Sphero Tricks

On our first day of Sphero in the Art room, we had three stations set up.  Painting, Water, and the Dark Room.  We realized that this was a bit difficult to get a good rotation for our older kids so we chose to add one more station, we called it the Trick Station.  We were by this time running out of space, so the area that we used was the carpet where we have the kids come in and sit at the start of class.  Once instruction was complete I asked the students to help me set up this station. 

We had to come up with something to contain the Sphero.  So, of course, we went down to visit the Phy Ed department.  They had these bumpers for bowling... they collapsed easy and set up easy.  They were perfect! Students would start out here by driving the Sphero but then we put these amazing jumps in... And the crowd goes wild!!!  

It was a bit difficult for the kids to make the jump, but you knew when they did because we heard cheers from that station! This very simple station was the favorite for many students. 

We also used this area for a wrap up for some groups.  Especially our youngest students, it was good to have a bunch of 'time killers' that were Sphero related. Sometimes when we ended a few minutes early we would show off Sphero tricks.  In the app that we asked the students to use (click here), there are missions that we asked our students to avoid because the goal today was to learn to drive. So at the end, we would show them some of the pre-programed 'tricks' that Sphero can do like, an Irish Jig, the Nutcracker Dance, a Touchdown Dance, a frog, and so much more.  By the 30th section of teaching this same lesson we had created stories to go with all of these tricks.  My partner Alysia was amazing at this part of instruction! She made me laugh... and the kids too :)