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Easy Classroom Incentive Idea for Positive Behaviors in STEM [ep.179]

by Naomi Meredith

Easy Classroom Incentive Idea for Positive Behaviors in STEM [ep.179]

Check out the full episode about easy classroom incentive idea:

 

 

Subscribe to the podcast HERE on your favorite podcasting platform.Have a STEM question? Leave a voice message for the podcast!

Watch the video episode here!

 

Episode Summary

When you teach multiple classes a day, how can you easily set up a classroom incentive that encourages positive behaviors? In this episode, I'll share with you a game I came up with that's easy, fun, and motivating for elementary students of all ages.

There is also a bonus clip where you will hear me introduce this incentive with a class and hear their reactions!

Resources Mentioned:

 

Episode Transcript: 

Welcome to the Elementary STEM Coach Podcast. I'm your host, Naomi Meredith, a former classroom teacher turned K-5 STEM teacher and coach. With over a decade of experience teaching and a master's degree in STEM leadership, I'm here to coach you throughout the year to help you gain back more time to create innovative experiences for your students.

I got a question asked over on my Instagram @naomimeredith_ and it reads, Hi Naomi, I was wondering if you have any recommendations for whole classroom reward systems. This is an area I'm struggling as a first year STEM teacher. This is a great question.

And whether you teach the same kids all week, you see the whole school in one week, or maybe you even teach STEM after school clubs, or you are subbing as a STEM teacher, which is all the above all the things that I have done and do. So let's get into this classroom reward system that I came up with that I actually have tested with classes. It is very, very simple.

Anybody can implement it. Even if you're a classroom teacher, it's very easy to manage, very straightforward. And I think you're definitely going to enjoy it.

So this classroom reward system that I came up with is called Behavior Blast Off. And all it is is a poster with the title of Behavior Blast Off. It has a giant rocket and then an open space that will have five large stars.

Then on the side, I have a small cup of other stars. And each star has their own number labeled one through 30. The goal of this behavior management system is that it is rewarding positive behaviors.

So the goal for the class is to earn all five stars to get a five star rating. And we know that can be a good thing if it's five out of five stars. So the kids of the class are trying to earn these five stars.

And every time they're demonstrating the positive behaviors that you talk about in your classroom all the time, they can earn a star that goes right above that rocket. And every time you see those things, they can earn another star. And for every star that is earned, you have that tiny cup of the stars with the numbers.

At the end of class, that means how many stars that the class earned, the big ones, is how many little stars you're going to pull out of this cup. And I mentioned that all these little stars have a number on them. And those numbers match a student.

So maybe it is their cubby number, their laptop number. So you probably have the kids numbered one through 25 or however many students you have. So if the class earns four stars, that means you pick out four stars out of the cup.

And what happens when you pick those stars at the end of class? Well, they can earn a small prize. And this could be very small. It could be a sticker.

Maybe there are things that the school already does that they can earn. Maybe you have school stickers they can earn. Maybe it is to help you out or to have lunch with you.

Whatever it may be. It can be a very big prize. It can be a very small prize.

It could be anywhere in between. So this is really fun because it's kind of random. It is a game.

And the kids get really excited because they want to be the ones to get their star pulled out of the cup. Now, one caveat to this, this actually happened. I did this with six different classes in a row.

And it didn't really come up until the last class. Well, what if there is a student that you have to talk to repeated times and their number gets called? Do they get to pick out of the prize box? And I wish I had gone over this before when I explained the game because that happened. I did have a student who was having a harder time.

Their name got called and it kind of wasn't fair. So that is something with your discretion that can be up to you that you can do as well. Now, I did something else when I was a STEM teacher.

It was different because I had that relationship. I kind of didn't really do an incentive like this, but I should have. But I've tried this with other classes that I have been in recently.

And the incentive of earning a prize is huge and all my classes have bought in and they're super into it. Can classes lose stars? Up to you and what your philosophy is with that. They could or they couldn't.

So definitely up to you, but play around with it. So that really is the game. It's very easy to manage.

And I actually packaged it all together. I have the print and go poster. I made this the morning before I was subbing for a STEM teacher one day because I needed something.

And so I made, I thought of this when I was walking my dog Frederick one day. And so the poster is very, very easy. The rocket's already big.

So you just print it out on normal paper. I put it on a poster and was good to go. So I have it all packaged in my TBDT shop and also linked in the show notes.

And I also walk through everything that I just explained for you that if you forget how to implement, it's all there. So as a little bonus for this episode, I actually have short audio that I'm going to play right after I'm done talking. But you actually get to hear me when I was explaining this to the class.

There were a lot of other things that were happening in between. I did keep, this is when I was subbing for a STEM teacher. I did also keep her incentives that she did in her classroom.

So that would be a really fun episode too, is gathering what do all of you do for behavior class incentives. So I'm going to keep that in mind for another question I need to ask, but there were some things going on. So if it sounds a little choppy, I did cut some things out, but you get to hear how I use this with, and it was a first grade class, but I did use this K through five.

This is behavior blast offs. You're going to play my game. So we have this rocket and some stars.

Let's see how many stars are up here. Ready? Five. Now, if you're doing a good job, you'll earn stars from me.

Every star you earn at the end of class, you guys know your cubby number, your classroom number, tell the person next to you what your number is. Thumbs up if you know your number. Right now there is one star because you came in and you listened really well.

So that means I will pull out one star and whoever's number I call, you get a pick from the prize box that I brought. You can earn up to five stars. So it's a game.

It's fun, but pretty cool. So you already have one out of five stars. So you want a five star rating.

Have you heard of that? That's good. So when you have a restaurant or like a hotel and it's out of five stars, if you say five out of five stars, this is great. We went to a restaurant, you guys, we have a one out of five stars.

It's not pretty fun, right? I did post this video on my Instagram. So it's also embedded in the show notes. So if you want to watch me when I was doing this, it's all there.

So I hope this helps. Don't make it overly complicated. Make it simple for you to understand, to keep up with.

Same with the students, for them to understand, for them to keep up with. And as long as it's a game and it's encouraging that positive behavior, something like this can really help in your classroom. Thank you so much for this question.

If you have any other questions, feel free to DM me or send an email my way. I love this two way street where I'm getting your input and all of your insights. And then I'm here in my home office by myself talking to my camera, but really makes me feel like that we are connecting in a different way.

Thank you so much. And I will see you in the next episode. Thank you so much for listening to today's episode of the elementary STEM coach podcast.

I would love to connect with you over on Instagram at Naomi Meredith underscore, or send me an email to elementary STEM coach podcast at gmail.com. Also make sure to check out my website, Naomi Meredith.com to see all the show notes from today's episode and shop my K through five STEM resources. Any questions you have needs for resources or ideas for episodes, get in touch. I'll talk to you soon.

Related Episodes/Blog Posts:

Check out this playlist on Spotify I put together with all the episodes related to Back to School:

 

 

Connect with Naomi Meredith:

 

More About your host, Naomi Meredith

Naomi Meredith is an online K-5 STEM Coach in Colorado supporting elementary teachers world-wide navigate the best practices, strategies and tools out there. With over a decade of experience teaching, 5 years teaching elementary STEM, along with a M.Ed. in STEM Leadership and STEM Certificate, Naomi helps teachers world-wide to navigate best practices, strategies and tools out there. 

She offers a variety of tools to help teachers feel successful teaching STEM to their elementary students through lesson plans, online courses, coaching and speaking events.

She truly believes that any teacher out there can learn how to use STEM, innovation and hands-on learning in their classrooms effectively. She can’t wait to connect with you and be your guide!

More About The Elementary STEM Coach Podcast

Are you tired of scrolling online for your next great STEM lesson? Do you feel like there is no time to plan, research and test meaningful STEM lessons, so you throw together a hands-on activity and hope that it works? What systems and routines should you set in place to help students be creative, critically think, and collaborate? 

The Elementary STEM Coach is a podcast for K-5 STEM teachers, classroom teachers, GT specialists, and homeschool parents looking for actionable STEM solutions. Each week, Naomi Meredith will share tools, resources and lesson ideas that are actionable in your classroom and create highly engaging experiences with your students. You’ll learn systems and routines that will create control in the chaos and that will keep you organized all year long. 

Your mindless scrolling days are over! Your new STEM-best friend is now here in your ear buds!

How to Make a Grid Mat for the Bee-Bot Robot

by Naomi Meredith

How to Make a Grid Mat for the Bee-Bot Robot

Are you wondering how to make a grid mat for your classroom for the Bee-Bot robot? Below are some easy ideas on how you can create a mat that can help students visually see the code for any type of project you have in mind

Some items are linked to my Amazon Affiliate account. When you purchase through my link, there is no added cost to you, but I receive a small commission in return.

How to Make a Grid Mat for the Bee-Bot Robot: Option #1

Grab a large piece of poster board or butcher paper and a ruler. Code the Bee-Bot to move one forward movement on your paper. Measure the distance and make a mark. Draw straight lines with the ruler to draw a square that measures one forward movement. Make the grid as big or small as you want, then laminate.

 

Grab a clear, cheap shower curtain like this one, then cut it to be the same length as your grid. Secure one end of the curtain to the mat with binder clip so it can easily open and close. This allows adding different task cards for coding underneath the shower curtain and onto the grid and helps the Bee-Bot drive on top without getting caught on the cards. I recommend taping the cards to the grid mat so they don't slide around while coding.

 

 

How to Make a Grid Mat for the Bee-Bot Robot: Option #2

Create the grid the same way as described above with the measuring and drawing. Instead of adding the clear shower curtain on top, add one soft velcro dot to each square. Once you have your task cards ready, add the “hook” side of the velcro dot (the scratchy side) to each task card.

The Bee-Bot doesn't seem to get stuck on the Velcro on the grid if there aren't cards. It would be hit or miss with the robot getting stuck on actual cards since they popped up more. This is a lesson that I love to do with primary students about The Very Hungry Caterpillar and we even dress up our Bee-Bot!

I even tried this with playing cards for a last minute lesson where students rolled a numbered die, than programmed their Bee-Bot to the matching playing card.

 

How to Make a Grid Mat for the Bee-Bot Robot: Option #3

Drawing and measuring a grid accurately can be time consuming! (Trust me, I know from experience.) To ensure all of my squares were equal size and I could customize the cards for lessons, I made a digital version of a perfectly measured.

You can even create a blank grid with these print-and-cut squares, then glue on poster board.

 

I'm not a perfectionist when it comes to measuring and creating a grid, so this helped me create a mat that was accurate for my students to use when coding with the Bee-Bot.

Grab this template for your classroom here. 

 

Which way do you think you'll create your Bee-Bot grid?

Let me know over on Instagram, @naomimeredith_

Other Posts You Might Enjoy:

Connect with Naomi Meredith:

 

More About the author, Naomi Meredith

Naomi Meredith is an online K-5 STEM Coach in Colorado supporting elementary teachers world-wide navigate the best practices, strategies and tools out there. With over a decade of experience teaching, 5 years teaching elementary STEM, along with a M.Ed. in STEM Leadership and STEM Certificate, Naomi helps teachers world-wide to navigate best practices, strategies and tools out there.

She offers a variety of tools to help teachers feel successful teaching STEM to their elementary students through lesson plans, online courses, coaching and speaking events.

She truly believes that any teacher out there can learn how to use STEM, innovation and hands-on learning in their classrooms effectively. She can’t wait to connect with you and be your guide!

What Do STEM Teachers Do During Parent Teacher Conferences? [ep.178]

by Naomi Meredith

What Do STEM Teachers Do During Parent Teacher Conferences? [ep.178]

Check out the full episode about questions about what STEM teachers do during parent teacher conferences: 

 

Subscribe to the podcast HERE on your favorite podcasting platform.Have a STEM question? Leave a voice message for the podcast!

Watch the video episode here!

 

Episode Summary

During Parent Teacher Conference season, what is the typical expectation for STEM teachers? While this can vary from school to school, overall there is a common consensus amongst STEM Teachers of what they do during this time. How do I know this? Well, I went ahead and asked YOU and sharing your responses in this episode.

 

Episode Transcript: 

What are the expectations for a STEM specialist in an elementary space when it comes to parent-teacher conferences? I was recently talking with one of you over on Instagram at Naomi Meredith underscore and the topic of parent-teacher conferences came up and we were chatting back and forth and it gave me the idea to record an episode about this. But not only that, I actually asked you in various places what you actually do during parent-teacher conferences. So there's no video for this one because I'm going to do a lot of reading.

You guys showed up and shared exactly what you do and this I think is very insightful because you might be in this situation where you might be the only one who teaches STEM in your building and maybe you have a team of other teachers who are kind of similar like PE, art, and music, but really you're probably only the STEM teacher in your space. So I appreciate these comments so much and I know you are going to as well. Really quick before I read those, I will share what my role was when I was teaching STEM and what it was like for parent-teacher conferences.

For our parent-teacher conferences, they actually were four nights. We went Monday through Thursday in a row and there were two late nights where we went until seven o'clock and then two shorter nights where we went till five o'clock. Doesn't seem that much shorter.

But what we did as a special team is we counted out all the hours and we divided out the hours evenly and we took turns covering the main office. So our office ladies actually were not expected to stay for parent-teacher conferences, but we were as specialists. So we took turns being in the front office and our job was to make sure that parents signed in.

We let them in through the front doors and we directed them to classroom. Another thing that we did is we actually had to go on the intercom every 15 or 20 minutes, whatever the conferences were. We had to go over the intercom and say, this is the end of like your 7-15 conference.

Thank you so much parents for being here. Please finish up and we can move on to the next appointment slot. Our school, we made sure everybody signed up at conferences.

They had the same timeframes and this was really helpful for teachers because you know, you might have some more chatty parents or ones who want to take over the next time. So we would go ahead and do that. That's what we did.

And then it would come in waves for sure when the parents would come in. So what I would do in between little slow moments is actually set up all of my emails for the rest of the year for the teachers. So when it was their rotation, when to bring their computers.

