiar with fairy tales. I think this would definitely help open their imagination.

I think this idea is very useful as well as it helps bring girls interest into science! We are taught to bring students in with access to what they enjoy and adding fairy tales to curriculum would be a great idea! I love it! STEM would benefit from this point of view so much! Great Idea!

An easy way to integrate STEM into any subject matter is to have students read a storybook and design a solution to a problem one of the characters in the story has faced. Students can read books that utilize the engineering component in STEM. One way to provide students with the opportunity to explore a real-world scientific problem is to give them a hands-on experience. An appropriate elementary education example would be pollution (science). Ask students what they think they can do as an elementary student to reduce the amount of pollution in their environment. Have them use technology as part of their research or for a resource. Ask complex questions and have students engage in logical reasoning to develop solutions for the real-world problem.

I really enjoyed this topic. Getting girls involved in STEM! I love it. Having them think about what they would do is a great way to develop multiple perspectives of the subject. Thanks for sharing!

What a neat idea! I love that science can be incorporated into any subject, that's how all our classes should be. I want to try this when I have my own classroom.

Do a Google search for Three Little Pigs lesson plans and you will find lots of things in science to do for that Fairy Tale.

This is really an interesting idea to involve Fairy Tale lovers! mostly, because right now there are several spinoffs of famous stories in Language Arts It would be great to combine science and LA with this topic.

Great idea in integrating language arts with Science! Especially for those who always trying to juggle their instruction times of different subjects. Besides fairy tales, did anyone try any engineering ideas with Fables? For example, Aesop's Fables?

I love using Fairy Tales for all subjects. Some great idea on TPT site. Using FT with upper grades is great for developing writing as well as applying Science. Thank you all for sharing.

I am always looking for creative and inventive ways for students to develop their writing skills in my 7th grade writing class. This sound like a wonderful idea. I can see an expository writing in here too! The kids will love this.

Here is a handout that I use in a class on integrating literature and science. It has several books that are related to various science topics.

Attachments

Integrating_Science_and_Literature.pdf (0.12 Mb)

What a great idea! This is something I would like to incorporate into my future classroom since the students can become so connected through the story line to the content across multiple areas. Do you have any suggestion on literature to incorporate for middle school students?

What a fantastic resource! Thank you so much for sharing!

What a fantastic resource! Thank you so much for sharing!

This was very interesting! Thank you guys for sharing!!!

These lesson ideas are such a great way to integrate literacy and STEM to make them both fun! I know the students would be very excited about these kinds of activities and that they could be adapted to nearly any story and/or subject. Giving students these opportunities to be creative is what STEM is all about.

I love the way that this integrates STEM ideas cross-curricularly through Fairy Tales. It also brings engineering and nonfiction into the world of fiction, which could appeal to those students who love fantasy and fiction reading. I really like the problem-solving aspect of this idea as well as it can easily be incorporated to NGSS standards. Overall, this is such an awesome lesson foundation!

This was a good article to read and it can provide an avenue for interdisciplinary work between ELA and Science or art in science. For example, the students can read the fairytales or review it in ELA. They can make predictions and or inferences, then in science think critically of what they can create to solve the problem. In art, they can design the tool and actually build it in science, whether with lego mindstorm or even 3D printing. The possibilities are limitless.

I like the idea of including girls in STEM, but since I teach special education, self-contained students, mostly boys, I'm wondering how to include them in the conversation.

I absolutely love this idea. It is a great way of incorporating literature into science or vice versa. There is so much one can do with the combination of STEM and literature. I love the idea that it is fairy tales, that is generally geared towards girls and engineering, which is, unfortunately, geared towards boys. Like this, everyone is interested. It does not necessarily have to be a fairy tale. For those who have older students you can use the Harry Potter series. For example one can do slime or "magic" potions. For the Thee Little Pigs the students can build homes that will be able to stay up when the very bad wolf (blow dryer) comes to blow the house down. Thank you for your post and sharing the link, I look forward to integrating this into my future classroom!

Literacy can be tied into STEM very easily! When I taught 4th grade we would do a Cinderella unit where the students had to create the pumpkin carriage. The students had to use measurement skills to create it. We used art materials but never a real pumpkin (for expenses sake on my part!) but it would be really cool to give each student or maybe group students together with real pumpkins-maybe the mini ones to use in their STEM project as well.

I'm a really big fan of everything STEM! Since my children were little I've looked for ways to engage them in STEM, and one of my sons is a huge bookworm. Integrating fairytales not only helps pull in those students that might not be at first very interested in STEM, it also helps attract the youngest of students. I had never considered attaching fairy tales to STEM, but the idea of the children creating a pumpkin carriage for Cinderella is amazing. For children in older elementary school grades they could even dabble in robotics and let their creativity run free while they engineer Cinderella's modern carriage!

