STEM PB #4 - The Fix-It Man

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This is an adorable rhyming picture book that is perfect during those times you are either introducing the Engineering Design Process or need to reassure your young engineers that plans don’t always bring success and failure often leads to big inventions!

Featured Picture Book:
The Fix-It Man (2016)
By Susan Hood (@sHood125)
Illustrated by Arree Chung (@arreechung)

Summary:
Joshua James is a boy who loves to fix problems around the house with his little sister playing the role of assistant/tester. The book includes detailed and fun illustrations of his plans and inventions, many of which resemble Rube Goldberg style devices. Some are successful, while some are not! The main problem is humorous and kids will love to see how JJ and his sister solve it!

Related Themes:
Engineering Design Process:

• Importance of planning
• Persevering through failure
• Thinking outside the box to re-engineer
• Solving real world problems

SEL:

• Kindness
• Importance of apologizing
• Helping others

Science:

• Simple machines
• Forces and Motion

STEM Ideas:
1. Great book to include in a study of Rube Goldberg. Have students engineer that style machine to solve a simple real world problem (ie. getting a pencil to a friend).

2. This would be a super book if you are starting a take-apart or backward engineering activity where you give students old electronics/toys and they dismantle them and build something else with the parts.

3. Have students study the simple machines featured in this book. Create a chart of the ones they notice. Then have them engineer something small focusing on just one of those simple machines. For example, there are some great pulley systems in the book they could try to recreate with recyclable materials.

4. Studying forces and motion? This book is LOADED with illustrations of various forces. Have a discussion about them and then have students recreate them using simple materials.

Feel free to add your ideas or leave a comment! We're better together!