And then I also set up all of my emails for my afterschool clubs. So I always did a reminder email the day before. So that's one thing.

It's kind of mindless-ish, but something that I would work on or another thing I would work on is like cutting out stuff. But couldn't get a whole lot done. And then of course, talking to parents too, if I had their students, which it was usually pretty positive.

Here and there, I would go in and support classroom teachers with specific students where they needed some more support and other eyes of what was happening in the classroom. So if that was the case, me and my team, we would figure out, hey, could you come cover for this little bit? I need to go into this classroom. So I wasn't in the front office the whole time, neither were my teammates, but that was just a responsibility that we had.

All right, so let's get into what you all shared. I'm going to share first names, but they're also in no particular order. So I think this you will find very helpful.

Brandon says, we can have conferences with families. It's our choice. We usually just mostly greet parents as they come in, direct traffic, etc.

Be a welcoming voice and talk to the parents as they wait for grade level conferences to begin. Shannon says, usually we're answering questions and guiding parents to rooms. I also like to put information for parents on the bulletin boards outside my hall and highlight student work.

Oh, I love that. If you have the room, that's a great idea. Sometimes I'm brought in to reinforce another teacher's observations about behavior or understanding of content knowledge.

Patty says she's mostly support. I sit in on a conference that might be challenging for the homeroom teacher to support concerns and help with upset parents. I field questions on a drop-in basis and anything that might be requested.

So, so far with these teachers, and I'm sure these other teachers as well that I'm going to read to this too, most of these teachers, and I think you can relate, were in the classroom before. So having that other support of another teacher in the building is really, really insightful. It really helps get that well-rounded view of a student.

Sharon says, we haven't had formal parent-teacher conferences yet at the time of her submitting this comment, but I have called some parents to introduce myself and let them know my role. I do like to tell the parents positive stories about their children. I think that's excellent at any time of year, especially if you don't, you don't want the first phone call to be, hey, something bad happened.

I'm the STEM teacher. This is what STEM is. So that's a really great idea to keep the communication all year long.

Cindy says, I'm in my space working on new learning for me, but families can stop by whenever they want. I have the room set up like it is when students are here and kids can show their families what we do. It's been very helpful in getting donations and support for the program.

I have K through 5, about 750 students. I feel your girl is a great idea. And I would do the same thing the times I wasn't in the front office.

So super helpful. Nick says, very similar to what Cindy said, we were just available if parents wanted to come talk, but usually didn't see many parents, which that can happen too. I think one year I set some stuff up for kids to do if they came down, so I can meet some parents.

Dana says that they support parents needing to locate teachers, which definitely can be a thing. It can be really confusing in any elementary school I have found. And she also helps run food to teachers and manages the front door.

Kelsey says for parent teacher conferences, my specials team is expected to have a table set up by the book fair on our library during our late night. Then parents can stop by and say hi if they want, which I think that's a great idea. I've seen quite a few schools and some of the schools I've been at have done this, not every year, but they do the book fair the same week as parent teacher conferences.

So that's a great tip too, to get those donations for your school and knowing that families might be staying later anyway, that's a great location to be at. One of my friends, Becca, she has to actually help inside the book fair. So that is quite an adventure.

I've done that also before and it's really fun. Of course I would find it fun, but I think it's really fun bringing up the books and showing kids what there is available. Kelly says that she gives directions and chats with anyone who comes by the lab.

It's usually one to two families out of 400, which yeah, that can be really common. Kristen says, I thought this was really cool. I have never heard of this and I should have followed up with her if this actually helps seeing more parents, but she said our students get a passport booklet to get a sticker from each special that they visit and then she's also supporting teachers and being available for the parents and students.

So I'm curious, I should ask her if that does help seeing more because they want to get that sticker. That's really, really cool. Then Sarah says she supports the teachers if needed, but otherwise the help out pass out books and information to families.

So overall, very different than a classroom teacher for sure, but as you can tell with all of these responses that everybody is helping at the school in some way and still being supportive of that community and being visible during that time. If your school is a little bit confused, what should you even do? I think these are really great suggestions and overall very similar to what the expectations are for a STEM specialist or just even special teachers in general. I hope you found this episode helpful.

I'm trying out lots of different styles, especially ways to get your voice. So it's like we're traveling to each other's classroom. So if you loved this episode, let me know.

Feel free to send me an email or you can send me a DM on Instagram at Naomi Meredith underscore. Thank you so much and I will see you in the next episode. Thank you so much for listening to today's episode of the elementary STEM coach podcast.

I would love to connect with you over on Instagram at Naomi Meredith underscore, or send me an email to elementary STEM coach podcast at gmail.com. Also make sure to check out my website, Naomi Meredith.com to see all the show notes from today's episode and shop my K-5 STEM resources. Any questions you have, needs for resources or ideas for episodes, get in touch. I'll talk to you soon.

Related Episodes/Blog Posts:

Check out this playlist on Spotify I put together with all the episodes related to Back to School:

 

Connect with Naomi Meredith:

 

More About your host, Naomi Meredith

Naomi Meredith is an online K-5 STEM Coach in Colorado supporting elementary teachers world-wide navigate the best practices, strategies and tools out there. With over a decade of experience teaching, 5 years teaching elementary STEM, along with a M.Ed. in STEM Leadership and STEM Certificate, Naomi helps teachers world-wide to navigate best practices, strategies and tools out there. 

She offers a variety of tools to help teachers feel successful teaching STEM to their elementary students through lesson plans, online courses, coaching and speaking events.

She truly believes that any teacher out there can learn how to use STEM, innovation and hands-on learning in their classrooms effectively. She can’t wait to connect with you and be your guide!

More About The Elementary STEM Coach Podcast

Are you tired of scrolling online for your next great STEM lesson? Do you feel like there is no time to plan, research and test meaningful STEM lessons, so you throw together a hands-on activity and hope that it works? What systems and routines should you set in place to help students be creative, critically think, and collaborate? 

The Elementary STEM Coach is a podcast for K-5 STEM teachers, classroom teachers, GT specialists, and homeschool parents looking for actionable STEM solutions. Each week, Naomi Meredith will share tools, resources and lesson ideas that are actionable in your classroom and create highly engaging experiences with your students. You’ll learn systems and routines that will create control in the chaos and that will keep you organized all year long. 

Your mindless scrolling days are over! Your new STEM-best friend is now here in your ear buds!

10 STEM Door Decoration Ideas for Your Classroom

by Naomi Meredith

10 STEM Door Decoration Ideas for Your Classroom

Easy STEM door decoration ideas that you can easily print, cut and hang, and even use again year after year! What's even better is they come in full color or black and white versions to meet your printing needs.

Sure, you can be creative and think fo some fun ideas on your own, but to have STEM door decorations that are already created AND thought out for you, this is a no-brainer.

You can grab the entire bundle of these door decorations here in my TpT Shop-Naomi Meredith. 

#1 STEM Door Decoration- Inventions that Light Up Our World

Inspire students with different inventions that glow and light up like light bulbs, fireworks and candles. This board says “Inventions that Light Up Our World” then have cute lightbulbs that each have an invention with a picture and label.

Grab this door decoration here 

#2 STEM Door Decoration- Perfect STEM Pairs 

There are some STEM inventions that are better together. Things like paper and scissors, monitors & keyboards and robot & batteries. This cute, heart themed board is perfect for Valentine's Day season and says “Perfect STEM Pairs”. Surround the words are connected hearts with the STEM inventions to match.

Grab this door decoration here

#3 STEM Door Decoration-STEM Lucky Charms

There are those items when working with STEM Projects that when you have access to them, you feel extra lucky. Can anyone say “Unlimited tape please!?”. This board says “STEM Lucky Charms” with those need-to-have STEM items surrounding on shamrocks with words like hot glue, cardboard, and batteries. This board is great for March with its vibrant rainbow and pot of gold that can be added to the corner.

Grab this door decoration here

#4 STEM Door Decoration-Inventions Our Earth Loves

Not all inventions are Earth-friendly. However, some make a major and positive impact. Celebrate Earth Month with this door that says “Inventions our Earth Loves”. Surround the words with hearts with innovative inventions that are making a positive impact to Earth's resources like Wind Turbines, solar power, and maglev trains. The Earth on this board is absolutely adorable with its little smile!

Grab this door decoration here

#5 STEM Door Decoration-STEM is out of this world!

This space-themed door is perfect for any time of year. Complete with an easy to assemble rocket and the words “STEM is out of this world”, this door is a lot of fun! To complete the design are stars highlighting skills STEM provides like creating, exploring, inventing and discovering.

Grab this door decoration here 

#6 STEM Door Decoration-Core STEM Structures

What are some simple, yet effective building techniques that engineers use to ensure things hold up the way they should? On this board displaying “Core STEM Structures” are some of those need-to-know designs. Items such as screws, arches, and levers are added to the apple and apple core designs that decorate this door.

Grab this door decoration here. 

#7 STEM Door Decoration-The Magic Potions of STEM

Sure, there are fun things you can build with STEM, but what are those “Magic Potions of STEM” as this door describes? What really improves STEM projects is creativity. grit, hard-work and innovation, which are some of the words listed on the bottle designs on this door. This board works well for Halloween season, but many teachers like to hang this board up for other times of year too!

Grab this door decoration here

#8 STEM Door Decoration-STEM is unbeLEAFable

As the leaves change outside, so can your STEM door decoration with this design. With the words “STEM is unbeLEAFable” there are different types of projects listed on leafs. Things like robotics, experiments, and coding are listed on the colorful leaves for this door.

Grab this door decoration here 

#9 STEM Door Decoration-Let it Code, Let it Code, Let it Code

The weather outside is frightful, but your door decoration can be do delightful. Build a snowman not out of snow and hang it next to “Let it Code, Let it Code, Let it Code”. Then, surround the scene with snowflakes that have different coding vocabulary listed like debugging, binary code and algorithm.

Get this door decoration here

#10 STEM Door Decoration-Cooking up Sweet STEM Creations

Building a gingerbread house can be messy, but not with this door decoration design. Hang up the words “Cooking Up Sweet STEM Creations” with a cute gingerbread house and gingerbread people. Listed on the gingerbread characters are the fun topics you can learn about in STEM like Makersapce, 3D Printing and Digital Design.

Grab this door decoration here 

 

Which designs would you hang up in your classroom? You can grab the entire bundle of print and cut STEM door decorations HERE.

 

STEM Door Decorations Listed in this Post

#1- Inventions that Light Up Our World

#2-Perfect STEM Pairs

#3-STEM Lucky Charms

#4-Inventions Our Earth Loves

#5-STEM is out of this world!

#6-Core STEM Structures

#7-The Magic Potions of STEM

#8-STEM is unbeLEAFable

#9-Let it Code, Let it Code, Let it Code

#10-Cooking up Sweet STEM Creations

 

Other Posts You Might Enjoy:

Connect with Naomi Meredith:

 

More About the author, Naomi Meredith

Naomi Meredith is an online K-5 STEM Coach in Colorado supporting elementary teachers world-wide navigate the best practices, strategies and tools out there. With over a decade of experience teaching, 5 years teaching elementary STEM, along with a M.Ed. in STEM Leadership and STEM Certificate, Naomi helps teachers world-wide to navigate best practices, strategies and tools out there.

She offers a variety of tools to help teachers feel successful teaching STEM to their elementary students through lesson plans, online courses, coaching and speaking events.

She truly believes that any teacher out there can learn how to use STEM, innovation and hands-on learning in their classrooms effectively. She can’t wait to connect with you and be your guide!

Your Questions About Elementary Makerspace Answered [ep.177]

by Naomi Meredith

Your Questions About Elementary Makerspace Answered [ep.177]

Check out the full episode about questions about Elementary Makerspace:

 

Subscribe to the podcast HERE on your favorite podcasting platform.Have a STEM question? Leave a voice message for the podcast!

Watch the video episode here!

 

Episode Summary

In this episode, I dive into my Instagram DMs to answer some of the most common questions you’ve asked me about Makerspace. Whether you're an experienced STEM teacher or just getting started, I’m sharing tips on everything from managing materials to encouraging student collaboration. I’ll walk you through how I handle group projects, how students can “buy” supplies using a Makerspace menu, and creative ways to decide who gets to take projects home.

Resources Mentioned:

 

Some items are linked to my Amazon Affiliate account. When you purchase through my link, there is no added cost to you, but I receive a small commission in return.

 

Episode Transcript: 

Today's episode is a fun one. I went back through my Instagram DMs at Naomi Meredith underscore and pulled out all of your questions about Makerspace. A little feature is that you can use the search bar in the message and I just typed in Makerspace and pulled up those conversations that I have had with some of you.

I'm not going to mention your names, but listen carefully because maybe it's the question that you have asked me or maybe it is a question that you were hoping to ask me and you were so happy somebody else did because I am going to answer them in today's episode. If you want more about Makerspace, I actually have put together a whole playlist that are all of the Makerspace episodes that I have up until this date. You can grab the playlist in the show notes for this episode or you can get all of my playlists for absolutely free.

You can grab this at NaomiMeredith.com slash podcast playlist. I'm going to be reading these questions in no particular order. It was just how I pulled them and put them in my Google Doc for this episode, so let's get into it.

When the kids design and make something, do you have any suggestions on who gets to take the creation home or do you have them all make it? I have 22 to 25 students in my classes, so I've been having them work in pairs to save on materials. Yes, I almost always have kids work in pairs or groups of two or three. Four can be a lot, so then I'll just do two and two, but almost always I have kids work in groups when they are creating a Makerspace project.

There are a few reasons for this, one being the materials. If every single kid is creating their own project, you're going to run out of materials really, really, really quickly and they don't need to be creating their own. Side note for my new after-school programs that I am hosting at various schools I'm traveling around, the kids are actually creating their own projects, but they're paying for the after-school club and part of the cost of the club is material, so that is a whole different thing.

But in a classroom setting, the goal is to have kids collaborate, work together, and problem solve, so I almost always have them work in groups. Sometimes at the beginning of the year with the little kids, I will have them create their own only because those projects are really short, they can be done in one day, they aren't a lot of materials, like maybe it's one piece of cardboard. Super easy for me to get more cardboard.