I'm a big fan of connecting reading to other subjects because reading is such a fundamental part of learning. Being able to apply science should to solve a problem posed in these stories not only helps develop those skills but reading skills as well. Definitely a great strategy to utilize in the classroom.

Hi! Thanks for sharing a great idea/resource. I really love this idea; I believe including fairy tales into STEM can make a intimating topics or concepts easier to comprehend for a variety of students. I am a preservice teacher and one of my professors incorporates fairy tales into social studies' concepts most students cannot relate to; such as complex economic terms. In his assignment, the students work in small groups to create their own fairy tale using specific terms provided by the professor. The students must define the terms within the story and share their story with the class but are free to work on the story however they please. It's a great way to review the complex terms with the students and include them in the teaching process.

I believe this is such a unique way to incorporate science in the classroom. I also believe that it is a great activity to spark the interest of females in the science classroom because it integrates a familiar and fun topic with a learning activity. I agree it is a great way to incorporate and review complex terms with students and include them in the teaching process.

I taught a unit to a group of 2nd graders last year. This was a matter unit that was aligned with both the NGSS and core literacy standards. I incorporated literacy by reading with them a book about matter and the different changes (reversible & irreversible). Then I had them create a book. They were required to introduce and conclude their book as well as define what a reversible and irreversible change is and then give examples of each of the changes.

I think incorpoarating STEM and failry tales is a great Idea. I am currently a pre-service teacher and wanting to learn more about how to connect STEM across all subject areas. My students love making connections acorss subject areas so I can see my students being enaged and excited about this during a lesson!

Incorporating STEM and fairy tales into the classroom is a great idea I think especially for the younger grades such as K-2. I am currently a pre-service teacher in a 1st grade classroom and my students love making connections to the real world. Incorporating this would help me learn more about STEM also and connecting it through all content areas. This would be a great idea for my students and I can not wait to learn more about it therefore, I can use it in my future classroom.

I think this is a great idea. I love the combination of fairy tales and STEM. Even though I am currently placed in a language arts classroom, I am always looking for ways to incorporate other content areas. This makes the lesson engaging and hands on. I would be very interested in trying this activity in my classroom.

Love this idea, I think not only girls would like this idea, also boy will do too. I'm a student teacher and I try this in my student teaching class ( 5th grade) those kids love it :) Thank you for sharing.

This is such an awesome idea! I would have never thought of combining literature and science together, but it works! I would definitely try this out in class one day!

I agree with the above post. This concept is such a great way to get girls involved in STEM and to help them acquire and develop a love for science. I really love how you even added different fairy tales as well as possible engineering projects to connect with them. I had never really thought about how fairy tales and folktales are already a part a curriculum, this is such an innovative way to include science and engineering and not take up any extra time. This is the perfect example of how to integrate different content areas together and also meet the interests of all students!

I think this is an awesome way to integrate your whole class male or female. I know there are boys and girls just itching to figure out solutions to problems, and what a great way to intertwine two or more subjects into the lesson! I am glad I came across this idea!

I really enjoyed this idea involving engineering into fairy tales.  I also think that this could be done with resources that teachers already have in their classroom or in the school.  It can bring to life those fairy tales and students get to get their imaginiations flowing.  Thanks for the post and link to the website.

I LOVE the idea of using fairy tales and STEM. This would be an excellent way to bring fairy tales to life! A lot of fairy tales have things that students could design and build themselves--I'm thinking about a 'how to build the tallest Rapunzel tower' activity in my future.

Wow, fairy tales and STEM! What a creative way to integrate STEM and literacy. I think combining any type of literacy would make STEM more fun and exciting! I do believe that Fairy Tales will get a lot of the girls attention and be a bit more involved with STEM since they are trying to involve more girls. I can definitely see myself using this concept in my future classroom. It's almost like two birds with one stone. Having literacy and STEM bleed into each other would higher their knowledge in multiple concepts at a time! I can see myself doing all types of fairy tales involving STEM. For example, Robin Hood and Mathmatics, being able to account for what he stole from the rich and return to the poor. I also like the idea that Alyssa Schulte posted about Rapunzel and how they could be building their own towers!  

I love this idea of combining STEM and language arts together! I think that this could be used in any classroom level. It is fun, informative, and switches up the pace of the class! Although it is not a fairytale, this sparked a thought that I could use the children's book, 'Tadpole's Promise' to help illustrate metamorphosis. 

