Innovative Projects
Lamplighter’s Innovative Projects class blends the arts and sciences to provide hands-on learning experiences for students across all grade levels.
Innovation has been a hallmark of the School for decades, evident in Lamplighter’s academic programs, partnerships, and enrichment opportunities. Building on this tradition, the Innovative Projects class which launched in 2024 offers students opportunities to explore creativity, engage in STEM-based and culinary projects, and apply hands-on learning in fun and meaningful ways.
Teaching Kitchen and Project Room
The Innovative Projects class is housed in the Eastin Family Innovation Lab, where students use both the Project Room and the Enrico Family Teaching Kitchen for cooking lessons, science experiments, and STEM challenges. The class integrates engineering, design thinking, and culinary exploration, offering a variety of hands-on challenges and joyful learning experiences for students from Pre-K through fourth grade.
Grade Level Projects
Every grade level participates in the Innovative Projects class. Below are examples of hands-on projects from Pre-K through fourth grade:
Pre-K: Making butterfly pea flower lemonade to explore ingredient identification, measuring, observation, and using a pipette.
Kindergarten: Baking chocolate chip banana bread to practice following a recipe, measuring ingredients, and collaborating as a team.
Transitional First Grade (T1): Creating a classroom cookbook to learn about design, explore family traditions, and try new foods.
First Grade: Preparing pinwheel pastries to explore geometry, shapes, and new culinary vocabulary.
Second Grade: Making guaguas de pan to learn about Latin American foods, accurate weighing, and working with yeast.
Third Grade: Partnering for an egg drop challenge to investigate air resistance, gravity, surface area, and iterative design testing.
Fourth Grade: Building and programming LEGO robotics projects, developing coding skills, and collaborating in small teams.
Innovative Projects Class
Learn more about projects by grade level with Innovative Projects Teacher Hannah Dorward '08.