Have you seen my garage of flattened Amazon boxes? So sometimes I will actually have the little, little kids create their own because they're just going to take it home that day, but for the most part they do create their own project. Now, managing materials, I have them typically used by makerspace menu, so almost every single item they have access to has a price, they have a budget they have to work with, I have actual Monopoly play money, they have to pay for their supplies, and this really helps them think about what are they using in their project, are they using too much? Well, they can't because they have to buy it, so that helps a ton with the actual projects. Also, think about the size, I talk about this a lot, their projects are usually really small, they can fit in a gallon Ziploc bag, who says their projects have to be huge? They don't, they take longer to build, so I make sure their projects are smaller.

When it comes to taking their projects home, I love, love, love using Seesaw K-5. Now, I like Seesaw in particular, again, not sponsored, I've used it forever since I've taught as a classroom teacher, but I love Seesaw because the kids can take videos and pictures of their work and explain what is happening, and they can take multiple of these, and this is really good for parents to see. Some, if not most kids are okay with just the photo or video of their work, so they don't really feel like they need to take it home.

Some kids are cool with, hey, you just take the project home, no big deal. Some kids are in a partnership with someone they live next door, so they make a deal, I have the project for one week, you get it the next week, and if it is a whole big issue, then we do rock, paper, scissors, and that's just the way it goes. Here and there, you actually might have groups who nobody wants to take at home, so what I tell those groups is, okay, if you don't want to take it home, deconstruct your project, anything that can be reused, go put it away.

Some of the projects you can't take home. There are some projects I do with water, it's soggy, you can't take it home, and that solves a lot of problems. So that, yes, all of these people, by the way, that messaged me, I did answer them, but these are the longer responses that you get to hear my beautiful voice.

Also, it's on YouTube, so if you want to hear and see me talk about it, go and check it out. Hey, Naomi, I was a primary and elementary art teacher for the last two years, and I was asked to take up the responsibility of the STEAM and maker space. It was definitely challenging at the same time, exciting to head into unknown space.

The words that you mentioned, that you were the only one in the school who was zero clue what the curriculum resonated with me. Your content and podcasts have been a glue to make my resolve of giving my best at this role. I have all the K-5 STEM year-long plan bundle, and the things I need to start are the maker space bundle.

I was wondering if I needed anything else besides these. Well, thank you so much for your kind words. That is very, very nice.

Yes, I was the only STEM teacher in my building, so I taught third grade for six years. Then I walked into a new-to-me district, new-to-me position, new-to-me school with zero curriculum, and a pat on the back, good luck, which I'm cool with that, but it's a lot. It's a lot on your own, so I did develop my whole curriculum K-5, still developing and teaching curriculum.

I'm actually working on a lot of maker space. I'm going to talk about that in a second, but I am so glad that everything has been really helpful, so thank you so much. That's so nice of you.

I do have a maker space bundle, so the K-5 STEM year-long plan are the lessons that I taught with students K-5, and they are very much project-based learning lessons. Many are maker space lessons, but not all of them are. The maker space bundle specifically has some other just one-off maker space lessons that you can do with any kids at any time.

It also includes the maker space menu that I just talked about. It's editable, so it has all the items, the prices I suggest, and the method behind the madness. I also have my maker space label, so everything can match.

They have words and pictures, different colors that can match your classroom, easy to read. I'm editing and creating actually other sizes to that, so that's really helpful as well. There are also some other helpful posters in there, like a hot glue gun poster, which some of you, and I know Kelly Hogan does this in Mathematically Enthused, actually frames the posters and put it at their station.

So the maker space bundle, again, has those getting started lessons and some other materials that will help you create that climate and culture in your classroom, but really complement the lessons in the K-5 STEM year-long plan. So curious, when you have a sub, do you alter your lessons, or do students still have full access to your supplies and materials? I said typically no. For the most part, when I have a sub, I almost always know I'm going to be gone, so I will plan ahead with a project where maybe they will finish a project before a sub comes in, or let's say it's midweek.

Now, I was very spoiled with my schedule. I had kids five days in a row, so I would maybe have the kids work two days, they have the sub, do some random project, and then they would get into the maker space project. I didn't want to burden the sub and teach them, here's how to do maker space money and manage everything and hot glue guns and tape and all of that.

No. So typically no, I didn't actually do those types of projects. I would just do a one-off type of project.

Now, if it's a digital project they're already working on, let's say 3D printing, usually I'm okay with the class working on that when I'm not there. Robots? Not so much. Hour of code? Sure.

With K-2, I almost always would leave a book and a small building challenge where these are the blocks you can build with and they have to be cleaned up and put away at the end. When in doubt, Lego bricks are always a great option. I actually would write that exact sentence on my sub plans.

So the short answer, no. Now, funny enough you asked about sub plans. I think I mentioned this in another episode, but I am actually going to be long-term subbing for one of my STEM teacher friends in the district I taught in.

So from mid-October to mid-February, I'm going to be teaching K-5 STEM at the school I did Lego Club at. I will actually be teaching my own curriculum and also coming up with new things. So I'm excited to talk about that experience with you, what it's actually like being the STEM sub.

We collaborated me and that teacher. I'm like, hey, don't worry about it. That's a lot of lessons.

What do you want to teach? I'll teach whatever. I'll choose cool with that. So that's going to be really fun to report out on and also give you some tips and tricks for when you are writing sub plans.

I do have an episode about sub plans, but what is it like being the sub? Okay. And the last question, do you have recommendations for doing STEAM on a cart? I will be doing K-5. So I'm assuming this teacher has started the cart already.

Some teachers actually taught STEM on a cart during COVID or some people that's just the method they have because of space, or maybe you're in a couple of different schools. I did see a really cool cart at Ikea that actually they modeled it as an art cart, but I'm also teaching STEM on a cart. So I have after school programs that have partnered with some schools in my community where I am actually teaching one day makerspace challenges and bringing everything in, in a cart.

So what I would say to get started, because I can do, I will do a full episode on this and this person, I even said that, but to really get started, I would organize all of your supplies where it's easy to grab and go. So I actually just redesigned my home office where all of my cardboard is in a bucket with a lid. All of the buckets are the exact same and they can be stacked and be ready to go.

Now, if you're going into kids' classrooms, they probably have their own marker, scissors, glue, glue sticks, crayons. So you don't have to worry about that. Actually during COVID, I had kids bring in their pencil boxes.

It was actually really nice because I didn't run out of anything. What I like to do is I use those photo boxes that are colorful and rainbow, and I will actually put supplies in there. So I have all my crayons in multiple buckets, glue sticks.

A lot of them can fit in these little containers, by the way, glue sticks, rubber bands, those types of things. I put those in that little carrying case, and then I will take out the materials that I want them to use and put them in caddies. And I have some heavy duty caddies I bought off of Amazon that I can set in different table groups of very specific materials I want them to use.

And then the buckets with those materials I brought in, I will actually limit how much they can use of each one. So maybe I'll use the Make Up My Space money depending, but if it's a one day challenge, which a lot of you going into classrooms it is, I just put on a sticky note with a number, like you can have three pieces of cardboard, have three dots on it, and they can grab as needed. Hopefully those of you who are teaching mobily, you have some sort of home base.

Like if not, if you can't do any of that, like nothing, then I would even ask the teachers classrooms you're going to be in, hey, can I come in before school, plug in these robots, make sure they're charged, maybe put a basket on them so they're not distracting, so that they're already there when you get to the classroom. So you might have to think ahead where things are stored or set things in locations around the school. So like for that day, you know, oh, these materials are there.

So those would be my biggest tips for Mobile's Gen. I hope it was really helpful hearing the answers to some of the questions that you have asked me. If you like this type of episode, let me know, because you guys ask me a lot, I answer you, but it's kind of nice to hear it all at once in one full episode.

And again, maybe you have the same questions as well. Anything you're interested in, all things Makerspace, two things, you can check out that bundle I have in my TPT shop. It's a whole Makerspace bundle with the tools for you to get started.

And my Makerspace podcast playlist, where I've organized all the episodes that I've ever recorded about Makerspace, all condensed in one playlist, so you don't have to search for them. You can grab that playlist and more in the show notes for this episode, or grab it at NaomiMeredith.com slash podcast playlist. Thank you so much.

And I'll see you in the next episode. 

Related Episodes/Blog Posts:

Check out this playlist on Spotify I put together with all the episodes related to Makerspace

 

Connect with Naomi Meredith:

 

More About your host, Naomi Meredith

Naomi Meredith is an online K-5 STEM Coach in Colorado supporting elementary teachers world-wide navigate the best practices, strategies and tools out there. With over a decade of experience teaching, 5 years teaching elementary STEM, along with a M.Ed. in STEM Leadership and STEM Certificate, Naomi helps teachers world-wide to navigate best practices, strategies and tools out there. 

She offers a variety of tools to help teachers feel successful teaching STEM to their elementary students through lesson plans, online courses, coaching and speaking events.

She truly believes that any teacher out there can learn how to use STEM, innovation and hands-on learning in their classrooms effectively. She can’t wait to connect with you and be your guide!

More About The Elementary STEM Coach Podcast

Are you tired of scrolling online for your next great STEM lesson? Do you feel like there is no time to plan, research and test meaningful STEM lessons, so you throw together a hands-on activity and hope that it works? What systems and routines should you set in place to help students be creative, critically think, and collaborate? 

The Elementary STEM Coach is a podcast for K-5 STEM teachers, classroom teachers, GT specialists, and homeschool parents looking for actionable STEM solutions. Each week, Naomi Meredith will share tools, resources and lesson ideas that are actionable in your classroom and create highly engaging experiences with your students. You’ll learn systems and routines that will create control in the chaos and that will keep you organized all year long. 

Your mindless scrolling days are over! Your new STEM-best friend is now here in your ear buds!

How The Bug Chicks Make STEM Fun and Fearless with Entomologists Kristie Reddick & Jessica Honaker [ep.176]

by Naomi Meredith

How The Bug Chicks Make STEM Fun and Fearless with Entomologists Kristie Reddick & Jessica Honaker [ep.176]

Check out the full episode about how to make STEM fun:

 

Subscribe to the podcast HERE on your favorite podcasting platform.Have a STEM question? Leave a voice message for the podcast!

Watch the video episode here!

Episode Summary

I’m sitting down with two incredible women in STEM, Kristie Reddick and Jessica Honaker—also known as The Bug Chicks! These two amazing entomologists have a passion for bugs and an even bigger passion for teaching kids and educators how to use insects as a powerful learning tool.

Kristie and Jessica share their fascinating journey from grad school to building a career that inspires others to see the beauty and importance of bugs in our world. We chat about everything from conquering fears to making STEM more approachable through hands-on experiences. Whether it’s using bugs to teach social-emotional skills or simply sparking curiosity, The Bug Chicks have so much wisdom to share.

Meet Kristie Reddick & Jessica Honaker, The Bug Chicks:

Kristie Reddick and Jessica Honaker are The Bug Chicks – entomologists, educators and scicomm professionals who work at the intersection of STEM and social-emotional learning. They teach about the incredible world of arthropods and specialize in using these incredible animals as a vehicle to help people foster empathy for themselves, others and the natural world. They are the creators and developers of the DIFFERENT: STEM + SEL curriculum, an award-winning, evidence-based program aimed at creating a positive mindset shift in students. They received their Master’s degrees from Texas A&M University. Kristie’s research focused on the biodiversity and biology of solifugae arachnids and Jessica’s work focused on the effects of black margined aphids in agroecosystems.

 

Connect with The Bug Chicks: 

Episode Transcript: 

Today, I have a special treat for you and I am so excited for you to hear from today's guests. Today, I am chatting with Kristie Reddick and Jessica Honaker, who are also known as the Bug Chicks. If you haven't heard of these wonderful, amazing women in STEM, then head on over to my kid podcast, The STEM Career Quest, and they are in episode two of season one, where they tell kids all about being entomologists, their journey into their career, and all the amazing cool things that they get to do when exploring with bugs.

 

But they don't just play with bugs all day. You are going to be hearing from Jessica and Chrissy, where they explain how bugs and insects are a teaching tool, but it is so much more than that. We can literally talk for hours.

 

We always talk a lot before we hit record and after we hit record. They are just so much fun. I told them if they are nearby where I live in Colorado, I would love to go see them in person.

But they are doing so many amazing things in the science education space, where they are influencing those positive mindsets and experiences for both students and for teachers. There are so many amazing takeaways in this episode. Their philosophy and education and what science can be definitely aligns with what I believe in as an educator.

 

I am so excited for you to hear it from them, the bug chicks, Chrissy and Jessica. You are definitely going to love this episode. 

 

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Naomi Meredith: Well, thank you so much for coming back onto the elementary stem coach podcast this time I had both of you as guests on my stem career, quest, podcast and you are our inaugural episode. So that is really, really fun episode, episode, 2, episode, one is about the podcast but if you guys haven't listened to it, it's really really fun episode. But today we're actually talking to you

 

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Naomi Meredith: teachers on the other side of things. So if you both wouldn't mind introducing yourselves in a briefly what you are all about.

 

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Kristie Reddick – The Bug Chicks: Yeah, for sure. My name is Christy Redick. I am one of the bug chicks. Jessica and I are entomologists. We got our master's degrees in entomology from Texas, A and M. University. And we started working together in grad school and we we knew that science, education and using our

 

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Kristie Reddick – The Bug Chicks: using our. How do I say this, using our friendship, like our friendship, got really really strong and solid when we were in grad school? Because I brought Jessica with me to Kenya for part of my research, and we like filmed, and we like lived in a tent for 6 months. It was a big. It was a big deal. And we became besties.

 

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Kristie Reddick – The Bug Chicks: And we thought, Let's work together. And let's teach and make videos and inspire kids to get into science, and also inspire people to feel capable.