I absolutely love this!! This is perfect for all grades but I think that this could be very helpful for stelf contained teachers in the primary grades. I attended a session wheb I was at an NSTA conference about STEM bags that go home. The baggies have just random stuff in them that the teachers pull from their cabinets. Example: popsicle sticks, rubber bands, paper clips ect. The students are given a stem challenge to complete at home and then they have to take a picture of thier build and email it to the teacher. I think this would be great because the book the student takes home for their 20 min a night reading could be the fairy tale and then the science homework could be the stem challenge. This would intergrate the students homework together and the contents. I think the students would be excited to read thier story at home and then complete their challenge.

Connecting these two things is awesome! One classroom I was completing my hours in was learning about fairy tales and folk tales, specifically The Three Little Pigs. The teacher divided the class into 3 groups. One group had to make a house of sticks (popsicle sticks), one group made a house of straw (drinking straws), and the orher house was made of bricks (legos). This allowed children to build using their own ideas and group work was key. 

I really like this idea, especially being in a school that focuses primarily on literacy rather than STEM, this is a good way to combine the too while still having fun!

That sounds like a great idea. I would love to learn how to integrate fairytales into stem education, this is something that really fascinates me. It sounds like a fun and interactive way to engage students as well as helping them learn. 

How is connecting fairytales and literacy with STEM education beneficial?

I love reading this article! I read lots of fiction and fairytales with my students. It would be great for my students to become a problem solver in the story. I want to implement this in my classroom!

After researching about STEM in the community, I came across this post about Enchanted Engineering and loved reading the post. I like the idea of combining fairytales to solve the problems for the characters by the use of STEM innovations. I would like to implement STEM in my classroom by planning a field trip to the Museum of Natural Science or the Children’s Museums on days that they have events related to STEM careers. Just as the fairy tales and STEM connection, I would ask students to identify any problems that people or objects from our past might have encountered and how could they help them with the use of STEM. After identifying a problem, students must find a solution that involves STEM and present to the class at the end of the lesson. 

This is a great way to get all students involved in STEM! My third graders have really enjoyed the Land of Stories series and I think this STEM and Fairy Tales would be a great interdisciplinary activity. 

I am learning about using narratives to incorproate STEM education in my classroom, so this will help me greatly. Thank you!

I think this is a great way to incorperate the literacy component into STEM education in the classroom. I think by pairing a fairytale with a STEM project students' have a higher comprehension of what they are doing in both the STEM and literacy aspects of the lesson. Love this blog!

Integrating literacy and STEM project-based learning is an effective way to promote critical thinking skills while reinforcing literacy skills. The popularity of fairy tales also lends itself well to extension activities.

I believe that integrating literacy into STEM is such an effective way to introduce problem-solving! I have recently been introdcued (again) to the design loop and how to use this to promote critical thinking! By using a simple storyline to introduce a problem, students can create the best solution! This will definitely be used in my future classroom, thank you for more literacy ideas!

Wow! I have never heard of this combination before, but I really do think it’s a great idea. I think it is a wonderful way to get younger children interested in STEM, especially young girls who might not be as encouraged to go into STEM research. This is so great because fairy tales are such an important part of the elementary school curriculum, so adding STEM components to that is a double-win for teachers, I would think! It would also put a little spin on the story which would keep kids interested, as it might not be what they are regularly used to. Thank you for this wonderful idea!

I love this idea Wendy!! It is amazing when we can teach across multiple curriculums and also to integrate something so fun and simple as fairy tales that majority of our students already know and love. I think this is such a great way to get our young girls interested in science and to apply their thinking skills to somethinf they really enjoy. To have the students solving the problems in the stories by using their own STEM knowledge is so interesting. I can't wait to try this out in my own classroom. Thanks for the advice!!

I love this! It's a wonderful way to integrate science and literacy, and it allows us to get in STEM for the day, or even unit! As a pre-service teacher these are the posts i love to stumble upon. This is great to get kids using both sides of their brains at once with logic and creativity. Great idea! 

Hi Wendy,

I am currently a pre-service teacher, and this is a great way to incorporate STEM in the elementary classroom, thank you for sharing. I think this would give children a great opportunity to solve problems and get an early start on how to think like an engineer. I wish I had this opportunity when I was in school. I would love to incorporate these ideas in my classroom when I become a teacher.

I love the idea of bringing Fairy Tales into a STEM lesson.  Several years ago when I taught Kindergarten we had some store bought STEM kits that were Fairy Tales themes and the kids loved them.  I now teach 2nd grade and we still do teach Fairy Tales but now they are learning the characteristics of those genres and even writing their own Fairy Tales.  I would love to have them write their own and extend their story with a STEM activity based on their own characters and 'magic' that they come up with.  Thanks for reminding me of this idea of Fairy Tales - it has been a springboard for STEM brainstorming for my classroom!

