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Pixton Lesson 6:

Problems and Solutions

Learning Objective: To identify and create problems and solutions in a story.

Overview: In this lesson, your students will explore the problem and solution in a story. They will explore this with a quick STEM problem and discover a solution. They will transfer their creative thinking skills from this activity to create their own comic with a problem and solution by the end of the lesson.

Success Criteria:

  • I can identify a problem in a story.

  • I can identity a solution in a story.

  • I can create a solution to a problem.

Materials Needed:

Copy to my Google Slides

Lesson Plan

Minds-On:

  • Slides 1-13: Mini STEAM challenge.

  • Work through the slides and set the challenge Slide 7.

    • Problem: Build the tallest free-standing tower out of one piece of paper! 

    • Materials: 1 piece of paper, 1 pair of scissors, 1 finger length of tape, and any other supplies you choose to allow.

    • Time: Students will have ten minutes to build their tower:

      • Two minutes to design it on the Tower Blueprint planning sheet. 

      • Eight minutes to make it. (Timers are on Slides 8 and 9).

  • See who built the tallest tower but what is most important is to discuss how differently everyone came up with a solution to the problem.

Inquiry:

  • Slides 14-18: Students will work through these slides to introduce a problem and solution. 

  • Prompting questions:

    • Can you think of your favourite movie or book?

    • What problem did the main character have?

    • Was it one of these character-relationships problems or something different?    

  • Slides 19: Creating a problem in a story. Work the farm example with your students. Write down any of their ideas about what might be happening to the character in the panel. 

  • Slides 20-22: A problem in every great story or movie has a solution. Reflect on their STEM projects that there can be many different ways to solve a problem!

  • Slide 23: Brainstorm a solution to the problem of the student forgetting her lunch at school.

Activity:

Slides 24-27: Have students pick an everyday problem. Once they have their problem, they can use the Brainstorm sheet to develop one to three solutions to their problem. Students will then take their plan and turn it into a comic on Pixton. Be sure they use their avatars in their story!

Consolidation: 

  • Share the comics, or print them off and have students vote on which cast had the best storyline!