Before the VEX GO kits arrived, Jeanette Clayton taught simple machines with cardboard, toilet paper rolls, popsicle sticks, tape and other recyclable items.

The third graders would build what they could with what they had. It worked, mostly. But the materials had limits — things collapsed, couldn't hold weight, and didn't demonstrate the actual physics. This year, through a new Project Lead the Way module funded largely by the Sherrilyn Tipsord Memorial Fund, the 3rd grade team got something different: snap-together engineering kits with wheels, axles, pulleys, pegs, string, magnets, and enough structural integrity that a third grader could build a lever that actually levered.

"It provided us with some resources that were hands-on," Clayton said. "The kids love them."

The module focused on stability, motion, forces, and simple machines — aligned with Illinois' State Standards as well as Next Generation Science Standards — and it ran through a sequence that built knowledge day by day. One day they constructed a lever. Another day, a pulley. Then an inclined plane with a load that had to travel up it. Each lesson started on the interactive screen: vocabulary with audio, video demonstrations, and 3D models the students could rotate to see the assembly from every angle.

"Sometimes you couldn't tell if it was the third hole or the fifth hole," Clayton said. "And so someone might say, 'Could you rotate it so I could see the side?'"

Third graders requesting rotational views of a 3D model to solve a spatial problem. That's engineering thinking, whether they call it that or not.

Groups of two worked best. More than two, she found, and someone wasn't getting their hands on the pieces. With 21 students and eight or ten groups working simultaneously, desk space was tight — kits, pieces, sometimes Chromebooks, and the build itself all competing for real estate, "It was a lot to have there," she said. "And then they need space to build, but the students were motivated to make it work and found a way to successfully construct the simple machines  despite limited space.”

The discoveries came through failure. A student would build a load wider than the inclined plane and have to rethink proportions. A string would be too short. A structure would collapse under its own weight. Constraints — material limits, piece counts, physical space — entered the equation the way they do in real engineering: uninvited but instructive.

"Whatever you drew is not necessarily what you're going to end up making," Clayton told her students. "You're going to try that and see it doesn't work and make adjustments."

The culminating project brought everything together. A story about a tiger that had fallen into the ditch separating its enclosure from the zoo visitors. The students' task: design and build a compound machine that could rescue the tiger without hurting it. Parameters applied — you couldn't tie a rope around its neck, you couldn't reach in by hand. You had to engineer a solution using the simple machines you'd spent weeks learning.

Each student sketched a design in their launch log — graph paper journals that doubled as engineering notebooks — then paired up, compared plans, and negotiated a shared approach. Most groups used pulleys. Many built cages and attached magnets to the pulley line so the cage would attract to the magnet and lift. Some discovered their string wasn't long enough and had to build height onto the enclosure to extend the reach. Others combined inclined planes with levers, using fulcrums to redirect force.

Were the machines sophisticated enough to actually rescue a tiger? No. But at eight and nine years old, these kids were reasoning through electromagnetic attraction, mechanical advantage, and structural proportion — and arguing productively about whose design was better.

"A lot of kids, especially the ones that are more engineering-minded, they're like, 'My idea is great. This is gonna work out,'" Clayton said. "And they would prefer to work by themselves, however they found the contribution of others made their original ideas even better."

But then someone else's contribution would make the project better than either plan alone.

"That gives them all confidence," she said. "To think, okay, I couldn't have done that necessarily, but my ideas contributed to that. It also fostered active  listening to collaborate better solutions.”

Clayton has watched this kind of learning happen at Tri-Valley for most of her life. She grew up in Ellsworth — her parents still live there — and attended the district from kindergarten through graduation, Class of 1989. She taught fifth grade for two years, moved to Atlanta for a stretch, and came back and stayed home with her kids, subbed for six years,. She's been teaching third grade full-time since 2014. Four sections, same classroom, same age group she loves.

"They get humor that some of the younger kids don't get," she said. "And they're still excited about learning."

The district chose this module deliberately. They asked teachers which science area had the fewest hands-on resources. Stability and motion won. But the timeline for making it happen accelerated significantly through the generosity of the Tipsord family, who established a memorial fund in honor of Sherrilyn Tipsord — a longtime principal at Tri-Valley Elementary whose career left a deep mark on the students, staff, and community she served. The fund provided curriculum, teacher training, and resources for the Project Lead the Way Launch program across kindergarten through third grade — ensuring that the hands-on STEM learning happening in Clayton's classroom isn't a one-year experiment but a sustained commitment. It's a fitting legacy: a principal who spent her career building the culture of this school now funding the tools that let its youngest students build with their own hands.

Clayton already has the printed folders filed away so students can rebuild independently next year. The pieces snap back into their kits at the end of each day. The vocabulary cards have audio. The 3D models are still on the screen. The infrastructure is reusable, and the next class of third graders will walk in with a tiger waiting to be rescued.

"It's just so important to engage the students," Clayton said. "The more technology, the shorter the attention spans for something they're not in control of. And this is a way to tie in curriculum and really build not only engineering and scientific knowledge, but also engaging with others. And problem-solving. And overcoming obstacles."

She paused.

"And then a very quick sense of accomplishment — like just building the lever, seeing it work."