Naomi Meredith  00:00

What should a Kindergarten STEM curriculum look like? In this episode, I am sharing with you an overview of what your year can look like in Kindergarten, a breakdown of the structure of your week of lessons, and also some major takeaways of skills that students should be learning once they leave Kindergarten in STEM. This is part one of a six-part series where I am going to be breaking down each grade level, K through five, and the same overall structure when it comes to the overall planning in your STEM space. Whether you are a STEM teacher, a classroom teacher who's implementing STEM, a specialist, or any other elementary teacher who is interested in this topic, you're gonna be walking away with a lot of helpful information to implement with your STEM Kindergarten curriculum. 

Naomi Meredith  00:51

When I walked into my K-5 STEM teaching and coaching position, it was a brand new to me district and school, and a brand new classroom with a few tools and zero curriculum. This was very exciting for me coming out from being a classroom teacher, I taught second grade for two years and third grade for four years. It's so exciting to have really nothing but also very overwhelming. I'm sure a lot of you had a very similar experience to what I had. So you can definitely relate to this experience. STEM is so exciting in the elementary space and it is absolutely needed. However, there are so many ideas out there that again, it can get overwhelming and you don't know where to start. So that's why I'm doing this grade levels series for you really breaking down each grade level. There was a lot of interest in this when I put my podcast survey out a few months ago. So I'm really excited about this and just breaking down for you what it looks like really all day and all year in this type of position. Everything that I'm going to be sharing is 100% linked in the show notes too. You can go back and check those out and get what you need with all the resources that I'm going to be talking about. Each episode is going to have the same structure. I will be sharing an overview of the year, break down the structure of the week, and give you my opinion of the top three skills that students should walk away from in STEM at each grade level. It's pretty hard to pick three, but just based on my five years in this role, what I have seen and those types of trends. 

Naomi Meredith  03:17

First, I start off the year with STEM survival camp and kindergarten's challenge is to cross the river. So they are tasked using some materials from outside and also things from in my classroom, for students to figure out a way for their little characters to cross the river. They are given buckets of water, and they can think about things that go across the river, things that go in the river, and also things that float. So we also talk about floating and sinking. After that when students are warmed up in my class and have a basic basic understanding of the Engineering Design Process, more so just what my classroom is, we talk about digital citizenship at a Kindergarten level. There are a lot of great free resources out there for teachers, my favorite being Common Sense Media. There are some awesome lessons and video clips out there that are made specifically for every single grade level. So I use a mixture of that, but also created a STEM challenge that is based on those lessons. So if they're doing those things with their classroom teacher, then they have something extra that I know they're not doing in their classroom because I created it. So we talk about media balance in Kindergarten, while it's okay to do things with technology and sometimes we need a break and do things without, but both are good and it's really important to have a balance of those things. So there are a few different stories that we read about media balance. And then students actually engineer a balance to balance those activities that are on unifix cubes, those on screen and off-screen activities. So that is a one-day challenge when it comes to the actual building. But the lessons throughout the week apply to that digital citizenship lesson. After that, we move into my maker month, my Makerspace month for K-5 and talking about different earth systems. For Kindergarten, we talk about how some animals change the land to create their homes, and we've zoned in on specifically on ants. The kids think it's so funny when I talk about how ants can't go to Home Depot and go get some building supplies and build their homes, they start giggling and think it's so funny. But ants, they decided, hey, this is a great spot of land, we are going to build our home here. So we explore different things that ants add in their homes and how they work together as a team. And then we take a couple of days and students build their own ant house, which is in the form of a moveable marble maze that can be held in their hands. And then they're able to add labels and pictures that describe this animal home. Then we also have some STEM stations that relate to this standard that go along with that. So we dive in deeper, but our main project is focused in on ants and how they change the land to create their home. After that, we move into my STEM-sational space unit where we talk about video and audio production in K-5. And this is something that I have been playing around with. So this lesson will definitely come up soon. But we create a short video to explain how the shade actually works. So what is the difference of that and what are different shade structures that can be made to give shade. So we can definitely have that. From there, there are some different stations that we do, again, focusing on shade structures, and how those are important and even testing our design. So we really zone in and focus on those standards, while also creating a small video. And like I said, that is the lesson that I am testing. That will be part of the updates within that whole year long plan bundle. After that we move into the Hour of Code for December and giving students a lot of different opportunities to explore coding that works at their level. Now when I do Hour of Code, that is the only unit that I'm not necessarily doing a specific project, which you definitely can. But I'm really exploring coding with different types of resources. So I'll pull out robots that have directional coding, lots of different apps that are free that students can explore the coding. There are some things on the hour code website that we take a look at. And even something new that I implemented were the Osmo coding kits where there are three levels of coding and they are hands-on and excellent. So if you have Kindles or iPads in your classroom, I'm pretty sure I've talked about the Osmos in other episodes. Back in the episode about the best STEM toys for 2022, I talk more about what Osmos are. But definitely a really great kit when it can bring hands-on elements to coding and it works really well for K-2. Then we come back for the year and implement different stations that are related to snow. So we explore matter with different stories when it comes to STEM and stories, counting snowflakes, building snow, people looking at the elements of math with snowflakes. We do a lot of different stations when it comes to snow and read a lot of stories. So we're slowly building up into other bigger projects. But again, this is coming back into the year, their stamina is a little bit low. So doing those STEM stations is just building them back up and practicing. And using all of those different tools is what I like to do when we get back from the New Year. Then we move into February, the kids have the groove of things. And believe it or not, I actually do 3D printing with all of my grades, which I have a little mini 3D printing series that you can go back and listen to. But with Kindergarten, we talk about ways to take care of the earth. So we do a lot of different research planning of all those different ways we explore resources. And then students create a key chain to help remind them of how to take care of the earth. So some of their key chain designs are maybe planting flowers, maybe they actually create the earth to help them to take care of the earth. Some kids like to create a recycling truck. So all of those different ways to take care of the earth. And they are so proud of their keychain design, once I get those printed, and then we color them with Sharpies, put a keychain on it, and then they take it away with them a month or two later. After that with there's more time and this is a unit I will play around with I won't always do. But if you want to explore stop motion animation, this is a great time to do this, in the spring. So students create a stop motion animation to describe the weather patterns that we have kept track of throughout the week. Now this is something that I have done when collaborating with classroom teachers. So the week before they keep track of the weather, they have a little weather journal that they keep all the data from. And then when they come into STEM, they have that data or at least the teacher has that data. And then we will use that to create a stop motion animation with either paper or playdough to show the weather patterns throughout the week. If we have time, we will add a voice over with that or even just students will talk about it in Seesaw. So just a really cool way to get them exposed to stop motion animation. Then I like to move into LEGO belts. This is typically state testing season. I know Kindergarten doesn't do our state tests, but it's just a busy time in general. So I recently bought this STEAM Park kit from LEGO education. They come in these ginormous boxes. And they are those big LEGO bricks, those Duplo blocks and I am so in love with this kit. It has been an excellent purchase. I know LEGO education kits are expensive. And you might be thinking do I even need to invest in this and my little learners 100%. Yes, this has actually been one of the better ones that I have bought. Now the kits are really, really big they come everything is sorted in these bags. And so I went and ended up sorting everything by color. And then every day there's a new challenge. So there's a little story that goes along with STEAM Park. And then students solve the problem. They can follow the inspirational pictures or create on their own and talk about these different topics that come in STEAM Park. So it's been an awesome success. I really, really love it. And just has been really good for my little learners. And those big blocks have not been babyish at all, they love them. So if you're thinking about a LEGO Education Kit, I highly recommend that we finish off the year with my STEM Musement Park. And we talked about the standards with the force and motion, how things can change direction, which we're going to talk more about in this next section. But we talked about that where they build their cardboard maze on the wall, and then we have some different STEM stations. So overall, that is a recap of the year and what I do with Kindergarten, definitely mix it up. 

