Notes: Thanks to Mari and Sammy for their fantastic feedback as always!
Readers and REAL McRollers - Thank you for your amazing support! It is always appreciated. Hard to believe this is the SIXTH visit to Jacob's class!
Thank you to all the teachers out there who are finding ways to help their students learn even during this crisis. You're amazing!
Hope you enjoy!
Commander Steve Goes to Fifth Grade (A McRoll in the REAL Story)
"Any questions on how we got to the volume of our prism … annnnnd hold that thought," Patrick Barlett, fifth grade teacher, interrupted himself as he spotted the door to his classroom opening. He smiled. "It looks like our special guests have arrived."
The entire class whirled around in their seats.
"Uncle Steve! Aunt Catherine!" Jacob beamed from his desk. He had long ago given up trying to remember to use their titles when they came to his school.
Several other kids murmured excitedly at the appearance of the familiar figures.
"Of course you all know Lieutenant Catherine from her visits," Mr. Barlett continued, "and I think most of you know her husband, but for the few who don't, this is Commander Steve."
"He's a cop, like my mom," a boy in the front, Mano, said proudly.
"That's right," Steve said, "but this afternoon I've taken the badge off and I'm gonna be an engineer just like the rest of you."
"I hope we're not too early," Catherine said.
Mr. Barlett checked the time and smiled. "Right on time, as always. Our volume lesson ran a bit long." He addressed his class. "I'll send home the practice problems we did today to help with your homework. For now, I want to make sure we have enough time as possible for today's big engineering challenge."
"Does that mean you're finally going to tell us what it is?" Ameera asked.
"I suppose I'll have to," her teacher teased, retrieving a plastic tub from behind his desk. He placed it on his stool at the front of the classroom and turned to his laptop. He opened up a file and the title screen displayed on the smartboard. "Bears in a Bucket," he read with a flourish.
" 'Bears in a Bucket'?" Keone repeated in confusion.
"Bears in a Bucket," Mr. Barlett confirmed. He advanced the powerpoint to the next slide. "Today your challenge is to build a tower that will hold a bucket filled with … teddy bears!" The slide showed a tower drawn by the artistic teacher with a bucket hanging in the middle and a teddy bear poking its head out of the top.
"Ohhhh! Bears in a Bucket!" Jacob exclaimed in understanding.
"Exactly!" Mr. Barlett said, loving the enthusiasm. "Before we start, let's review the Engineering Design Loop. Who knows the first step? Yes, Sydney?"
The girl lowered her hand and said, "Ask."
"Yes," her teacher replied, clicking the computer for the next slide with the word circled. "Ask. I've already told you what the challenge is, what's another question you need to ask?" He looked around at the raised hands. "Nolan."
"What do we make it with?"
"Excellent." Mr. Barlett clicked another key and images of the materials appeared on the screen. "You'll be using straws, string, tape, and a Dixie cup for your bucket."
"What about the bears?" Ameera asked.
"For the bears I borrowed some counters from our friends down in the kindergarten wing." He took a container out of the plastic tub and held it up so they could see it was filled with small, colorful teddy bears. He set it back down and looked around. "What else should you ask?"
"Does the bucket have to be off the ground?" Keone asked.
Mr. Barlett chuckled. "Yes, it does. Good question. And it has to be free-swinging."
"How many bears does it have to hold?" Jacob asked.
"Each group will have ten bears and you're trying to create a structure that will hold all ten." Mr. Barlett answered a few more questions before asking, "What's the next step of the Engineering Design Loop? Alani?"
"Imagine."
"Right." He clicked to the next screen which showed the word in another circle connected by a line to 'Ask.' "You'll work with your group to brainstorm ideas for your structure. Next? Jeremy?"
"Plan."
"Yes, exactly." He clicked to add the step to the growing loop on the screen. "Work together to decide which ideas you'll use. Then what?"
"Create!" Jacob said, and Catherine and Steve exchanged a fond look at his usual excitement.
Mr. Bartlett grinned. "The fun part, right? Yes, create your structures. And then …? Reggie?"
Reggie hunched in his seat, biting his lip. "Im … prove?" he asked quietly.
"That's right," Mr. Barlett said encouragingly as he finished the loop on the smartboard. "You've gotta test your structure and make improvements that will make it better." After answering a few more questions from the students, he divided them up into small groups of four and had them disperse around the room to either work at desks or on the floor. "All right, Lieutenant Catherine, Commander Steve, and I will pass out your supplies and then we'll be walking around to check on your progress and help out. But remember, you're the head engineers here. You've got this."
Steve and Catherine helped him pass out the same number of straws and lengths of string and masking tape along with the cup and bear counters to each group.
Once everything had been distributed, Mr. Barlett said, "On your mark … get set … engineer!"
