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.