 

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Kristie Reddick – The Bug Chicks: I think, feeling capable in learning and feeling capable, especially in the sciences, is super important and and we use bugs to do that. So we use bugs to help people get over their fears and to help people feel capable.

 

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Jessica Honaker – The Bug Chicks: And my name is Jessica Honaker. I'm the other bug chick and, like Christy mentioned, we met in grad school. And we do both have research backgrounds, and and I. And I do wanna add, I think, that I think that one of the ways that we're really able to connect with teachers and with students about bugs is that Christy used to be super afraid of spiders. I used to be kind of like apathetic toward them.

 

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Jessica Honaker – The Bug Chicks: And we both kind of came to this realization that, you know, like arthropods and insects and spiders, and like, they're all super important. And everybody feels really strongly about them one way or the other. And so it's a really good connection point for us. In teaching being able to like, bring the science and the emotion in

 

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Jessica Honaker – The Bug Chicks: to to our work.

 

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Kristie Reddick – The Bug Chicks: Yeah, we work at the cross section of stem and social emotional learning. So there's so much emotion when you're trying to feel capable when you are feeling afraid of the subject, when you are feeling afraid of bugs or afraid of your own potential. And so it all blends together really, really, beautifully. And it's and because we're so enthusiastic about bugs it, we sort of sort of talk about it like we're erosion. You know, we just

 

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Kristie Reddick – The Bug Chicks: we're just gonna wear you down. And then, underneath all of our sort of fortresses that we build up, I think there's some real wonder and some joy for the natural world, and bugs can really bring that out of people.

 

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Naomi Meredith: Absolutely, and I know not every single subject in science classes are all insects, but there are

 

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Naomi Meredith: units. KI know, and I know off the top of my head. K, through 5. Everybody has some sort of environmental science or learning about life cycles or those types of things. So there are definitely connections when it comes to bugs. And you talked about this just a little bit. But why do you think learning about entomology is important for kids, and I know you're so passionate about it. But why do you think so? Because you do teach kids in schools in person. So what have you seen and noticed.

 

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Kristie Reddick – The Bug Chicks: Well, you cannot move through this world as a human being without interacting with arthropods. This is the great thing about them, like there is not one human on the planet who has not had an interaction with an arthropod. And so it's 1 of those things, kind of like food or music that brings us together as humans, even though, like at that point, I don't even care if people are afraid, or if they're interested, it is a connection point. The other thing is that

 

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Kristie Reddick – The Bug Chicks: arthropods. And let's just say insects, for right now they really do

 

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Kristie Reddick – The Bug Chicks: create and drive the world forward.

 

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Kristie Reddick – The Bug Chicks: They. They create the healthy soils that grow our food, they pollinate, they decompose. They are, you know, even the predator systems are so vitally important, and they provide a food source for all of these other animals that people so easily profess that they love. And so I just think that insects are vitally important to not just

 

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Kristie Reddick – The Bug Chicks: the ecosystems that we walk around in, but also they have shaped human culture and human design and human inspiration. Since the since the dawn of human civilization. So I just think we don't recognize them. But they are ever present and very, very important.

 

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Jessica Honaker – The Bug Chicks: Yeah, they do. They do thankless work for us so that we can. We can exist on this planet. And there's a really great quote, that goes something along the lines of if humans were to disappear, the earth would flourish. But if Arthur but if insects were to disappear like we would be toast. That's.

 

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Kristie Reddick – The Bug Chicks: I don't think toasts are in for that quote.

 

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Kristie Reddick – The Bug Chicks: I know that EO. Wilson said toast.

 

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Jessica Honaker – The Bug Chicks: But that's the, you know.

 

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Kristie Reddick – The Bug Chicks: The gist.

 

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Jessica Honaker – The Bug Chicks: General gist.

 

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Kristie Reddick – The Bug Chicks: Really, like.

 

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Jessica Honaker – The Bug Chicks: Super dark this early in the day, but, like, you know.

 

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Naomi Meredith: Makes makes you think, yeah, the big.

 

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Kristie Reddick – The Bug Chicks: They're very, very important. Yeah, they're very, very important.

 

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Naomi Meredith: So you mentioned if kids are scared like you're like, it's fine, you can get over it. And you've even seen this with kids. I remember. One of the stories you told on the stem career quest podcast is when you had, like older upper elementary, you had the tarantula. Oh, what was her name? Was it Beyonce?

 

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Kristie Reddick – The Bug Chicks: Fiance. Her name's.

 

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Naomi Meredith: Beyonce who jumped. But I won't.

 

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Jessica Honaker – The Bug Chicks: Him, and.

 

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Naomi Meredith: I.

 

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Jessica Honaker – The Bug Chicks: Was cooking months.

 

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Kristie Reddick – The Bug Chicks: So.

 

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Naomi Meredith: Oh, cookie monster! The blue one.

 

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Kristie Reddick – The Bug Chicks: The blue one.

 

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Naomi Meredith: Angela, and then she jumped and but the kids were really brave, and everything so.

 

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Kristie Reddick – The Bug Chicks: Yeah.

 

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Naomi Meredith: Like. That's just one experience. But what are some ways that you all get kids excited about bugs in science like? What does it look like when you're with kids or when you're with it might be different when when you're with the school group and when you're presenting, what does that look like when you're in those spaces?

 

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Kristie Reddick – The Bug Chicks: I think, 1st and foremost, when you're you know, when we come in and we have our arthropod zoo with us, they are all behind us in cages which is important. This is something that like to us. It's like fairly obvious that they're in cages. But

 

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Kristie Reddick – The Bug Chicks: when you're confronted with something that might be scary. All sorts of scenarios play through your mind. And so we get lots of questions like, Are they just roaming around like, where are they? What's happening?

 

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Jessica Honaker – The Bug Chicks: Yeah.

 

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Kristie Reddick – The Bug Chicks: So one of the things that we love to do is we'd love to set up the space for success. We put them behind us, and we cover them with a tablecloth, because basically, we need to set up some ground rules and some safety and some listening

 

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Kristie Reddick – The Bug Chicks: and we don't need distraction of things behind us. That's just sort of like a teaching classroom culture kind of thing. And the 1st thing that we do is we ask questions about how do you feel about bugs? And we do not censor. We do like. If you don't like them. I want to hear it. Use your words I want to use the I want to hear the words that you use. If it's creepy, if it's gross, if it's this, if it's that, say it give it to us. You're not going to hurt our feelings.

 

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Kristie Reddick – The Bug Chicks: and that's powerful because people want to be

 

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Kristie Reddick – The Bug Chicks: heard and how they feel about things, because and.

 

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Jessica Honaker – The Bug Chicks: Respected.

 

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Kristie Reddick – The Bug Chicks: Exactly. Yeah, like, we're not. We're not here to turn people into entomologists. What we do is we use bugs to ignite

 

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Kristie Reddick – The Bug Chicks: that passion for learning.

 

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Kristie Reddick – The Bug Chicks: And and

 

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Kristie Reddick – The Bug Chicks: a and like. I don't know if I don't know if you've experienced this in a classroom. I think we all have as teachers or educators

 

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Kristie Reddick – The Bug Chicks: that sometimes

 

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Kristie Reddick – The Bug Chicks: sometimes students or students or audience members can just be sort of like a little dull and zombified. And my goal is, I want everyone to know what it feels like to feel capable number One and number 2 awake, alive and alert. So if I can get students to feel awake, alive and alert about something, and if we got live bugs they're awake, alive and alert. They don't know what's gonna happen.

 

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Kristie Reddick – The Bug Chicks: So that's 1 thing, and then the next thing is proper boundaries, and making sure that they know that we are not here to scare them, we are not here to do jump scares. We're not this. We're not these people on the Internet who grab animals and force them to sting us. We're not into that at all. That's the opposite of how we do.

 

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Jessica Honaker – The Bug Chicks: Hmm.

 

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Kristie Reddick – The Bug Chicks: Teach about wonder. We teach about curiosity. We teach about observation. We're not going to force you to touch anything. We're not gonna force you to pet anything, hold anything. We are going to ask that you look. And we do a lot of

 

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Kristie Reddick – The Bug Chicks: word switching for students.

 

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Kristie Reddick – The Bug Chicks: So

 

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Kristie Reddick – The Bug Chicks: So if they say creepy, we go great

 

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Kristie Reddick – The Bug Chicks: for the next hour. Can you try to shift the word creepy to interesting?

 

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Kristie Reddick – The Bug Chicks: Can you shift the word Ew. To cool? Just put a K and an L on the end of that fine. And because our words really do inform how we feel about things

 

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Kristie Reddick – The Bug Chicks: and and those are some. Those are some of the techniques that we utilize right off the bat.

 

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Jessica Honaker – The Bug Chicks: Yeah. And

 

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Jessica Honaker – The Bug Chicks: you know, as we as we go through our program, you know, there can be like, you know, we'll bring out. We'll bring out like one of our Beatles.

 

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Jessica Honaker – The Bug Chicks: and people will be like, you know, because because they're they don't know quite what to expect. Once the beetle is then out right. And so, being able to talk about like, you know, this is why, you know, it's moving like this. This is why it looks like this. Here's why it has this behavior. Like one of our death feigning beetles. If you mess with it, it'll lay on its back with its legs up in the air. And it plays dead. And we're like, here's why it does that.

 

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Jessica Honaker – The Bug Chicks: And then, once it feels comfortable it'll roll back over, you know, and walk around, and

 

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Jessica Honaker – The Bug Chicks: and if they don't know that, that's why they roll over, they they can be kind of like startled by that sudden swap to where they're then up and mobile on their hands, and and so just by it, like

 

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Jessica Honaker – The Bug Chicks: we don't dumb down the science.

 

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Jessica Honaker – The Bug Chicks: and so explaining the behaviors explaining the morphology helps. Students know what to expect. And, like, Christy was saying, you know, we build, we build that kind of structure, and we add the science into that structure, and students, no matter how old they are, really thrive with that, because they kind of know what to expect. And you build trust as you move along. Yeah.

 

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Kristie Reddick – The Bug Chicks: Building trust is huge, and also allowing yourself to be vulnerable as an educator is huge.

 

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Kristie Reddick – The Bug Chicks: I will share that. I used to be afraid of spiders

 

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Kristie Reddick – The Bug Chicks: when I was young, I mean like like cry for my dad.

 

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Kristie Reddick – The Bug Chicks: tears hot tears in my ear, holes laying frozen, you know, and it and there, there's a camaraderie there, there's an under.

 

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Jessica Honaker – The Bug Chicks: Understand.

 

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Kristie Reddick – The Bug Chicks: That it's not just like I woke up as a kid and was like yay bugs. I was pretty anti bugs, and

 

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Kristie Reddick – The Bug Chicks: that by learning about them. I changed fear to fascination. That's something we've been saying for years and years and years. And so

 

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Kristie Reddick – The Bug Chicks: we model that strategy of

 

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Kristie Reddick – The Bug Chicks: it's okay to be afraid, and you can't be brave without being afraid. And

 

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Kristie Reddick – The Bug Chicks: we're here with you the whole time. It's not like we're gonna

 

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Kristie Reddick – The Bug Chicks: pop a cockroach in your hands and go get a latte, though that sounds wonderful.

 

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Kristie Reddick – The Bug Chicks: and also we keep it light like.

 

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Kristie Reddick – The Bug Chicks: One of my favorite things to do in a workshop, because we teach so many of these workshops is my goal is to make Jessica laugh in a workshop.

 

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Kristie Reddick – The Bug Chicks: If I if Jessica's laughing in a workshop, we're having a great time.

 

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Kristie Reddick – The Bug Chicks: because

 

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Kristie Reddick – The Bug Chicks: it means that all of us together are in a really joyful experience.

 

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Kristie Reddick – The Bug Chicks: and.

 

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Jessica Honaker – The Bug Chicks: Sorry you're like. Also, she's really funny. And so sometimes it's really hard.

 

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Kristie Reddick – The Bug Chicks: Well, the kids are funny. I mean the you know this as an you know this as a teacher, like sometimes kids will say things that Jessica and I have to.

 

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Kristie Reddick – The Bug Chicks: We have to just.

 

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Jessica Honaker – The Bug Chicks: To stop. You have to.

 

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Kristie Reddick – The Bug Chicks: And you can. I can feel myself like

 

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Kristie Reddick – The Bug Chicks: camping it down like, especially if it's like slightly inappropriate. You gotta. And I'll like, take it, and I'll like I'll I'll hide it right back here, and the minute we get into the parking lot with the doors closed we're like, Oh, no!

 

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Kristie Reddick – The Bug Chicks: And it's joyful. And I think

 

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Kristie Reddick – The Bug Chicks: you know what this reminds me of, too, Jess, is that

 

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Kristie Reddick – The Bug Chicks: kids are people. Kids are human beings.

 

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Jessica Honaker – The Bug Chicks: This is my.

 

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Kristie Reddick – The Bug Chicks: Sometimes

 

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Kristie Reddick – The Bug Chicks: if you don't work with kids a lot, especially if you don't work with like large groups of kids, if you only maybe have your own kids, or or you're only used to. You know your nieces or nephews, or whatever.

 

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Kristie Reddick – The Bug Chicks: It can be.

 

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Kristie Reddick – The Bug Chicks: You can forget that they're human beings.

 

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Naomi Meredith: Hmm.

 

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Kristie Reddick – The Bug Chicks: And you can tell when people don't

 

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Kristie Reddick – The Bug Chicks: like you, and kids can tell when you don't want to be there or when you're not into it. And I think because Jessica, like kids, can tell

 

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Kristie Reddick – The Bug Chicks: that we love teaching. Now.

 

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Kristie Reddick – The Bug Chicks: And the way and what Jessica said about not dumbing it down. I'm really explicit with the way that I speak with with children, and by explicit, I mean, clear right? Yes.

 

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Kristie Reddick – The Bug Chicks: I mean.

 

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Kristie Reddick – The Bug Chicks: I'll say things like, can you tell that we like teaching you? Great? We're not gonna do anything that's gonna hurt you also, this is our job. Would we get hired again if word got out that we did, and like, you know.