There was instant chatter all around the room as students started discussing ideas with their teams.
"We should make ours look like the Eiffel Tower," Kalea said, drawing it on her paper.
"But where would the bucket go?" Mano asked.
She pursed her lips, looking at what she'd drawn.
"What about two Eiffel Towers and a straw in between?" Sophia suggested, pointing to the paper to show what she meant
"Ooh, yeah," Keone agreed. "Do you think it will work?" he asked Catherine who was looking over their shoulders.
"It's got promise," she said. "Sketch it out and see what you all think."
Across the room, Takisha was saying, "I think we should make a big cube with the straws, and then hang the bucket in between."
"Yeah, yeah," Jacob said excitedly, starting to draw. "My brother taught me how to draw a cube real fast, look."
"That will only use …" Reggie paused to count the lines on the sketch, "Twelve straws. We can use the leftovers to make it stronger."
"Great idea," Steve said, observing their drawing. "Mr. Barlett said you didn't have to use all of your materials, but since you've got them, it's a good idea to utilize whatever resources you have to make the best possible structure."
"If it was a real tower we could save money not using as many straws," Alani said. "Er … beams or whatever."
"That's true," Steve agreed. "As long as the tower was structurally sound, you could save money by streamlining the process" He smiled. "But in this case, money is no object so you might as well use everything you have."
"Like we could add one on each side at a diagonal," Takisha said, drawing out what she meant. "And we can cut up the string and have it go from each corner."
"Good idea," Steve said. He looked around at the group. "Does everyone agree?"
They all nodded.
"Then I think you're about ready to start creating."
The groups finished brainstorming and planning at different times, but eventually they were all hard at work building their structures.
"Can you hold that side, Sydney?" Matthew asked. "I'll put the tape on."
"Don't use too much," Sarah cautioned. "We don't get any more."
"I've got the bucket ready," Oliver said, holding up the string he'd fed through the two holes punched in the paper cup.
"Take the bears out before we attach it," Sarah said. "It'll be easier."
Catherine smiled as she knelt with the group. "Plus it'll be fun to put the bears in one by one and see if the tower holds."
"Yeah!" Sarah agreed.
At a cluster of desks, Nolan groaned in frustration when their tower fell over again. "Argh! It won't stay up! The cup is too heavy and doesn't even have any bears in it yet."
"Then improve it," Steve said, reiterating the design loop. "What can you do to fix that?"
"We should tape this part to the desk," Yuri said, pointing to where she meant.
"Is that allowed?" Madison asked, looking up at Steve.
"Let's double-check," Steve said, nodding to their teacher as he passed by.
"Mr. Bartlett, can we tape our tower to the desk?" Jeremy asked.
"Absolutely," he replied. Turning to the room, he raised his voice to be heard above the creative din. "Everyone, this group had a good question. They asked if it was okay to tape their structure to the desk. That is absolutely fine, but remember, you won't get any extra tape, so keep that in mind and use your resources wisely."
A few minutes later, the group at the desk beamed as their tower stood straight.
"That was a great idea, Yuri," Nolan said.
"It was," Steve agreed.
She beamed in response.
Over on the floor in the corner, another group was starting to test their structure by putting the teddy bear counters in the cup one at a time.
"Four," they counted together excitedly. "Five. Six. Seve–"
"No!" Keone groaned, head in hands, as their tower leaned too far to one side and the cup touched the ground.
"That's okay," Catherine said, sitting with them. "You still have time to improve your design."
They all studied it for a minute.
"We have some string left," Sophia said. "What if we tied some to this side of the Eiffel tower and taped it to the ground? It'll pull it this way so it won't lean."
"Yeah!" Mano agreed.
"Let's try it," Kalea said, already picking up the string.
They adjusted their design and got the structure straight again.
"Four more bears," Sophia said, handing one to each team member.
They counted them out, voices equal parts nervous and excited. "Seven … eight … nine … TEN! It worked!" They all gave each other high fives, cheering effusively.
"Mr. Bartlett!" Keone cried. "Check it out!"
"Hey, hey, great job!" their teacher said, coming over and squatting to look at their design. He took out his phone to take pictures from different angles. "Outstanding engineering."
Other groups were finishing as well, and cheers could be heard around the room at the successful designs, none of which looked exactly the same.
"I think we should be using gummy bears instead of these counters," Ameera said, twirling one of the bears between her fingers as her group wrote up their notes on their finished project.
"Okay, I gotta ask," Steve said. "What's with you and gummy bears?
She looked at him as if it should be obvious. "Uh, they're delicious?"
He waited a beat, and when she didn't offer anything further chuckled. "Fair enough. Well, I'm guessing we're not using real gummy bears because Mr. Bartlett didn't want to waste food."