Naomi Meredith  03:17

First, let's talk about the overview of the year. If you are curious to see what my actual year looks like K-5, you can check that out at Naomimeredith.com/yearlongplan where I have my entire year long plan for free and all of those standards connected with those. This upcoming year I'm going to actually be adding a lot of updates when it comes to the lessons that are provided and include bonus lessons inside, especially for K and one because I've actually updated the way that I teach these lessons over the past couple of years. So jump in on that now and then you might want to download it again later, maybe in a few months, whenI have a bunch of updates. But overall, the structure of this will be the same. Now if you're curious to see how I actually plan a whole year and the whole method behind this, go back and listen to episode 14, where I discuss how to create your scope and sequence in the STEM space when I am planning my overall years. So K-5, I like to plan with overarching themes. So I look at the standards and think about the different topics that are related within those grade levels. I also think about the overall skills that I want students to learn. So when I am teaching LEGO education kits, everyone is doing a LEGO Education Kit or a similar activity at that time. As a teacher, this is so much easier to plan because you have that progression of learning. You also are in that mind frame as you were teaching. So you're gonna think about those tips and tricks while you're teaching throughout the day. And, again, you're gonna know all of those differentiation techniques. So within that same day, because you're basically teaching it over and over again, just at a different level. So I know there's a lot of different ways to do this, you could break it up throughout the year. But this is just how I like to plan and it just has made it a lot easier. Just having all the materials out at one time, at the end of the unit I can clean it up and put it away. I'm going to go through the major lessons that I teach in Kindergarten and just a little snapshot of each of those. Again, check it out in my free year long plan, where you can see more of an in depth discussion of those. 