 

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Jessica Honaker – The Bug Chicks: You say the word liability.

 

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Kristie Reddick – The Bug Chicks: And I say, can you say the word liability?

 

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Naomi Meredith: Adults. They're adults.

 

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Kristie Reddick – The Bug Chicks: Laugh. And it's like, and it's like really funny. And

 

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Kristie Reddick – The Bug Chicks: but the but they can tell that we genuinely enjoy our work and our time with them, even if they're being chaos and rowdy.

 

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Kristie Reddick – The Bug Chicks: I love chaos and rare.

 

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Kristie Reddick – The Bug Chicks: and especially if the chaos and rowdy is about the thing you're bringing out. If you bring out an animal, and they're like Whoa!

 

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Jessica Honaker – The Bug Chicks: Have Jack.

 

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Kristie Reddick – The Bug Chicks: And I were teaching Jess and I were teaching in Philly.

 

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Kristie Reddick – The Bug Chicks: Was it Philly Jess, or was it New York City?

 

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Jessica Honaker – The Bug Chicks: We were in the Bronx. I think.

 

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Kristie Reddick – The Bug Chicks: In the Bronx just over teaching in the Bronx. It's 1 of our favorite teaching experiences we've ever had hundreds of kids in a dark gymnasium.

 

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Jessica Honaker – The Bug Chicks: They'll.

 

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Kristie Reddick – The Bug Chicks: Patrick.

 

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Jessica Honaker – The Bug Chicks: Very sorry.

 

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Kristie Reddick – The Bug Chicks: Very impacted in Pre covid times.

 

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Kristie Reddick – The Bug Chicks: week over time. Hundreds of kids in a squeak, you know, like sneakers on squeaky gymnasium floors like like a like a like a chaos.

 

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Jessica Honaker – The Bug Chicks: So dark.

 

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Kristie Reddick – The Bug Chicks: It was so dark I don't know what's happening. So we it was like winter. It was like dark.

 

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Kristie Reddick – The Bug Chicks: And so we're showing slides, and we're showing pictures. And we're doing classification of arthropods. And we're talking about the difference between centipedes and millipedes. And we put up a picture of a centipede

 

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Kristie Reddick – The Bug Chicks: and the whole place exploded. These kids have never seen this centipede.

 

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Naomi Meredith: Yeah.

 

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Kristie Reddick – The Bug Chicks: Seen a desert, sunny.

 

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Jessica Honaker – The Bug Chicks: What like you could feel the floor vibrating.

 

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Kristie Reddick – The Bug Chicks: I mean.

 

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Jessica Honaker – The Bug Chicks: And and.

 

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Kristie Reddick – The Bug Chicks: Like the projector screen was doing. Things were bouncing. It was this explosion. You know what

 

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Kristie Reddick – The Bug Chicks: every single student in that room was reacting.

 

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Kristie Reddick – The Bug Chicks: To that they were in it. They were awake, alive and alert, and the teachers who were there were very upset about them being

 

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Kristie Reddick – The Bug Chicks: disrespectful. Yeah. And to us

 

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Kristie Reddick – The Bug Chicks: I'll I'll let people like I'll let the chaos to me. It's like the one of those toys. I don't know if you know those toys that extend. It's a big ball sphere, and it like extends out. And then it comes back together. It's like this like puzzle piece circle to me. That is the energy in a room, and I think it's because I have a degree in theater like my 1st degrees in theater. And so to me.

 

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Kristie Reddick – The Bug Chicks: My job is to be the conductor is to orchestrate the energy in a room, and and if I'm doing my job right, I let it go to a crescendo, and then I can bring it back. And then we focus. And Jessica and I are quite good at that, and I think

 

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Kristie Reddick – The Bug Chicks: because we allow for

 

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Kristie Reddick – The Bug Chicks: raucous joy in learning.

 

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Kristie Reddick – The Bug Chicks: That can be sometimes uncomfortable for principals and teachers who are joining us in our work.

 

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Kristie Reddick – The Bug Chicks: If you just let us. I almost said, Let us cook like I'm a Gen. Z. I'm not. I don't know what's happening to me right now.

 

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Kristie Reddick – The Bug Chicks: This is how you know we teach so

 

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Kristie Reddick – The Bug Chicks: like, if you just if if you just let us do that like.

 

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Kristie Reddick – The Bug Chicks: that's that's the good stuff I mean.

 

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Jessica Honaker – The Bug Chicks: Maximum.

 

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Kristie Reddick – The Bug Chicks: Stuff, you know.

 

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Jessica Honaker – The Bug Chicks: Yeah. And that's some of the stuff that helps us build that rapport right? That allows us to make the connections with the students. Because we've taught students like, we taught some students 10 years ago that still email us.

 

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Naomi Meredith: Oh!

 

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Jessica Honaker – The Bug Chicks: You know, and they still, like, you know, pop onto our Facebook page, or whatever, and make comments. And you know.

 

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Kristie Reddick – The Bug Chicks: Hey? You came to my class, you know. Hey? Do you remember? We just went to a Girl Scout Camp in Portland. We used to live in in the West Coast.

 

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Naomi Meredith: Oh, it's just in Portland. It's beautiful!

 

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Kristie Reddick – The Bug Chicks: It's lovely! It's lovely we were. We lived there for like 10 years and

 

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Kristie Reddick – The Bug Chicks: and we would teach all these Girl Scout Camps or Girl Scout troops, and there was a girl at this Girl Scout Camp. We were doing a leadership summit for the older girls, 123 older girls outside midsummer 90 degrees

 

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Jessica Honaker – The Bug Chicks: Sure they.

 

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Kristie Reddick – The Bug Chicks: After.

 

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Jessica Honaker – The Bug Chicks: Yeah.

 

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Kristie Reddick – The Bug Chicks: Full day of camp. It was like it was intense.

 

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Kristie Reddick – The Bug Chicks: and this girl piped up and said, you taught me

 

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Kristie Reddick – The Bug Chicks: when I was a Brownie. She was now like a junior in high school, and brownies are like.

 

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Naomi Meredith: The little ones.

 

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Kristie Reddick – The Bug Chicks: And so

 

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Kristie Reddick – The Bug Chicks: they they and I used to be so afraid of bugs. And today I helped the brownies hold the bugs. And so it's like, it's that kind of stuff that.

 

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Kristie Reddick – The Bug Chicks: And teachers understand what we're talking about because you teach a student and they they come. You were my favorite teacher, you, you know.

 

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Jessica Honaker – The Bug Chicks: That.

 

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Kristie Reddick – The Bug Chicks: Connection, and even though we drop in only for an hour, or maybe for a day, or maybe for a week, at a school.

 

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Kristie Reddick – The Bug Chicks: our job is to have that much of an impact in such a short time. That's our job. And it. And the impact needs to be positive.

 

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Kristie Reddick – The Bug Chicks: Because a teacher can make or break.

 

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Kristie Reddick – The Bug Chicks: how?

 

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Kristie Reddick – The Bug Chicks: How people move through the world.

 

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Kristie Reddick – The Bug Chicks: Yeah.

 

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Naomi Meredith: And you're definitely role models than a couple of ways which like definitely to the kids like you're modeling like you're using insects as an avenue. But you're really modeling like how science

 

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Naomi Meredith: can be exciting. And this is what we do. This is a possibility. And especially being women in stem. That's such an exciting thing for kids to see. All kids to see that like, there's different possibilities. But also for the teachers. And this kind of goes into the next thing where you're saying, hey, we want you awake alive, alert, like. That's something

 

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Naomi Meredith: really great for teachers to see that science can be something else. I really connect with, like the way that you're teaching, because I would co-teach in classrooms a lot were science based.

 

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Naomi Meredith: And it I would call like controlled chaos, like, I know exactly what's going on. It's everything's fine like, and I'm not just saying that sarcastically. Everything's the kids are into it. But it was way louder than what the teachers would expect. And the classroom teacher thought.

 

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Naomi Meredith: This is wrong. This is not how science should be. I'm like, Oh, no, like we're we were doing rocks and minerals. I remember one, and they were going through all the tests like to see what their rocker mineral was, and so they had to make the observations and the color test the scratch test. And it was loud. The kids are excited. They're talking about. And the teacher didn't know

 

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Naomi Meredith: like how to handle that. And I think that's really great. What you're doing is that teachers can see this is another way science can be and I know, too, when we were talking before we hit record. What you have seen. With teacher trainings and what science like teacher training is, I know, for me. I didn't get a lot of training in my program with even with my

 

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Naomi Meredith: masters, but with how to teach science in an engaging way. Could you just talk? Could you guys talk more about that like what you've seen with teacher trainings like

 

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Naomi Meredith: just how science has been taught.

 

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Kristie Reddick – The Bug Chicks: Yeah, for sure.

 

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Jessica Honaker – The Bug Chicks: Yeah.

 

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Kristie Reddick – The Bug Chicks: Jess. You want to take it.

 

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Jessica Honaker – The Bug Chicks: Yeah, and and I think, too, that this that this goes beyond how teachers are trained. I think this is sort of

 

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Jessica Honaker – The Bug Chicks: how a lot of the majority of people. See, science

 

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Jessica Honaker – The Bug Chicks: is that it's just a bunch of facts.

 

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Jessica Honaker – The Bug Chicks: and you learn the facts and the facts don't change. And you just add more facts, and you add more facts. But

 

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Jessica Honaker – The Bug Chicks: but science is not

 

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Jessica Honaker – The Bug Chicks: sta like it's it's static. Wait, then it's dynamic. There we go, and it like, you know, it changes, and it and it and it evolves. And you know it's a it's a process. It's it's not just one thing that just

 

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Jessica Honaker – The Bug Chicks: stays there. And so you know, I think that students and teachers alike are taught that

 

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Jessica Honaker – The Bug Chicks: when you learn science you memorize the facts, and you do everything by like rote process like

 

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Jessica Honaker – The Bug Chicks: step one step, 2, step 3, and then there's no

 

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Jessica Honaker – The Bug Chicks: venturing out beyond those steps.

 

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Jessica Honaker – The Bug Chicks: When science is really curiosity, science is asking questions about things that you see and things that you wonder about, and you know, and it doesn't always go in a linear direction.

 

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Jessica Honaker – The Bug Chicks: and.

 

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Kristie Reddick – The Bug Chicks: Yeah, I'm thinking about those labs. Jess, like.

 

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Jessica Honaker – The Bug Chicks: Yeah.

 

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Kristie Reddick – The Bug Chicks: When you do a lab sometimes. Yeah, sometimes it's like, Well, did you do it right to get to this? To this foregone conclusion?

 

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Jessica Honaker – The Bug Chicks: Yeah.

 

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Kristie Reddick – The Bug Chicks: Did you do the Ph. Read and do the, you know, and it's like, but that's not how science works like nothing in science. When you're when you're actually doing it goes like.

 

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Kristie Reddick – The Bug Chicks: but and tie it with.

 

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Jessica Honaker – The Bug Chicks: Yeah.

 

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Kristie Reddick – The Bug Chicks: And I think,

 

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Kristie Reddick – The Bug Chicks: yeah, I think that there, I think

 

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Kristie Reddick – The Bug Chicks: forcing people to start with observation is one of the hardest things that we do

 

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Kristie Reddick – The Bug Chicks: and we actually have tools that help teachers with this, like, we made a little flow chart about how to classify arthropods, and we took all the leg numbers out of it.

 

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Kristie Reddick – The Bug Chicks: because people have all this stored knowledge, and if we went oh.

 

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Kristie Reddick – The Bug Chicks: go out and observe a observe a bug right.

 

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Kristie Reddick – The Bug Chicks: they'll go. Oh, it's a dragonfly! You go. Well, how do you know that it's a dragonfly, and you go? Well.

 

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Kristie Reddick – The Bug Chicks: someone told me once that that shape of thing is a dragonfly, and it's got 6 legs, and I know that 6 legs is an insect. Great! Is there any other way of knowing this like. Is there any other way of looking at this? And so we take away the leg counts, and we take away all preconceived notions, and you and it forces you to answer this sort of rubric of questions, and

 

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Kristie Reddick – The Bug Chicks: and it is just sort of resetting our brains to sit quietly and look and wonder, and, as you observe, you have curiosity, and you go. I wonder why that is? And then that is inquiry, and from inquiry go well, how would I test.

 

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Kristie Reddick – The Bug Chicks: That is that testable. And you have to drill down to an actually testable question. And it's easier than you think. It doesn't all have to be fancy contraptions and a lot of tools and a lot of things.

 

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Kristie Reddick – The Bug Chicks: I think one of the things that

 

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Kristie Reddick – The Bug Chicks: teachers can do to bring science process into the classroom is starting with observation.

 

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Kristie Reddick – The Bug Chicks: And and just

 

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Kristie Reddick – The Bug Chicks: run rampant with questions. You're not going to get to answer almost any of them. But wouldn't it be

 

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Kristie Reddick – The Bug Chicks: beautiful to see what questions come out of these amazing minds that think that haven't been taught yet to think in a specific way, because that's the great thing about kids and questions is, their questions are like.

 

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Kristie Reddick – The Bug Chicks: what you know, yeah. And that's coming from observing things. They're natural scientists. They're naturally curious. And if we can.

 

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Kristie Reddick – The Bug Chicks: if we can glom on to that. And if we can capitalize on that, then we're doing science.

 

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Jessica Honaker – The Bug Chicks: And I I think, too, that the idea that science is devoid of emotion

 

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Jessica Honaker – The Bug Chicks: is also

 

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Jessica Honaker – The Bug Chicks: yeah, like a hurdle to overcome, you know, because

 

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Jessica Honaker – The Bug Chicks: people are not devoid of emotion, and people do the science, and so.

 

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Kristie Reddick – The Bug Chicks: People, created science.

