STEM Resources

• 2 bar magnets, 2 magnetic bugs, 4 ring magnets, horseshoe magnet, magnetic post, 2 snap-on cars, tray with maze, string, and 10 double-sided Activity Cards. Comprehensive activity guide with reproducible materials is also included.

Do you know what is challenging about buying the right building kit for your young engineer? You have to buy more than one educational toy to get all the benefits of STEM learning and none of them work with each other. We realized this and are delighted to announce the Mini STEAM Center! This wonderfully designed toy has 204 pieces, a reusable plastic container and comes with all of our most popular series: Inventor, Pulleys & Cranks, Wheels & Axles, and Gears, Sprockets, & Chains all in one. All Brackitz pieces work together so your young builder to create a multitude of different projects.It is ideal for any parent wanting to be a creative hero!

Mini STEAM Center has large planks, connectors, and parts for driving, pulleys, and gears. Brackitz' connect-anywhere design is great for improving fine motor skills as well as gross motor skills. Keep your kids happy for hours while learning and playing.

Mini STEAM Center offers hours of STEM learning while playing, designed to promote problem-solving and critical thinking skills.

Brackitz is designed with open-ended play in mind - you are not limited to just certain builds that are in the instructions. We have been inspiring artists, makers, scientists, designers, innovators in the home and classroom....a trusted choice by parents and educators alike.

Full STEAM ahead! (pun intended!)

• Design and build a roller coaster
• Create your own Rube-Goldberg Machine
• Build eye-hand coordination and create a fort!
• Make a snack pulley
• Build a toy car
• Create mazes
• Learn the alphabet by BUILDING LETTERS!

There are 72 different projects to build, and all parts are compatible with our Power BloxTM line to add even more fun to your building experience. Some of the fun projects you will build include a nerve tester and hand crank generator backup power source.

35 pieces, including a maze, hand-crank generator,press switch, push-button switch, reed switch, lamp,LEDs, alarm, and more!

• Great addition to any STEM program.
• Learn all about electricity, current and voltage.
• Discover how lights, alarms, motors, switches and more work all while building fun projects.
• Compatible with other building brick sets.
• Build 72 different projects.
• Contains 35 parts
• Requires 3 "AA" batteries
• Ages 8 and up.

The Mark Twain Earth and Space Science book challenges students to work together while solving real-world problems.

STEM Labs for Earth and Space Science for sixth–eighth grades provides 26 integrated labs that cover the topics of:

• geology
• oceanography
• meteorology
• astronomy

The integrated labs encourage students to apply scientific inquiry, content knowledge, and technological design.

STEM success requires creativity, communication, and collaboration. Mark Twain's Earth and Space Science workbook for middle school explains STEM education concepts and provides materials for instruction and assessment. Each lab incorporates the following components:

• creativity
• teamwork
• communication
• critical thinking

From supplemental books to classroom décor, Mark Twain Media Publishing Company specializes in providing the very best products for middle-grade and upper-grade classrooms. Designed by leading educators, the product line covers a range of subjects, including language arts, fine arts, government, history, social studies, math, science, and character.

• Contains 364 parts (77 unique patented parts including nine 2-way LEDs and one color changing LED you won't find in any other toy brick set)
• Build 8 different characters or objects that all light up in this leading edge STREAM product
• Directly compatible with other brick building construction sets
• Requires three 9V battery
• Ages 8 and up
• Learn about series and parallel circuits, mountain climbing, micro chip technology, flower botany & biology, Mycology (study of fungi), Spelunking (cave exploring) and more!
• Includes animated Powerpoint curriculum designed and written by E-Blox Ph.D. engineers, only available with classroom sets.

Build Solo or Together!

Unique, connect-anywhere Brackitz attach to traditional planks at any angle, enabling builders of all ages to construct everything from small-scale builds to larger-than-life gravity-defying, 3-D structures - with their friends or alone - no limits. With plastic planks and rotating pieces, the Inventor 100 Piece Set is a great for larger builds and enables anyone to create builds with moving parts! Versatile, durable, and portable, award-winning Brackitz brings real-life art, math, science, architecture, and engineering principles into play.

• Contains 140 parts
• Build 72 different projects that all teach STEM
• Directly compatible with other brick building construction sets
• Requires 12 "AA" batteries
• Ages 8 and up
• Learn about voltage, current and how circuits with switches, LEDs and generators work.
• Includes animated Powerpoint curriculum designed and written by E-Blox Ph.D. engineers, only available with classroom sets.

Science, technology, engineering, art, and math work together to make learning fun in these STEAM lessons!

Perfect for Makerspace!

This fourth grade teacher resource book includes:

• A year's worth of teacher lesson plans
• STEAM design challenges that turn elementary students into inventors
• Easy-to-follow lesson format (with standards identified for each lesson)
• Classroom-tested lessons

The STEAM Design Challenges in this book follow engineering practices to teach students in Grade 4 to solve a problem by designing, creating, and justifying their designs. They also allow art to support and enhance the learning of science and math while the engineering process is followed.

These engaging STEAM lessons:

• Integrate the Next Generation Science Standards and national standards from other disciplines
• Enhance learning across various disciplines
• Facilitate students in collaborating to solve real-world scenarios
• Promote critical thinking, analytical thinking, and reflective thinking
• Incorporate the Five Es Instructional Model (engage, explore, explain, elaborate, evaluate)
• Are classroom tested

Engineering Design Process
The lessons in this book are intended to support the engineering design process in which teachers become a facilitator by encouraging and guiding students to work as a team to find a creative solution to a real-world problem without providing step-by-step instructions. Students are inspired to act as scientists and engineers through the use of sketches, diagrams, mathematical relationships, and literacy connections. By creating their very own models and products based on background information from their studies, students are immediately engaged through a meaningful, rewarding lesson.

More about the lessons
Each lesson begins by presenting students with a design challenge scenario in order to immediately excite students with a real-world situation that they are on a mission to solve. Students are then given a dilemma, mission, and blueprint design sheet and are asked to collaborate with team members to create several prototypes. Students present their prototypes to their teacher, construct their design, test their design, engage in a class discussion about their design, and then modify their design. Finally, teams create a justification piece in order to sell their new prototype (ex. persuasive letter, video, advertisement etc.).

About the Authors
The Steam Dreamers, a group of four classroom teachers, desired to create more interactive learning environments and science classrooms through student-centered problem-solving lessons. They created this collection of cross-curricular design challenge lessons to provide teachers and students with real-world scenarios that are driven by core learning standards and enriched through the inclusion of literacy and the arts.