I love the fairy tale idea! I think that using literature is an effective way to integrate STEM into the curriculum, especially for primary grade instruction. 

This is awesome! Thank you for sharing!

Hello, 

Thank you so much for this resource because I think that using this idea would be so beneficial for my students with severe and profound disabilities! I love how you used STEM in a way that I never would have even imagined! I am really excited and interested to see how this would look in the classroom!

Thank you, 

Dani

Hello To All,

I think this a great idea, to connect with the students learning.This is something I  would do as a future teacher.

Hello To All, 

What are some easy ways  to get studnets in 1st grade involved in a fun learning science experiments?

I think this is an amazing idea! I feel like this is a way to effectively use STEM in younger classrooms that they would relate to more. Thanks for sharing!

I absolutely love this idea! As a future teacher and current student getting my bachelor's degree in EC-6 education, I love the idea of not only being able to implement STEM in an effective way, but also implementing choices, brainstorming, and presentation. When thinking about STEM; I love the idea of using the Fairy Tale idea and glad I came across it. As someone who loves reading and writing, I love the idea of using a book to help solve a STEM problem. 

To implement STEM in my classroom, I would use the idea of implementing one or more elements to the lesson. I think it is important to find a way to implement all the elements or a combination of them. Students should be allowed to make choices and be wise with their thinking. As an educator, I would be a guide rather than pulling the students through the process.

Intergrating STEM with literature is always something to do.  But let's expand it beyond fairy tales (some of which have cultural backgrounds we would all rather avoid).  Try choosing a class favorite (the one you have to replace, set numbers of turns, etc; there's at least one a year) and pull STEM out of that book.  Not only do you have high student itnerest, it also helps them see that STEM can be found everywhere

Good luck!

Anne

This is a wonderful idea! Adding STEM to the fairy tale unit can really enhance students understanding of the story you are reading. I really loved the part where you give students multiple possible problems to be solved in the story. This would allow students to pick more than one option and to share all of the amazing ideas they come up with! It would be a great way to start introducing discussions into your classroom as well. The students could talk to each other and ask each other questions about their solutions. 

This seems so interesting to incorporate fairy tales into a STEM lesson! My students have always enjoyed writing their own stories on life science topics from the year to share with the class, but I enjoyed that students can see an example of a STEM fairy tale aligned with their grade level.

I think this is a great idea! Combining STEM with a literacy component makes an interdisciplinary curriculum and/or lessons. 

I really love this idea of combing fairytales into STEM lessons. It's something that I would've never thought about, but it's so fun and engaging for students! Something that I would've never considered was the fact that fairytales are already in the cirriculum so it integrates a literacy component as well. Anything is possible in fairytales so the idea that using fairytales is great because students could make up anything they wanted in their fairytale they create. 

This is such a great way to implement STEM into cross-curricular lessons and units! I am a pre-service, elementary education student at Wartburg College, and I will be student-teaching next semester. I love seeing new ideas like this that could help me find innovative ways to bring STEM deeper into my classroom someday. I think that tying fairy tales into STEM could result in so many opportunities for learning growth in young students. When it comes to these elementary students, they are clinging to the prior connections that they are able to make to their present learning. Many students have been continuously introduced to fairy tales since they were born, so that may just be a connection that helps them keep STEM in their long-term memory. If we connected math to fairy tales, the students may remember this connection for longer periods of time, making their math experiences more enjoyable. Not only can you connect so many different factors to STEM with fairy tales, but you are also connecting science to reading, technology to reading, or math to reading, and so on! These connections will help them to grow in all subjects and hopefully as enthusiasts of STEM concepts!

I appreciate all of the cross-curricular ideas that can come out of this! The obvious one to incorporate would be English Language Arts, Math could be incorporated by using budgets to limit students on the materials that they can get to create their STEM projects. Social and emotional learning would be going into the group work. There's the potential of giving students the chance to create their own STEM challenege based off of a book of their choosing. Other than these there are endless possibiliites, and this is a great way to get students really engaged in their science experiments! I love it!

Wow!! This is so awesome! Thank you so much! I love this idea of using fairy tales and giving students a choice of what problem to solve! I think this is a great engaging way to get students excited about their learning!

Wendy,
Thank you so much for this idea and resource! I am actually in a fairytale unit right now with my kindergartners! I also designed and created a lesson that tied to 'The Three Little Pigs.' So, I love this idea and resource. What grade did you do this with?

Thanks again for this!