 

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Jessica Honaker – The Bug Chicks: Yeah. And so you know what we were talking about early about teachers, maybe feeling uncomfortable when students are getting like super excited and super loud and super into their projects like like, Keep keep that there. You want students to be really excited about the work that they're doing, because that is how they stay

 

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Jessica Honaker – The Bug Chicks: in those programs. That is how they stay in that work is that they love it. They enjoy it. They're excited about it. And so, being able to allow for some of that emotion

 

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Jessica Honaker – The Bug Chicks: and for it to be okay and acceptable. To have that emotion is super important.

 

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Naomi Meredith: Yes.

 

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Kristie Reddick – The Bug Chicks: Also think the concept of

 

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Kristie Reddick – The Bug Chicks: getting really comfortable as a teacher with saying, I don't know.

 

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Naomi Meredith: Hmm.

 

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Kristie Reddick – The Bug Chicks: Is powerful.

 

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Naomi Meredith: Here.

 

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Kristie Reddick – The Bug Chicks: Being able to say, I don't know.

 

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Kristie Reddick – The Bug Chicks: Let's find out. I don't know. How would we find out about this? Turn it around, turn it into a challenge. And I understand also for any teachers out there who are like.

 

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Kristie Reddick – The Bug Chicks: I have curriculum to get through. I've got markers to hit. I've got start testing. I've got all the things like all the things that are happening for you absolutely.

 

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Kristie Reddick – The Bug Chicks: If you have these standards like, I'll just say Ngss standards for this right now, because they're they're pretty across the board, depending on where you are.

 

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Kristie Reddick – The Bug Chicks: Those Ngss standards are.

 

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Kristie Reddick – The Bug Chicks: Sometimes they can feel like they box you in.

 

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Naomi Meredith: Yeah.

 

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Kristie Reddick – The Bug Chicks: But honestly, if you kind of step back and definitely, if you use some of the cross cutting concepts, they really do open up lots of.

 

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Naomi Meredith: Awesome, great.

 

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Kristie Reddick – The Bug Chicks: And creativity for you. Yeah. And I really think beyond the life cycles and ecology and animal stuff

 

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Kristie Reddick – The Bug Chicks: bugs fit into so many of them physics.

 

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Naomi Meredith: Yep.

 

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Kristie Reddick – The Bug Chicks: Weather patterns. True, I mean, yeah, one of our specialties is, how do we get bugs into every subject.

 

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Naomi Meredith: Yeah.

 

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Kristie Reddick – The Bug Chicks: There's a way.

 

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Naomi Meredith: There is.

 

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Kristie Reddick – The Bug Chicks: There's a way to do it, and

 

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Kristie Reddick – The Bug Chicks: and I know that they're engaging for students. And so

 

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Kristie Reddick – The Bug Chicks: if that's your hook like, if you're like. Oh, I think I could get into bugs and use them in my classroom.

 

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Kristie Reddick – The Bug Chicks: They can be a great hook for almost any subject.

 

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Jessica Honaker – The Bug Chicks: I.

 

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Kristie Reddick – The Bug Chicks: and

 

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Kristie Reddick – The Bug Chicks: and that, and and just a callback to what we were talking about earlier, about feeling capable.

 

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Kristie Reddick – The Bug Chicks: You know, one of the things that that is a tenant in our, in our business and in our work is

 

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Kristie Reddick – The Bug Chicks: 15 min ago. If you'd want to hold something.

 

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Kristie Reddick – The Bug Chicks: And now you've watched other people hold things, and you've gotten to the point where you pet it. And then it almost always happens where a student will come up and go.

 

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Kristie Reddick – The Bug Chicks: Okay, I think I'm ready. Can I hold it and go? Yeah, yeah. And you hold it. 15 min ago you didn't want to do this, and now you're doing it. This is what feeling capable feels like. This is what I mean about being explicit, especially about the social, emotional learning. What you are experiencing right now

 

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Kristie Reddick – The Bug Chicks: is you feel capable. I want you to remember what this feels like, because I want you to feel that about reading. I want you to feel that about math.

 

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Kristie Reddick – The Bug Chicks: Does math and science go hand in hand? I want you to feel it about public speaking, about meeting new people like all the things that people get kind of bound up about

 

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Kristie Reddick – The Bug Chicks: being able to identify that that feeling of feeling capable is super important.

 

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Kristie Reddick – The Bug Chicks: And when we can tie it to learning, and we can tie it to a classroom culture.

 

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Kristie Reddick – The Bug Chicks: it becomes a very powerful thing.

 

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Naomi Meredith: I love that. I know everybody is so like. Oh, I need you in my classroom. Please come. They're like.

 

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Kristie Reddick – The Bug Chicks: We do.

 

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Naomi Meredith: So for this, like, there's so many amazing takeaways. Like, I was writing down notes like, there are a million things. So I, just you guys go back and even listen to this again, because there's so many things that you can implement into your own space. And then you can also have the bug ticks

 

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Naomi Meredith: come to you. But like see them in action. But again, just having them as the role model and just seeing a different way to approach science. Maybe it's been a little bit stagnant for you. When I teach some I use science as my base. So when you said Ngss. I agree with how they O, open up projects. I made on my whole curriculum K through 5

 

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Naomi Meredith: using the Ngss because there are so many different possibilities. And just, they're actually a really good way to kind of guide

 

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Naomi Meredith: what you can do like as a base. But it does open up like ways to look at the world. I really don't think they box you into too too much. You just have to

 

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Naomi Meredith: approach it in a different avenue.

 

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Kristie Reddick – The Bug Chicks: Puzzle piece. Take a little of this, take a little.

 

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Naomi Meredith: Yeah.

 

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Kristie Reddick – The Bug Chicks: Glomi together.

 

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Naomi Meredith: Yes, but if teachers like, I want more bug checks, I need them in my school. What kind of programs do you guys offer, and where can they find you.

 

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Jessica Honaker – The Bug Chicks: Hmm, so they can find us at our website. The bugchicks.com.

 

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Kristie Reddick – The Bug Chicks: Or on social media, you can.

 

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Kristie Reddick – The Bug Chicks: DM, us, on social media. We're at the bug chicks just about everywhere.

 

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Jessica Honaker – The Bug Chicks: Put in a Google search, and you'll find us.

 

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Kristie Reddick – The Bug Chicks: Yup and so for schools, one of the things we're doing a lot of is right now. We're based in Cincinnati, Ohio. So we're we're within driving distance of a lot of places.

 

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Naomi Meredith: Yeah, you are.

 

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Kristie Reddick – The Bug Chicks: How central we are. Districts will ask us to come, and we'll come. Do full assembly programs for schools. And we have microscopes and live animals. And it's very interactive. And and it's incredible. And so much fun.

 

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Jessica Honaker – The Bug Chicks: K. Through 12 options for that.

 

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Kristie Reddick – The Bug Chicks: Yeah, we have a couple of different programs. So we can do career connections for older students. We can do

 

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Kristie Reddick – The Bug Chicks: we can. We can do like straight biology of bugs. And we can also do. We have a really beautiful one for K. 5, called Songs of Science.

 

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Naomi Meredith: Huh!

 

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Kristie Reddick – The Bug Chicks: And it's about how insects communicate with each other, and we recreate a forest at night, using noisemakers with students, and of Katie dids calling to each other and chirps, and it's so awesome. But we also put the animals underneath the microscope, and you could see how they make the noise.

 

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Naomi Meredith: Oh!

 

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Kristie Reddick – The Bug Chicks: It's so cool it's so cool.

 

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Naomi Meredith: Oh!

 

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Kristie Reddick – The Bug Chicks: So we have those. And then we also come in for smaller programs where it's like, maybe just your classroom. And that's where we hold and pat and touch and do a lot more of the sort of interactive.

 

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Jessica Honaker – The Bug Chicks: With.

 

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Kristie Reddick – The Bug Chicks: The individual students. But we can also build a program that works for you. So we're going out to Seattle to teach a program we are going to long the Hamptons, like the east of Long Island to teach a full week.

 

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Kristie Reddick – The Bug Chicks: Where else are we going? We might be going to Alaska to teach a full week.

 

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Jessica Honaker – The Bug Chicks: Oh, wow! No!

 

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Kristie Reddick – The Bug Chicks: These are things, are.

 

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Jessica Honaker – The Bug Chicks: It's in the air.

 

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Kristie Reddick – The Bug Chicks: And and so

 

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Kristie Reddick – The Bug Chicks: so yes, we are available. And this is something that we do all the time. And it's a joy for us, and it's also our life and our living. And we love to do it. So yeah.

 

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Naomi Meredith: Well, my friend, just accepted a science position. I was just Googled. How far in Missouri from Ohio? Only 8 and a half hours. So I'm gonna tell her.

 

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Jessica Honaker – The Bug Chicks: Yeah.

 

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Naomi Meredith: She works at a nature school now, which is so cool. So I'm gonna make.

 

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Jessica Honaker – The Bug Chicks: You're listening to this episode.

 

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Naomi Meredith: And.

 

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Kristie Reddick – The Bug Chicks: Yeah, we usually combine it with.

 

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Kristie Reddick – The Bug Chicks: you know, if you combine it with a couple of schools, or you combine it with the district, it makes it makes the whole thing more cost effective. And we can stay and teach. We love to teach at a whole district. And then that way. Everyone, you know, an older sibling and a younger sibling has an experience. It's a really, it's a really cool thing.

 

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Jessica Honaker – The Bug Chicks: Yeah. And oftentimes we do community programs when we do those weeks.

 

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Jessica Honaker – The Bug Chicks: Because not everybody goes to the school. So you know, we'll do library programs or nature.

 

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Naomi Meredith: Center.

 

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Jessica Honaker – The Bug Chicks: Programs. Or, you know, things like that, so that we can then, sort of like, you know, reach a broader audience. So.

 

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Naomi Meredith: Oh, I love that you girls are killing it. I love this so much, and thank you so much for sharing your expertise and your perspective, and just you can tell and I can tell on the other show, too. But you can tell like how passionate you are. You say that. But but really the core of it, and what you're doing, it's not

 

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Naomi Meredith: how we teach about bugs like. There's so much more behind what you're doing which I think is really important for teachers to hear. Not every program is like that at all. And definitely what you're doing

 

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Naomi Meredith: totally aligns with how I think about science and stem. And I need to come see you when you're presenting, because this just sounds so amazing. So when you're near Colorado, let me know.

 

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Jessica Honaker – The Bug Chicks: Got it.

 

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Kristie Reddick – The Bug Chicks: Yeah, I mean, we actually might have something in the works. We people in Colorado are always like.

 

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Naomi Meredith: Oh, yeah. Colorado.

 

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Kristie Reddick – The Bug Chicks: Schools in Colorado that are interested. Yeah.

 

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Naomi Meredith: Oh, good, yeah. Well, thank you so much for your time. And I know teachers are me so excited to check out your programs and even get more bug chicks in with their kids. So thank you so much again.

 

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Kristie Reddick – The Bug Chicks: Thank you for the update.

 

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Jessica Honaker – The Bug Chicks: For having us.

 

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Naomi Meredith: Thank you.

 

Related Episodes/Blog Posts:

Check out this playlist on Spotify I put together with all the episodes related to STEM Events & Community Engagement

 

 

Connect with Naomi Meredith:

 

More About your host, Naomi Meredith

Naomi Meredith is an online K-5 STEM Coach in Colorado supporting elementary teachers world-wide navigate the best practices, strategies and tools out there. With over a decade of experience teaching, 5 years teaching elementary STEM, along with a M.Ed. in STEM Leadership and STEM Certificate, Naomi helps teachers world-wide to navigate best practices, strategies and tools out there. 

She offers a variety of tools to help teachers feel successful teaching STEM to their elementary students through lesson plans, online courses, coaching and speaking events.

She truly believes that any teacher out there can learn how to use STEM, innovation and hands-on learning in their classrooms effectively. She can’t wait to connect with you and be your guide!

More About The Elementary STEM Coach Podcast

Are you tired of scrolling online for your next great STEM lesson? Do you feel like there is no time to plan, research and test meaningful STEM lessons, so you throw together a hands-on activity and hope that it works? What systems and routines should you set in place to help students be creative, critically think, and collaborate? 

The Elementary STEM Coach is a podcast for K-5 STEM teachers, classroom teachers, GT specialists, and homeschool parents looking for actionable STEM solutions. Each week, Naomi Meredith will share tools, resources and lesson ideas that are actionable in your classroom and create highly engaging experiences with your students. You’ll learn systems and routines that will create control in the chaos and that will keep you organized all year long. 

Your mindless scrolling days are over! Your new STEM-best friend is now here in your ear buds!

Why Every Elementary STEM Classroom Needs a STEM Affirmation Station

by Naomi Meredith

Why Every Elementary STEM Classroom Needs a STEM Affirmation Station

As educators, we know that the classroom environment plays a crucial role in student engagement and learning. But beyond posters, bulletin boards, and seating arrangements, there's one addition that can truly transform your elementary STEM classroom: a STEM Affirmation Station.

What Is a STEM Affirmation Station?

A STEM Affirmation Station is a dedicated space in your classroom where students can find positive affirmations related to their STEM learning experiences. It's a place where they can take a moment to reflect on their abilities, celebrate their achievements, and build the confidence needed to tackle challenging STEM concepts.

Imagine a corner of your room filled with colorful cards, posters, or even a digital board, all displaying encouraging messages like, “I am a problem-solver,” “I can learn from my mistakes,” or “I have the creativity to find solutions.” These affirmations can be tailored to reinforce the growth mindset, which is especially crucial in STEM subjects where students often face complex problems and need persistence to succeed.

Why It Matters

1. Promotes a Growth Mindset: STEM subjects require students to embrace challenges, experiment, and learn from failures. An affirmation station encourages a growth mindset by reminding students that making mistakes is a natural part of learning. It reinforces the idea that effort and perseverance are just as important as getting the right answer.

2. Builds Confidence: Many students struggle with self-doubt, especially when they encounter difficult concepts in math, science, technology, or engineering. A daily dose of positive reinforcement can boost their confidence, making them more willing to participate in class discussions, take risks, and engage in hands-on projects.