"They wouldn't be wasted. We could eat 'em."
"Then we wouldn't have any left to use for the challenge," Steve pointed out.
"I mean we could eat them after," she persisted.
"Yeah!" Keahi agreed. "Like, if your tower worked, you got to eat the gummy bears."
"Ugh," Ani said. "But they'd be all gross 'cause everyone's touched 'em."
Ameera shook her head. "We could wash 'em."
Steve smiled at her, shaking his head. "You know something, Ameera, when you get an idea, you stick with it. I like that about you."
"My mom says I'm stubborn," she said, her lip curling a little.
He shrugged. "Being stubborn's not always a bad thing."
"Are you stubborn, Commander Steve?" Owen asked.
A small smile twitched on Steve's face. "That is a word that's been used to describe me. Usually with another word in front of it," he added off-handedly.
"What other word?"
Steve shook his head, realizing he'd said too much. "Uhh … never mind. It's not important."
Ameera grinned mischievously. "I bet I can guess …"
"All right, class," Mr. Bartlett said, thankfully forestalling the rest of the conversation for Steve. "I've got pictures of everyone's bucket towers loaded up in the powerpoint. Let's head back to our seats and each group can do a short presentation on their design. After that, I've got a little treat for us to enjoy."
"Yes! A treat!" Jacob exclaimed, pumping his fist.
Mr. Bartlett smiled. "I've got a feeling you're all going to like it."
"Gummy bears!" Ameera squealed once the class was outside for a bonus recess after their presentations.
"Since we had to return the teddy bear counters to the kindergarten classes …" Mr. Bartlett said, grinning as he passed out small bags of gummy bears to everyone.
"Thank you thank you thank you!" Jacob said excitedly when he received his. "Best engineering challenge ever!"
His teacher laughed. "Because of the gummy bears?"
"And because Aunt Catherine and Uncle Steve were here."
"Aww," Catherine said, giving him a little side-armed hug.
"You can have some of mine," Jacob offered, holding his bag out to them.
"Don't worry, Jacob, I've got some for the helpers, too," Mr. Bartlett said, handing Steve and Catherine a bag each.
"Thanks for offering, buddy," Steve told Jacob.
Ameera looked over at them, grinning. "But Commander Steve'll give some of his to Lieutenant Catherine," she sing-songed and nudged her best friend Kalea. They both started giggling.
As Steve and Catherine chuckled at the long-running joke, Mr. Bartlett looked between them, confused.
"It's a long story," Steve said.
They all dug into their gummy bears, trading colors and talking, enjoying the beautiful weather.
"Do you play Fortnite, Commander Steve?" Keone asked.
"No," Steve answered. "But I know what it is." The online game was a favorite of Dylan's.
"You should," Keone said as he popped a gummy bear into his mouth. "Bet you'd be awesome at it."
"I'd rather get out of the house to have fun," Steve replied.
"So do you go out then?" Ameera asked.
"Huh?" Steve said, brow furrowing.
"Do you go out?" she repeated.
"What do you mean, 'out'?" He shrugged. "If I need something I go to the store, sure."
She rolled her eyes. "Not, like, 'to the store' out. Like with Lieutenant Catherine to a club to dance with your friends or something."
Catherine pressed her lips together to hide a smile and looked at him, her eyes alight with amusement.
"That's not really my thing," Steve said.
" 'Cause he and Aunt Catherine's got kids now," Jacob said.
Steve smiled at him. "Well, that was never really my thing, but yeah, Catherine and I would rather be with our kids. Or with the rest of our family."
Catherine smiled as well. "Or with you guys."
"What are you gonna do after next year when we graduate sixth grade?" Kalea asked, her face dropping. "Are you still gonna come see us when we're in middle school?"
The other kids looked at them, sudden concern on all their faces at the thought that after next year, their days with Commander Steve and Lieutenant Catherine might be over.
Steve and Catherine exchanged a glance.
"We'll figure something out," Steve said reassuringly. "You know why? Because I'm stubborn," he glanced at Ameera and winked, "and so is Lieutenant Catherine. And when stubborn people have an idea, they find a way."
"Just like all of you were stubborn during the challenge today and made improvements to your designs until you got them to work," Catherine added.
Jacob breathed a sigh of relief. He looked over at his teacher. "Told you," he said, grinning. "Best engineering challenge ever."
Hope you enjoyed!
Note: Shout out to Teachers Are Terrific who came up with the Bucket Tower STEM challenge. Educators who are interested in the full lesson plan can look at the Teachers Pay Teachers website for options.
Check out our Tumblr (mcrollintherealworld dot tumblr dot com) for links to the other five class visits. Or do a Ctrl+F search on my author page for Commander and that will get you to them :-)
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