Loved this activity that I did with my 1st and 2nd graders this week.
I spread out the villages a little more for the older kids to give them more of a challenge. Such an easy modification to scale the challenge level up or down to meet the needs of where the students are to make sure they feel successful.
Loved hearing the open-ended language of students saying, “I found a different way to go.” “There are lots of paths to get to the castle.”
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Welcome to the PD+ Community @Jessica_Drayer! This is one of my favorite VEX 123 activities! Students seeing for themselves how many different ways there are to solve the challenge is such a powerful moment! And you can ‘level up’ easily by adding more houses to the village, having students navigate around obstacles, or travel through multiple houses on their path. Differentiation can be authentic and easy!
My 1st graders are loving this activity! I created a Google slide deck with images to use during the story telling. It is also a nice reference to use when presenting the challenges. It gave the students a good visual reminder of the events from the story that we are recreating.
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Wow, thanks for sharing your slides, @James_Nesbitt ! I’m so glad your students are enjoying Dragon in the Village!
I love the images in those slides! I can almost hear the story being told in my head as I look at them. I’m so glad to hear your students are loving it!
Thank you for sharing! I used the slides with my 1st graders and they loved it!
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I am new to 123 and am teaching it as an after school extracurricular. What kinds of “materials” do you use to put out at the houses for the villagers to “collect”? I don’t want to just use pipe cleaners all the time. I gave them paper cups to make their dragon pushing attachment but what are some other suggestions?
Hi @Amy_Welte ! Pom-poms are a really easy thing to use for materials for the Villagers to collect. You could also use other things you might have in the classroom, such as base-10 blocks or other math manipulatives - anything that’s small and light will work!
Hi @Amy_Welte! I’m so glad your students are enjoying this one - it’s one of my favorites! Popsicle sticks can also be a good addition, and fit into the slots on the Art Ring sticking up. You could also use the Art Ring Canvases with the pipe cleaners, to let kids draw part of their ‘machine’ and use the other classroom materials to build pieces.
Pipe cleaners are a great way to attach items to the Art Ring, and can be used in conjunction with craft or recycles materials like old CD’s, playing cards, wood shapes, puzzle pieces, etc.
