Spiraling the Curriculum with Sphero Bowling

The powerful, blue tooth controlled, tennis balled sized units called Sphero have recently rolled (get it?) their way into schools and classrooms across the Country. Controlled by an iPad (or personal handheld device) and your choice of app (ie. Tickle, SPRK Lightning Lab, etc...), these units have incredible potential to engage and transform the learning for our students. Although these units are initially met with a rush of excitement by educators, too often the excitement wanes and eventually these units fade away into the background or worse, into the darkness of a closet cupboard... 

Why does this happen?

I feel that this happens for a variety of reasons, but for the purposes of this blog, I would only like to focus in on one. The "lack of connections" these tools have to the curriculum.

With the recent surge of technology in our schools many educators are left feeling stressed, overwhelmed and even fearful when it comes to the role of technology in their program. Already strapped with the day to day pressures of teaching, implementing an extensive (and sometimes brand new) curriculum, there is very little time (and energy) left for educators to spend on learning this new tech tool. Furthermore, without investing the necessary time to explore the tool, connections to curriculum are often disregarded as the full functionality of the tool is often misunderstood or left undiscovered.

This is what prompted me to compile the following file, https://goo.gl/AlI67V. Essentially, the file consists of simple Number Sense activities from Grade One to Grade Eight. Each activity is initiated by the action of students bowling over numbered water bottles using the Sphero unit. The activity students are required to complete afterwards will depend on the expectation and Grade level. Each activity can be extended or reduced, depending on your student audience and improvisation skills!




My goal in putting this file together was to offer educators somewhere to start for how they can begin to use the Sphero in a purposeful way. In grounding these activities in Number Sense, it is my hope that these concepts can be spiraled back to throughout the school year. Furthermore, I hope that something small and simple like these activities can serve as motivation and a springboard for the development and creation of a whole host of new Sphero activities. The more we experiment and play with these tools in the classroom, the more connections we will start to see.

Students use knocked over bottles to work out Lowest Common Multiple

Tech Goal: navigate Sphero in straight line at an intended target
Math goal: determine the Lowest Common Multiple & Greatest Common Factor