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In our last two teaching sessions we had our second graders build a Rube Goldberg machine. We knew this was going to be a difficult task, especially since the kids are very young and did not have a lot of previous experience with LEGO building. To move the activity along, we came to the first session with a pre-designed rube goldberg machine that had seven differnt parts; one for each group. To introduce them to Rube Goldberg machines, we showed them this video (http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4187430023476942057). We used the classroom's computer and projector to show the kids. Keep in mind that your school may block the use of YouTube. We had success with google videos. After the video we gave them a worksheet that depicted the parts of our pre-designed Goldberg machine. We omitted some of the parts of th machine on the worksheet so that we could go over it with them while they filled in the missing parts. Then we divided the machine up among the groups and stressed the point that they had to talk with the other groups that interfaced with their part of the machine. By the end of class about 1/3 of the class had their machine mostly built. Every group had something built. It took a lot of STOMP intervetion to make sure the kids stayed on track.
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