Playing Around with Media Literacy

One of my favorite units to save until the end of the year is media literacy because I love to teach it through a kid-favorite movie, Toy Story 2!  This movie is chocked full advertising techniques and the use of sounds and images to move people to feel or act a certain way.  It also doesn't hurt that by the time we get to May we could all use a movie day!

I love it so much that I created a resource to use right along with it, so not only do my kids get to watch a movie, but I've got great content to keep my classroom rigorous and admin-visit ready right up to the end of the year!  Hope you enjoy this one as much as I do!

DOWNLOAD THE RESOURCE

Cardboard Arcade Game Challenge

One of my favorites for spring and recycling is the recyclable arcade project!  A few years back my teaching partner and I were inspired by the video Cane's Arcade about a boy who built a whole imaginary world of arcade games from the boxes his father had left over from shipments at work.  We showed our students the video and then we challenged our students to work together as teams to build their own functional game.  They came up with so many creative ideas!  So good, in fact, that we have asked several classes in the years that followed to rise to the same challenge and have incorporated it into our Earth Day and recycling units. If you want to try the recyclable arcade challenge with a group of students, you can download your copy below.

RECYCLABLE ARCADE STEM PROJECT