My Dream Car (Click the photo for instructions)

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Using the Kata in the Classroom Starter Kata, students build model cars from household materials while defining what makes a design successful. “DMV inspections” and guided reflection help them track progress and experiment independently toward a shared Target Condition. With KiC, this activity helps develop scientific thinking and metacognitive skills that transfer to many problem-solving situations.

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Tower Building (Click the photo for instructions)

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​A primary-school teacher reports: "Building towers of paper and other materials worked superbly with the Starter Kata. Objective: The tower should be as high and stable as possible. The working procedure and documenting of experimenting cycles used the Experimenting Record and Coaching/Reflection Questions Starter Kata. I notice my students are more easily getting into an experimenting mindset, due to having practiced and gotten familiar with these scientific-thinking patterns in previous activities."

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Designing Rafts (Click the image for instructions)

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By Jasmin Rengers-Gerritsen & David Bogaerts. "Today we are going to do something which you might not do very often at school. We are going to build rafts. But not just that. We are going to build rafts in the way scientists would do so: by doing as many experiments as possible."

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Mr. Potato Head

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Why yes, some teachers do run the Card Sort exercise by building Potato Heads, instead of sorting playing cards. You can use the same PowerPoint slides (modified) as the playing card version.

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Making a Hovercraft

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A teacher in Michigan has her students build a hovercraft that carries a student on board. It takes several iterations to arrive at a working hovercraft, which the teacher has the students handle with the Experimenting Record, Coaching Questions, and the Improvement Kata pattern (poster).

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Using the 3D Printer

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A 5th Grade teacher in Traverse City, Michigan practices the 4-step Improvement Kata Poster pattern in conjunction with the classroom's new 3D printer. She asks each student (1) what is their challenge, i.e., what the student would like to be able to make with the 3D printer. Then she asks the student (2) how much experience they have with 3D printing. The next question (3) is what the student would like to make next, on the way to their challenge goal. This might be a simple shape, for example. Then (4) the experiments can begin.

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Watching TED Videos

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A teacher shows her class TED videos and then discusses it. She has already run the KiC exercise and has the IK poster on the wall. After each TED video she points to the IK Poster and asks the class: 

(1) What challenge did the presenter have?

(2) Where was the presenter when they started their journey?

(3) What was one of the presenter's goals. What obstacles did they face?

(4) What were some of the experiments that the presenter did in trying to reach their goal?

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Have Parents Do the Card Sort Exercise (They'll love it) (Click photo for instructions)

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A teacher in Germany has been using KiC in her school for several years. Each semester she invites her students' parents to a parents-only running of the KiC Card Sort game, and then asks the parents to reinforce the 4-step scientific Improvement Kata pattern at home. Parents take home Experimenting Records, Coaching Questions, and the IK Poster.