Naomi Meredith  14:20

But here let's go into what is the breakdown of my actual week. If you need more support with your planning, I have a K-2 STEM planning workshop. I did host this live but recorded it at the time so you actually get to hear me answer real questions from real teachers who were at the workshop. In this two hour workshop, I break down exactly how I plan and give you all the planning sheets so you can be successful for your younger learners. So that will be linked in the show notes or you can find it at Naomimeredith.com/primaryworkshop. This is a new thing that I have started implementing the way that I like to plan my weeks for my little learners. And what I'll typically do is have a main mini project, which you heard me talk about in the full year. And that will last about one to two days, then I will have STEM stations that will last two days. And then if I need a fifth day or a sub plan, then we will do a STEM and stories where we will do a challenge that is related to the story that we've read. And this story might be fiction or nonfiction. So I talked about at the end of the year, I like to do a STEM-musement Park. So when it comes to breaking down the week, here's how I would do that. So days one and two, we start with that standard. So that force and motion standard that is in the NGSS, how things can change direction and move and building to figure that out, figure out the science behind it. So students have a will plan and then design a cardboard wall maze that we will leave up on the walls, and use tape and then test their designs. So the students love this. And they really do a great job collaborating and working together to build their maze, then we will move into STEM stations, we'll do a variety of tasks. So I have a huge whiteboard that is magnetic on my wall. So I found these magnetic marble mazes that stick on there. So again, very similar but different to the challenge that they did the pieces already created. And they get to build and create these different mazes on the whiteboard. Then another station is I have found their fake LEGO bricks, but a fake LEGO bricks that where they can build a marble maze that stands up that is not on the wall. So seeing how that will actually change how things will move and turn. Then there's also an app that I found that where students can build their own mazes and add different pieces. And then we have a robotic coding station where there are balloon animals where they actually have to roll the dice, find the numbers, then add them up, and then find the sum on the grid. So find different challenges that go along with our STEM-musement park, mainly about force motion, but a really great way to hone in and really get into that standard. So as you can see, I really liked again, planning and themes. But really zoning in on this standard, I'm not replacing what the classroom teacher is doing. Or maybe you are the classroom teacher, and you just want more ways to implement STEM and just really have a different way of learning. I'm not replacing that for that classroom teacher. So even if kids have learned this standard in their class, I know they're gonna be doing something different with me. And really just having that hands-on experience to focus on that vocabulary, which is good for all students, not just Kindergarten, it's great for everybody. 

Naomi Meredith  14:54

Here are the top three things that I think a kindergartener should leave STEM leaving. And this was hard for me to really pick three. And I think it's going to be hard to pick three for all the grade levels. So here are my top three. So aside from kindergarteners, just like learning what my room looks like, where it is in the building, where the bathroom is in the proximity of my room, we do take a field trip to the bathroom, the first two days, and everybody goes and then we know where the bathroom is. So by the end of the year, they actually know how to go the bathroom independently where it's located. But here are my top three skills that I think a Kindergarten nourish, should leave my class with. They're not really in order, you can mix them up. But these are the top important things. First is for a kindergartner to be able to gather materials independently. So finding where those are, and also being able to clean those up independently. This is really important as the teacher to set up those structures where this can be possible. And it is 100% bras possible. I taught preschool in college and we had our preschoolers do this. So I know a five-year-old, a five and six-year-olds are definitely capable. And I can get out all of those materials, and they will be cleaned up at the end of class. The second skill that I want my kindergarteners to walk away with is being able to collaborate with at least a partner by this point and their age. They're very used to having parallel play where they're playing by themselves, but they're playing side by side with others. And that is definitely how I start off the year. But again, based on the structures that I set up for students, I really want them to be able to successfully collaborate with a partner, whether it's a partner of their choice, or it's a partner that I choose. So again, setting up those roles for them. Helping them be successful is really, really important. And this is going to help set them up for the rest of the years when they're in my class but also in school. And the third thing that I want kindergartners to walk away from my class is being able to complete a project that lasts more than one days and up to two days long. So it's very easy for students to complete things in one day, but having them actually have a project that has multiple that, and being able to start that cleaned it up, and then get it out and then pick it up where they left off and finish it up a second day is huge, because they want to rush through their work and just do the crate part. So I do still use the Engineering Design Process, even in Kindergarten, it is an NGSS, Next Generation Science Standards, K-2 has the Engineering Design Process. But having a project that can last one to two and maybe three days can definitely be done. But it's something that we work up to probably don't start it until maybe that maker month, when we're talking about the ant hills in all of that that lasts about two days. But that is definitely something I want to work up to. So that they are creating that long-term memory and remembering Oh, I did this the day before. Here's what I need to do next. 

Naomi Meredith  20:49

As a recap, here are the main things when you're thinking about your Kindergarten STEM curriculum and just those tips and tricks along the way when it comes to your overall year. First, we talked about the overview of the year, then I broke down the structure of the week. Then we talked about the top three skills that that kindergarteners should know by the end of the year once they leave STEM. Like I said, I'm going to do this series. So we will be talking about first through fifth in the next few episodes. There are a lot of ways that I can help support you when it comes to your Kindergarten STEM planning. Definitely jump on In in that K-2 STEM planning workshop, you will get a professional development certificate to help you break down how to actually plan out these lessons. I also have a K-5 year long plan that has all the lessons that I teach and constantly updating and adding things to those. So jumping on that the sooner you jump in on that the cheaper it is. If you only need Kindergarten, I have it broken down in just to Kindergarten bundle, and also a K-2 bundle depending on what you teach. So thank you so much again for joining me. I'm happy to support you and your STEM journey. And I can't wait to see you in the next episodes.