3. Encourages Self-Reflection: An affirmation station invites students to pause and reflect on their learning journey. This practice of self-reflection helps them recognize their strengths, set personal goals, and take ownership of their learning. It’s a simple yet powerful way to foster intrinsic motivation.

4. Enhances Classroom Culture: A STEM Affirmation Station contributes to a positive and supportive classroom culture. It helps create an environment where students feel valued, respected, and encouraged to express their ideas. This sense of community can lead to more collaboration, better communication, and a stronger sense of belonging among students.

 

How to Create a STEM Affirmation Station

Setting up a STEM Affirmation Station is easy and can be customized to fit your classroom's needs:

  • Start Small: Begin with a simple board or wall space where you can post a few affirmations each week. You can also use sticky notes, index cards, or printouts.
  • Get Students Involved: Invite your students to contribute their own affirmations. This can be a great way to involve them in the process and ensure the messages resonate with them.
  • Use Technology: If you have access to a digital board or tablets, consider creating a digital affirmation station. Students can interact with the affirmations, adding their own or selecting ones that speak to them.
  • Rotate Affirmations: Keep the station fresh by rotating the affirmations regularly. You can align them with current lessons, upcoming projects, or even the challenges you know your students are facing.

 

 

Conclusion

Incorporating a STEM Affirmation Station into your elementary classroom is a simple yet impactful way to support your students' emotional and academic growth. It helps cultivate a learning environment where students feel empowered to take risks, embrace challenges, and celebrate their successes. By fostering a positive mindset, you're not just teaching STEM—you’re nurturing the innovators of tomorrow.

So, why not give it a try? Your students' smiles and newfound confidence will be all the affirmation you need that it’s working.

 

Grab this STEM Affirmation Station for your classroom here! 

 

 

Related Posts:

Connect with Naomi Meredith:

 

More About  the Author, Naomi Meredith

Naomi Meredith is an online K-5 STEM Coach in Colorado supporting elementary teachers world-wide navigate the best practices, strategies and tools out there. With over a decade of experience teaching, 5 years teaching elementary STEM, along with a M.Ed. in STEM Leadership and STEM Certificate, Naomi helps teachers world-wide to navigate best practices, strategies and tools out there.

She offers a variety of tools to help teachers feel successful teaching STEM to their elementary students through lesson plans, online courses, coaching and speaking events.

She truly believes that any teacher out there can learn how to use STEM, innovation and hands-on learning in their classrooms effectively. She can’t wait to connect with you and be your guide!

 

 

3 STEM Teacher Systems You Need to Start Now [Back to School Series] [ep.174]

by Naomi Meredith

3 STEM Teacher Systems You Need to Start Now [Back to School Series] [ep.174]

Check out the full episode about STEM teacher systems:

 

Subscribe to the podcast HERE on your favorite podcasting platform.

Have a STEM question? Leave a voice message for the podcast!

Watch the video episode here!

Episode Summary

How can you actually get it all done and keep track of everything as a STEM teacher? I'm sharing my tried-and-true systems and hacks to help you stay on top of your busy schedule as a STEM teacher. Balancing the demands of teaching, meetings, and other responsibilities can be overwhelming, but with the right strategies, you can maximize your productivity and keep track of everything that needs to be done.

From managing emails and using Google Calendar to setting timers for yourself and your students, these simple yet effective techniques have helped me stay organized both in the classroom and in my small business. I hope you find these tips helpful and encourage you to try them out in your own routine!

Key Takeaways:

  • Email Management:
    • Install the email app on your phone but set notifications for specific times of the day.
    • Organize emails into folders for easy reference and keep your inbox clutter-free.
  • Google Calendar:
    • Input all your class schedules, school events, and personal tasks in your Google Calendar.
    • Utilize reoccurring tasks for routine activities and sync your calendar with your devices for seamless reminders.
  • Task Tracking:
    • Use a simple notebook for daily task lists, highlighting completed tasks to visually track progress.
    • Re-write unfinished tasks each day to stay on top of your to-do list.
  • Timer Hacks:
    • Set timers on your watch for student activities and personal breaks to keep your day running smoothly.
    • Use classroomscreen.com for visual timers during class activities.
  • Staying Productive:
    • Create systems that work for you, like organizing emails, using digital calendars, and setting timers, to reduce mental load and increase efficiency.

Resources Mentioned:

Some items are linked to my Amazon Affiliate account. When you purchase through my link, there is no added cost to you, but I receive a small commission in return.

Episode Transcript: 

Welcome to the Elementary STEM Coach Podcast. I'm your host, Naomi Meredith, a former classroom teacher turned K-5 STEM teacher and coach. With over a decade of experience teaching and a master's degree in STEM leadership, I'm here to coach you throughout the year to help you gain back more time to create innovative experiences for your students.

You're teaching hundreds of kids a day. You have before school duties, after school clubs, lesson meetings, staff meetings, all the things that comes with being a teacher in general, and it is still busy being a STEM teacher. How can you keep track of it all and maximize your work time and also all of those little tasks throughout each and every day? I'm going to be sharing with you my systems and hacks that I use religiously as a teacher and also as a small business owner.

They might seem very simple, but they work very, very well, and it has helped me stay productive and keep track of all the many things that are going on each day. I hope you are liking this short episode format. They're really fun for me to record a little bit hard because I just want to talk and talk and talk, but I hope that you are getting a lot out of it.

So let me know, write a review or send me a message on Instagram. I would love to hear how you're liking this new format. The first thing that really helps me stay on top of things is the way that I manage my emails.

And this might sound counterintuitive what I'm going to explain. But hear me out. This is what I do.

I actually do have the email apps on my phone. As a classroom teacher, I actually did not because I felt like you got a lot more parent emails in that way. But when I became a STEM teacher, I actually got the app on my phone.

And what the first thing that I did was I switched my email notifications to only turn on at a certain time of the day during the week, and then turn off. So I believe I had my email turn on from six to 4pm. I still got emails outside of those times, but I wasn't notified.

And I really want to go in and check unless there's something really, really, really important I need to keep track of. Otherwise, I wouldn't get those notifications. This is also really helpful too.

Because if you're on vacation, you can just delete that email app, but then you can have to resign in and do all the things I would just go in put myself like turn off notifications completely during those longer breaks and easy as that. Like I said, you can check when you need to. I also will check my emails all day and respond all day.

And I know most people are totally against that they need to be in the moment and everything. I am a busy person on the go, I will respond to you as soon as I can. And I will move that message that goes along with my second tip into a folder.

I hardly delete messages in my email, if there's spam, sure. But I have folders for everything, everything. When I was teaching every single grade level had their own folder, every single project, every type of event, or there's a district folder, there was a school folder, I have folders for everything.

Because then everything was sorted and organized, my inbox usually has about 10 to 15 emails in there. Because those are things that I am working on projects. And then when I'm finished, I will move it into the folder.

So I know everyone has different systems, maybe they never delete anything or never move any emails. For me, that's visually crazy. And so I answer emails all throughout the day.

During that work time, I answer on my phone, if it's a longer email, I will sit down and respond. But this works very, very well, because I hardly ever, as a teacher sit down and just answer emails all day. That is not what I would do, I would answer them on the go, and then move on to the next thing.

And when I get to school, I had more time for lesson planning, which is what you really want to be doing. Next is how I use my Google Calendar. This is also something I am very obsessed about.

And it actually makes sense. Because as a kid, I was obsessed about getting a new planner every school year. And I love a good planner, I'm more into notebooks for writing checklists down for tasks.

This is another side tip, I actually use a blank notebook. For my daily tasks, I write down everything that's in my head, I need to get done. And then if I finish them, I will highlight them.

So I know what it is. But visually, I know it's finished, but I can see what I finished. And then each day, I will rewrite the tasks I didn't get done and write down any fresh ones.

So that way, I don't have a million sticky notes going on. But that's just like a little hack. I don't use a paper planner anymore, I am obsessed about my Google Calendar.

What I will do is I will sit down and type in every single schedule that I have with my students. So what is my daily schedule, my Wednesdays were always different than Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, the times would change because we had an early release day. So I would sit down, it's easier on your computer.

If you do this, by the way, I would sit down, I would put in all the times for all of my grade levels. And then you can even put in ending dates, you can delete certain dates so that you actually don't have anything going on. Again, during a break, it looks like a break, I would put in all of my schedules.

And then I also would put in the school calendar. So days off all of that, those all went in my Google Calendar, and I made sure to put it in my school account. So anything that was school related went into my school Google Calendar.

Now this goes along with the emails thing, if there was ever an event or something happening at school or a field trip, there was a time change, a class is gone, I immediately go into my Google Calendar, make the change to that date. Because even with reoccurring dates in Google Calendar, you can actually change specific things and it will ask you do you want to change all of them, or just one of them, I would go in and change it and then put that email where it needs to go. So you're like double dipping our school actually used Outlook, which I'm not a personal fan.

I know you can connect your calendars and stuff that way. But I prefer Google Calendar because I would have my school Google Calendar. And then I have my personal Google Calendar and then also my business Google Calendar.

But on your phone, that's really cool is you can actually see all of your calendars at once and go from there. So I still do the same thing and put every single thing in my Google Calendar. And that is how I keep track of everything.

Something new that I'm really obsessed with are new to me is the tasks. So I'm really bad at doing laundry. This is like something about me I'm really, really, really bad at, I don't do it, don't put it away, I don't stay on top of it.

But something with me with laundry is I can handle one load a day. And so with those things that you should be washing every so often, like the towels I wash every week, I couldn't remember when I did the towels. So I actually put in reoccurring tasks in my Google Calendar.

So they don't take over as events, they can happen anytime. If you schedule an event on that day, they don't override each other. But I actually put in reoccurring tasks in my Google Calendar.

So I know on this day, I do towels, and I can check it off. And then the task will repeat every week. So if you have that going on in your STEM classroom, there's things that you have a hard time remembering, but you know, you need to do it, the tasks are really helpful, because it's just a visual checklist.

And you can see it all in there in your calendar, especially if there's a deadline for something, and it will keep popping up, it'll move each day, if you don't go in and check it off, it will move on to your next day, like pay credit cards need to do that. So those are really, really helpful. But again, I'm very, very obsessed about my Google Calendar.

And I even figured out how to link all my Google calendars, you link it to your phone. So I have an iPhone, and it talks to my watch. So all of my events for the day pop up on my watch.

This is the same with my school schedule with kids. So then I knew exactly when things were happening. I didn't have to go to my computer, it was all right there for me.

It's either my phone is on my watch. And I it was just one less thing I had to worry about because I set that system up in place. And finally, the last system and hack that I like to use to help with my productivity as a STEM teacher is using timers.

I use timers with students and I use them for myself as a human as a teacher. As you can tell, I can forget things and there's a lot going on. And especially reading the clock and being in the moment and managing the projects and who's in the bathroom and this fight and then who's cutting somebody's hair with the scissors.

The last thing I am worrying about is checking the time on the clock. I've always want to watch teaching. But I just have a hard time just I'm just really in the moment.

That's really what it is. And so what I will do is as students, I send them off to work. So I have my mini lesson, all that I'm not worried about the time.

Because I always can get it done really, really quick. Unless there is a stern talking to my mini lessons are short, five to eight minutes, eight minutes of them teaching them a new tech tool. But when I send the kids off to work, I immediately again, I go to my watch, but I immediately my watch set a timer for when I want them to clean up.

So I, depending on the class, it's five to 10 minutes, some need 10, some need five, some need three, some are really quick. But I will set a timer for myself. So then my watch will buzz when I want them to clean up.

Depending on the class, I will actually put up a timer for the students. The timer for the students on the screen might not match what is on my watch. It might be the same, it might be different.

If it's station rotations, it wouldn't be the same because they're at their station shorter. Or sometimes I will like put a timer, you have two more minutes left. Again, it really depends on the class.

But I have the master timer on my watch. And then the one on the screen for the students is whatever I need them to be timed for what I want them to do. Are you going to do this job for five minutes, after the timer goes off, you're going to switch.

So see what I mean how their timer wouldn't match mine. That's what I mean by that. My favorite timer to use that doesn't have scary sounds is classroom screen.com. This is not sponsored, I am obsessed.

It has a little clock and timer widget you can put up. You can also put images and embed Google Slides and stuff everywhere. So you can literally have a million things on your screen.

That is for that lesson. So that is how I like to hack timers. I use timers.

This is so crazy. I depending on the class, I only had five minutes or 10 minutes in between classes. And I need to go to the bathroom or I needed to go get some water or whatever and make some copies.

My passing time would start I would set a timer on my watch. I knew I had that much time before my next class would start. I actually kept my door closed in between classes for safety issues.

But also a class couldn't just appear in my room five minutes early, I'm busy, I have things to do that was a boundary I would set, which I do have an episode about setting boundaries, which boundaries are very, very important as a teacher. But I would set timers like that I set timers for myself like this all the time. Sounds like an advertisement for Apple Watch.

It's not you can set a timer lots of different ways. But this is going to help you again, it's those little things you don't have to think about anymore, but help you stay productive. So funny enough, these are all different hacks that I like to use using technology.

And I'm wondering if any of you use those same types of things. Let me know, send me a DM, I hope that this was helpful for you. And if you haven't already, before you move on to your day, make sure to go and review this podcast, write something that you're loving about it.

We are getting up to 180 episodes. And I know I don't have 180 reviews. So I would love to see what you think of the podcast.

If you've been a longtime listener, first time writer, let me know. And thank you so much. I hope you're having a wonderful back to school and I will see you in the next episode.

Thank you so much for listening to today's episode of the elementary STEM coach podcast. I would love to connect with you over on Instagram at Naomi Meredith underscore, or send me an email to elementary STEM coach podcast at gmail.com. Also, make sure to check out my website Naomi Meredith calm to see all the show notes from today's episode and shop my K through five STEM resources. Any questions you have needs for resources or ideas for episodes, get in touch.

I'll talk to you soon.

Related Episodes/Blog Posts:

Check out this playlist on Spotify I put together with all the episodes related to Back to school! 

