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.

Let's talk about STEM classroom setup. What are some top essentials that you should think about when you're setting up your STEM space or you're reconfiguring something that may not have worked last year? I have been in a lot of different STEM classrooms, whether it was my friend's classrooms in the district or the schools that I have taught in for my local STEM programs, or even the school that I was doing some planning with a teacher, and I'm going to be long-term STEM sub planning for her this fall. There are a lot of different setups out there, but there are some top things that I have seen that actually set up these spaces for success, and I'm going to talk about those three top common things that I have seen.

The first major thing for you to think about is to have a group meeting place. This is different from where the kids are going to be doing their work. Now, maybe I'm a little bit old school on this, but whenever I have kids enter my space, whether it is my after-school programs or it is a full-on class, I like to have the kids in one location.

There are a couple reasons for this. The biggest one is to help prevent distractions. There's often things that I have set up that we're going to be using for the project, and if the kids are sitting at the tables and there's materials out, naturally they're going to want to play with them and touch them.

And this is even true when I teach STEM at our rollerskating rink for field trips. It's very, very sweet. The program sets up all my materials, but they get into them.

So if you can have a group meeting place where all the kids are in one spot, you do your quick little mini lesson, and then you send them off on their way. I've seen the opposite where there's classrooms that don't have this group meeting space. The kids come into the room, they are sitting at their tables, and they're all chaotic, and they're getting started.

I'm like, wait, what is going on? I'm confused. It's just a lot of chaos, and it doesn't really lend well to a good transition. So knowing that expectation, no matter what you're going to be working on, no matter what grade level you're in, you are going to sit in this spot, most likely facing the screen or projector that you have, and we're going to set up those expectations and we will go on our way.

So that means to say you can't stop the class for other teaching aspects, but this is just really, really helpful, again, for those transitions and setting the stage for your classroom. Along with that, this is something that I didn't think of right off the bat because it looks very, very empty, but think about where you would like students to store their projects throughout the year. You may or may not use these open spaces, but if you can plan ahead and make room for it, if possible, I know this can be really tricky, then this will help you know where you should set out other materials, and those other materials you might need to put away in a safe spot, and then, again, you have those open spaces for kids to put their projects.

If you plan for it ahead of time, like I said, it's going to make it a lot easier, and it also looks a little weird because you might have empty shelves in your classroom when you want to fill them up with all the cool things. There are a lot of different things that I have tried, but what I really like to do when it comes to access materials, like when kids are in the middle of building projects, and you can hear more about how I do maker space specifically in episodes five and six, but I like those big fabric cubes from IKEA, the really big ones, not the small ones, the big ones, and when we're in the middle of a project, I use grocery bags. Kids will put their paper plan inside, and any materials that they shop for inside the bag, they tie them up, I show them how to do a loose tie on the bag, we put them in the bucket, and it's labeled with their teacher's name.

If there's things that they're specifically building they don't want crumpled up in the bag, that will be placed on the shelf next to that bucket, but it really helps getting out those materials in between classes. It does help with the storage because random materials aren't floating around on the shelves, but that also helps with the space as well, so those are some things to really consider. And finally, when you're setting up your space, I actually like to keep my maker space open all year long and have it all set up and organized, is having those maker space materials labeled with words and pictures and also at kid accessible height.

The whole goal when you're doing a maker space is to have kids be independent and gather supplies for their projects as you want them to. Again, listen to episodes five and six, but having them at kid height and labeled with pictures and words really helps with that independence where they know what is in the bucket, they can see it, they can gather those materials, and it also makes cleanup a lot easier because they know where things go. I actually created some editable labels that are for your maker space where they have words and pictures and easy to read kid font.

There are different color options, and my little trick too is I actually don't laminate these. I found these little business card pockets that are sticky on one side, and if you actually just print put the little label in the pocket, the pocket always stays on your bucket, but then you can change out the labels as much as you want and you don't have to do any laminating. I actually have a laminator, I just don't like to laminate unless I really, really have to.

So that is a really good hack. I'm really excited because the teacher I'm going to be subbing for, she has a really great maker space. She has it set up really nice, but I really want to upgrade her labels and so I asked her if I could do that, and she said yes.

So more to come this fall, you'll get to see that transformation. Those three things I hope you've thought about in your STEM space. They are really essential.

They seem very simple, but things that make a big impact in your space, make sure you have those three things. For more of a setup checklist for your STEM space, my STEM teacher 101 course, I have a whole lesson all about your classroom setup and things to think about. Maybe you did those as a classroom teacher and you're transferring them into your STEM space, but I also have a checklist that will walk you through those things and other ideas to think about when you're setting up your STEM space.

And there's also a whole lesson about systems and routines that will lend itself to your classroom setup. You can grab the entire course at namimerdith.com slash STEMteacher101, or you can just go through individual lessons of the course that are in my TPT shop. If you just head on over there, you will see all the lessons segmented so you can zone in on what you're looking for.

And before you go, I just wanted to read a quick note from one of you. I get the sweetest messages in my DMs and my emails and I actually save them. And when I'm a little bit like, what am I doing with all this? I like to read them.

So this is from one of you and you messaged me and you said, Hey, I just had to let you know that you are amazing. I wish you were my STEM teacher. That is so nice.

I just completed your K through two planning workshop and bought your K through two year long bundle. And now I want the three through five too. I'm so impressed with all your products and your plethora of great information, ideas, and enthusiasm.

Thank you so much for sharing your knowledge and passion for STEM. Thank you so much for that message. Lots of things.

I do have on demand workshops that you can jump in on. And then also those bundles of my K through five STEM year long plan. They're broken up in grade levels and also in segments.

So thank you so much for your kind message. Like I said, I have a whole folder on my phone and I keep these. So I do read them and I appreciate you all so much.

Thank you so much again, and I will see you all next week. 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.