Hi everyone! In September we are about to use VEX GO for our Grade 3 and 4 students. As this is the first year, both year groups will be following a similar curriculum but I was wondering if anyone had any advice for using GO over two year groups. How did they split it up to ensure progression over the two years? They will have 1 80 mins class a week. I will aim to teach VEX for about a third of the year.
Thanks!
Hi @Helen_Gourley , and welcome to the PD+ Community! I know that our friend @Tina_Dietrich has experience with implementing GO across multiple years and might have some good ideas for you!
If you are looking at roughly 12 80-minute sessions, you could consider starting your students with this Get Started Building scope and sequence (from teachgo.vex.com). As you have your kids for 80 minutes, it would be more of a 4-session scope and sequence for you. This is a good place to start, because students would have time to build their spatial reasoning skills and learn how to build with the GO Kit.
After that, you could decide whether you want your students to continue with building and STEM focused labs, get your kids started coding, or a little of both. This cumulative pacing guide can help you decide which STEM Labs you would like to implement. Even with 8 more sessions, there are enough STEM Labs, Activity Series and Activities to have plenty left to provide next year’s 4th graders with meaningful STEM learning that doesn’t repeat what they already learned.
For example, if you wanted to keep your first year building and science focused, after completing the Get Started Building Scope and Sequence, you could have your students do the Super Car STEM Lab, the Fun Frogs STEM Lab, Day and Night STEM Lab, Magnet Car STEM Lab, and Helping Hand. You would have approximately 10 sessions covered with just those Labs, and could choose Activities to supplement those Labs to easily get to 12 sessions. Then when the students go to fourth grade, they could go through the coding labs beginning with Mars Rover: Surface Operations.
Of course, this is just one possible way to structure things, and you know your students’ needs best, so consider it a starting point! I’m happy to help clarify anything in this post, or answer more questions, so please continue to reach out here!
Hi @Helen_Gourley! @Tina_Dietrich can definitely offer some great advice! In the meantime, I’d suggest looking over your own district curriculum/scope and sequences and then mapping out the VEX activities/stem labs that correlate. VEX offers more than enough content that overlap isn’t very common when you move forward after the first year. One thing that helped me in planning was to place all of the stem labs/activity links into a Google Doc by month/topic.
Hello,
It’s great that your classes will be longer, as that gives you enough time to teach robotics in a more complete and structured way.
Regarding using VEX GO over a two-year period, I had a very similar situation and decided on the following approach.
During the first year, I focus on simpler models using no more than two motors and one sensor. At the same time, I place a strong emphasis on basic mechanics—simple mechanisms, structures, and gear systems—along with introductory physics concepts and fundamental programming. I intentionally avoid making the models too complex by adding too many electronic components.
During the second year, I introduce more advanced models, such as those using two or more sensors, or three motors plus sensors. These projects are technically more challenging and allow students to expand both their engineering and programming skills.
Having worked extensively with VEX GO, I can confidently say that it provides enough material for two years of teaching, or even longer.
The only limitation I found was the number of official VEX GO models available. If you count them, there really aren’t that many. In my experience, students aren’t as excited about rebuilding the same models repeatedly, so I decided to start designing my own.
You can see my models on my Facebook or Instagram pages under the VEX GO section.
If you have any questions about how I organize my lessons or structure a long-term VEX GO curriculum, feel free to reach out. I’d be happy to share my experience.
Thank you!
Hi @Helen_Gourley. We use VEX GO in the classroom 40 min. every day throughout the entire school year in grades 3, 4, 5. In 3rd grade the teachers spend about half of the year working on teh Intro to Building STEM LABS and engineering activities. The second half of the year they work on the Code Base STEM LABS. We also throw in a variety of holiday activities we have created ourselves (many of which are posted here in PD+). In 4th grade they work on the science focused labs like “What are traits”, “I’m a Big Frog Now”, “Simple Machines” etc. They will also get more in depth with using the Code Base sensor, LED bumper, and electromagnet.