 

 

 

Connect with Naomi Meredith:

 

More About your host, Naomi Meredith

Naomi Meredith is an online K-5 STEM Coach in Colorado supporting elementary teachers world-wide navigate the best practices, strategies and tools out there. With over a decade of experience teaching, 5 years teaching elementary STEM, along with a M.Ed. in STEM Leadership and STEM Certificate, Naomi helps teachers world-wide to navigate best practices, strategies and tools out there. 

She offers a variety of tools to help teachers feel successful teaching STEM to their elementary students through lesson plans, online courses, coaching and speaking events.

She truly believes that any teacher out there can learn how to use STEM, innovation and hands-on learning in their classrooms effectively. She can’t wait to connect with you and be your guide!

More About The Elementary STEM Coach Podcast

Are you tired of scrolling online for your next great STEM lesson? Do you feel like there is no time to plan, research and test meaningful STEM lessons, so you throw together a hands-on activity and hope that it works? What systems and routines should you set in place to help students be creative, critically think, and collaborate? 

The Elementary STEM Coach is a podcast for K-5 STEM teachers, classroom teachers, GT specialists, and homeschool parents looking for actionable STEM solutions. Each week, Naomi Meredith will share tools, resources and lesson ideas that are actionable in your classroom and create highly engaging experiences with your students. You’ll learn systems and routines that will create control in the chaos and that will keep you organized all year long. 

Your mindless scrolling days are over! Your new STEM-best friend is now here in your ear buds!

How to Get Materials for Your STEM Classroom [Back to School Series] [ep.172]

by Naomi Meredith

How to Get Materials for Your STEM Classroom [Back to School Series] [ep.172]

Check out the full episode about how to get materials for your STEM classroom:

 

Subscribe to the podcast HERE on your favorite podcasting platform.

Have a STEM question? Leave a voice message for the podcast!

Episode Summary

In this episode, I’m sharing some of my favorite tips and strategies for gathering materials for your STEM classroom, no matter what kind of budget you’re working with. Whether you're starting the school year or need to replenish your supplies midway through, I’ve got you covered. From self-donations and tapping into your school community, to grant writing and borrowing materials, I’ll walk you through how to keep your STEM space stocked and ready for all your innovative projects.

In this episode, you’ll learn:

  • Self-Donations:
  • Teacher & School Donations:
  • Parent Community Contributions:
  • Grant Writing
  • Borrowing Materials
  • Taking Inventory

Resources Mentioned:

Some items are linked to my Amazon Affiliate account. When you purchase through my link, there is no added cost to you, but I receive a small commission in return.

Episode Transcript: 

Welcome to the Elementary STEM Coach Podcast. I'm your host, Naomi Meredith, a former classroom teacher turned K-5 STEM teacher and coach. With over a decade of experience teaching and a master's degree in STEM leadership, I'm here to coach you throughout the year to help you gain back more time to create innovative experiences for your students.

How do you get materials for your STEM classroom? Some of you have nice hefty budgets and you are fully stocked in your classroom and you can buy pretty much whatever you want. But most of you do not and you need some creative ways to gather materials for your STEM space. Whether it is for back to school or even midway through the year, what can you do about it? I'm going to be sharing with you some tips that I have done for my STEM space and continue to do for the ways that I teach in STEM.

So let's jump in. First are donations and there are a few ways that you can do this. First, you can actually donate yourself.

Yep, that's right. You can actually donate to your own STEM classroom and I am thinking about those recyclable materials. You will be so surprised about how many recyclables that you collect in your own home by yourself and you can bring them to school.

I am so much in the habit of collecting recyclable materials such as the thin cardboard, cardboard tubes, plastic bottle caps, and I have little places I store them in my home office and when I need them, I take them out as I go. But I am so used to collecting the cardboard especially that when my teacher and honey and I were traveling this summer and I was making a charcuterie board, there was a lot of thin cardboard with the things that we were eating and I was debating whether or not I should take that cardboard home. I was already flattening it and ready to cut it up.

So that is a really great space to start. Like I said, you're going to collect way more than you think. If you wanted to, you can have a few of your next-door neighbors collect for you and that so-and-so garbage will start adding up.

Speaking of this, the other way you can collect donations is asking the teachers in your building. I put a box in our teacher's lounge and wrote a handwritten note. Hey, any of your cardboard that you have from your lunch, put it in this box.

And the cardboard was overflowing. And when you teach a lot of kids, you need a lot of cardboard. So that was an easy way to gather cardboard that was already in my school.

For other types of materials, and this was really helpful when you really need those hands-on manipulatives, is ask those classroom teachers if they are getting rid of anything. A lot of times, curriculums will change over. There are different manipulatives that are provided.

They might not want the old ones anymore. And so ask those classroom teachers, are there any Unifix cubes they don't need anymore? Pattern blocks? Those types of things. You'll be surprised what will come into your classroom.

And along those same lines with donations, you can definitely ask your parent community, whether it is paid for items like batteries or different types of supplies, glue sticks. You can even ask for recycled materials as well. Have a couple of donation boxes where it's easy for families to drop off, and you are good to go.

You can even think about how you can break this down for specific projects, or if you ask certain grade levels at different times. I have an editable letter that you can send out to families. It has some cute little materials on the side, some cute little pictures.

So you can edit that, send that out. I will link it in the show notes. Next is thinking about writing grants.

Maybe as a classroom teacher, you wrote some grants. Maybe you haven't, and you're kind of a little bit overwhelmed about grant writing. I'm not going to get too far into it, but grants are really helpful for those bigger purchases and thinking about things that could be used for multiple grade levels and for multiple projects.

So you want to get really creative on what you are going to write a grant for. I have a handful of episodes that is all about STEM grant writing, so definitely recommend checking those out. Specifically, refer to episode 76, where I talk with Jennifer Mahan, who did a ton of grant writing for her classroom, and she shares all of her successes.

After that, in episode 77, I speak to none other than DonorsChoose, and they talk all about grant writing and how beneficial that is. I have written a few DonorsChoose grants and got those funded, so it definitely is a great resource. And also check out episode 127, where a teacher that I worked with in my group coaching, and this is also something I can do in my one-to-one strategy sessions, she wrote a successful $1,000 grant for her school, for her STEM space, and it got funded when we worked together.

So grant writing is definitely a must, and you actually have a leg up because it is for STEM, and a lot of grants want to help out in the STEM space, so that is worth your investment of time. And finally, consider borrowing materials. You don't actually have to own everything that is being used in your classroom.

Are there materials at local libraries that you can check out and use in your classroom? Likewise, are there things in your district that you can check out and borrow? My district did that. Actually, my local library does that with materials that we can actually check out things as teachers, and also my school district had a lending program where we could actually use items and borrow them from the district, namely 3D printers, robotics, so I didn't have to own them, and you're not usually teaching the same thing all year anyway, so that was actually really, really helpful. Also, do you have a partner school? Can you guys swap materials for specific lessons? I would swap different robots with my STEM teacher friends, and that was really helpful.

Again, we don't have to own the items, and we trusted each other enough where things wouldn't get broken in a horrible way. We knew things to get taken care of. Maybe if you are allowed to, can you combine funds? Maybe you have a little bit of money, they have a little bit of money, not enough to buy what you want, but if you combine, could you combine money and actually buy something? Maybe you could check out your district policy, and also maybe a local company would be willing to lend something for you to borrow as well.

Maybe they have a 3D printer or something that you can use, like maybe one of those interactive tables, those sand tables that show topography. You never know. You're gonna have to get a little bit creative, but don't feel like you have to own every single item in your classroom.

It is nice, but if you only need it for a short amount of time anyway, why purchase it? Can you borrow it from another location? If you're wondering what in the world should I buy? How do I even know where to begin? What kind of donations to look for? I actually took inventory of my K-5 STEM classroom at the end of the year, one year, and put together a whole inventory spreadsheet. If you make a copy of it, it is a live link, so you don't get all of the real-time updates. I will periodically go in and change and update things in there, but it's completely free.

There are different categories of things to think about to add to your space. Also think about the lessons that you have as well. I actually go more into how to plan and prep for what you need to buy.

In my STEM Teacher 101 course, there is a lesson all about that. There is a method to the madness. It's not like, I just want you to buy this.

I just need to buy this. I actually have a whole method of how I go through purchasing every year. Again, all the things that I am mentioning will be linked in the show notes.

Before we go, I wanted to read a quick note from one of you who messaged me on Instagram. I love these notes so, so much. This teacher said, your podcast is my summer binge.

Starting my new job as a K-5 STEAM teacher after 10 years in general education. Your tips and tricks are so practical and give me realistic takeaways that I know I'll use in my classroom. Thanks for your hard work.

Thank you so much for the kind words. I love getting all of these messages. If you haven't already, when this episode's over in a few seconds, go ahead and leave a review on Spotify or Apple Podcasts.

That would mean the world to me. All those sweet messages that you send, I absolutely love. I write back to you.

Put them on the podcast so people know, hey, this is a show that I should listen to too. I would appreciate it so much. Thanks again for being here.

Happy back to school and I will see you in the next episode. Thank you so much for listening to today's episode of the elementary STEM coach podcast. I would love to connect with you over on Instagram at Naomi Meredith underscore, or send me an email to elementary STEM coach podcast at gmail.com. Also make sure to check out my website, Naomi Meredith.com to see all the show notes from today's episode and shop my K-5 STEM resources.

Any questions you have, needs for resources or ideas for episodes, get in touch. I'll talk to you soon.

Related Episodes/Blog Posts:

Check out this playlist on Spotify I put together with all the episodes related to Back to school! 

 

 

 

Connect with Naomi Meredith:

 

More About your host, Naomi Meredith

Naomi Meredith is an online K-5 STEM Coach in Colorado supporting elementary teachers world-wide navigate the best practices, strategies and tools out there. With over a decade of experience teaching, 5 years teaching elementary STEM, along with a M.Ed. in STEM Leadership and STEM Certificate, Naomi helps teachers world-wide to navigate best practices, strategies and tools out there. 

She offers a variety of tools to help teachers feel successful teaching STEM to their elementary students through lesson plans, online courses, coaching and speaking events.

She truly believes that any teacher out there can learn how to use STEM, innovation and hands-on learning in their classrooms effectively. She can’t wait to connect with you and be your guide!

More About The Elementary STEM Coach Podcast

Are you tired of scrolling online for your next great STEM lesson? Do you feel like there is no time to plan, research and test meaningful STEM lessons, so you throw together a hands-on activity and hope that it works? What systems and routines should you set in place to help students be creative, critically think, and collaborate? 

The Elementary STEM Coach is a podcast for K-5 STEM teachers, classroom teachers, GT specialists, and homeschool parents looking for actionable STEM solutions. Each week, Naomi Meredith will share tools, resources and lesson ideas that are actionable in your classroom and create highly engaging experiences with your students. You’ll learn systems and routines that will create control in the chaos and that will keep you organized all year long. 

Your mindless scrolling days are over! Your new STEM-best friend is now here in your ear buds!

My Go-To Teacher Backpack

by Naomi Meredith

My Go-To Teacher Backpack

As a teacher and a traveler, finding the perfect backpack that can handle both of these roles was a challenge. I needed something durable, versatile, and functional—a backpack that could seamlessly transition from the classroom to the airport. After trying out a few options, I finally found one that ticks all the boxes, and I couldn’t be more impressed.

Let me take you on a little tour of my favorite backpack and show you why it’s become an essential part of my daily life.

Pockets Galore

One of the standout features of this backpack is the abundance of pockets. There are so many pockets that, at times, it might feel like a challenge to keep track of where everything is. But that’s part of the charm! Whether you need to store teaching supplies, travel essentials, or personal items, there’s a pocket for everything. I like to keep cleaning supplies and wet wipes handy, and this backpack has just the right spots to store them. The side pockets are roomy enough to fit even larger water bottles, which is a must for staying hydrated on the go.

Spacious and Secure

The main compartment is incredibly spacious. I can fit my entire laptop, and there’s still room for my iPad. If you’re someone who carries multiple devices, this backpack has got you covered. There’s also a deep pocket on the back that’s perfect for stashing items you want to keep secure yet easily accessible.

 

Tech-Savvy Feature

For those who rely on their devices, this backpack offers some pretty cool tech features. It has a built-in way to connect your phone to your laptop, allowing you to charge your phone directly from your computer while it’s still tucked safely inside the bag.

 

 

Travel-Friendly Design

Traveling with this backpack is a breeze, thanks to a clever feature that allows it to hook onto the top of your suitcase. This little addition makes a big difference when your backpack is heavy and you’re navigating through airports. It keeps the backpack securely in place, so you don’t have to worry about it sliding off while you’re on the move.

A Stylish and Budget-Friendly Choice

Beyond its functionality, I’ve grown to love the style of this backpack. It’s traveled the world with me, and I’m already eyeing other colors to match different outfits. Plus, it’s a great option if you’re on a budget but still want something reliable and stylish.

Final Thoughts

In short, this backpack has been a game-changer for me. Whether I’m in the classroom or on the road, it’s become my go-to companion. If you’re looking for a backpack that’s durable, versatile, and budget-friendly, I highly recommend giving this one a try. It’s a purchase you won’t regret!

 

Click here to grab this backpack for yourself!

 

Some items are linked to my Amazon Affiliate account. When you purchase through my link, there is no added cost to you, but I receive a small commission in return

 

Related Posts:

Connect with Naomi Meredith:

 

More About  the Author, Naomi Meredith

Naomi Meredith is an online K-5 STEM Coach in Colorado supporting elementary teachers world-wide navigate the best practices, strategies and tools out there. With over a decade of experience teaching, 5 years teaching elementary STEM, along with a M.Ed. in STEM Leadership and STEM Certificate, Naomi helps teachers world-wide to navigate best practices, strategies and tools out there.

She offers a variety of tools to help teachers feel successful teaching STEM to their elementary students through lesson plans, online courses, coaching and speaking events.

She truly believes that any teacher out there can learn how to use STEM, innovation and hands-on learning in their classrooms effectively. She can’t wait to connect with you and be your guide!