HEXBUG Maze Design
In this lesson, the children will observe different HEXBUGS to predict how they might move through a block maze.
Learning Goals:
This lesson will help children meet the following educational standards:
- Develop beginning skills in the use of science and engineering practices such as observing, asking questions, solving problems, and drawing conclusions
- Explore the physical properties of objects
- Explore the concepts of force and motion
Learning Targets:
After this lesson, children should be more proficient at:
- Developing and using models to represent their ideas, observations and explanations through approaches such as drawing and building
- Drawing meaning from experience and information by describing, talking and thinking about what happened during an investigation
- Identifying, describing and comparing the physical properties of objects
- Exploring the effect of force on objects in and outside of the early childhood environment
Step 1: Gather materials.
- HEXBUGS (or similar simple battery-powered machines that move)
- Paper
- Unit Blocks
- Whiteboard or chart paper
Step 2: Introduce activity.
- Gather the children together in a large group and introduce the HEXBUGS.
- Ask the children what they know about HEXBUGS and what they might do.
- Write down the children's ideas on chart paper or a whiteboard.
- Demonstrate how to turn the HEXBUGS on.
- Invite the children to make predictions about how different HEXBUGS might move as they travel on the floor.
- Discuss how we can use unit blocks to make mazes for the HEXBUGS to travel through and how we can draw a plan for what the maze might look like.
Step 3: Engage children in lesson activities.
- In small groups, review what the children recall from their large-group discussion about how the HEXBUGS move.
- Invite the children to test and observe the movements of two HEXBUGS.
- Discuss how the movements of the HEXBUGS might be related to the characteristics of the different HEXBUGS (e.g., HEXBUGS with round wheels or feet versus straight legs).
- Invite the children to draw ideas for a maze that the HEXBUGS can travel through. You may want to model this process if the children are unfamiliar with drawing up plans.
- Based on the children's plans, invite them to construct one maze using unit blocks on a table.
- After they have constructed a maze, ask them to predict how each HEXBUG might get through the maze.
- Invite the children to test out their predictions by releasing the HEXBUGS into the maze to find out what will happen.
- After testing, invite the children to share their ideas about what occurred and draw conclusions about how different HEXBUGS move through the maze.
Step 4: Engineering vocabulary
- Characteristic: A feature or attribute of an object
- Conclude: To make statements about what was learned after an observation or an experiment
- Predict: To guess what might happen next
Suggested Books
- When I Build with Blocks by Niki Ailing
- Rosie Revere, Engineer by Andrea Beaty
- Roberto, the Insect Architect by Nina Laden
Music and Movement
Outdoor Connections
- Observe real bugs outside and compare them to the HEXBUGS.
- Take the HEXBUGS outside to test their movements on different outdoor surfaces such as dirt, sand and concrete.
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