Naomi Meredith  00:00

In today's episode, I am interviewing Kristin Kinner who is a K through five STEM teacher who taught in the regular classroom for over 25 years. I thought her experience was super relatable to many of you who are listening. Most of you were also in the classroom before this role, and I thought that this would be a perfect fit for a guest on this show. Kristin and I have connected over the years through different ways and platforms. More recently, the InnEdCO Conference, which is a local conference in Colorado that is all about innovation. So definitely recommend it if you want to take a trip to Colorado or you live in the area. It's a really awesome conference. We were talking over the summer before her role in STEM, and she was super nervous and asking for advice. I knew that her experience that she already had would be so helpful in her STEM role, and you're going to hear the passion in her voice. She loves teaching K through six STEM, and I'm sure a lot of you can relate to her story. Before teaching in K through six STEM she taught in first, second, and fourth grades, and was also a learning specialist and reading specialist in Kindergarten. She teaches over 725 students, which is a lot of kids. Kristin loves meeting and collaborating with other innovative educators and exploring new learning with her students. I am so excited for you to listen to this interview. She is so much fun, and I can't wait for you to listen. 

Naomi Meredith  02:04

All right, Kristin. Well, thank you so much for being here today. I was so excited you said yes to me. We were emailing back and forth and like, “Hey, do you want to be on the podcast?” So I'm so glad you said yes to me because I think your experience and your background and teaching is super valuable. I think that your story of where you've been in education and how you got to STEM can really resonate with a lot of teachers here on the podcast. Because like me, and I'm pretty sure like you, we just kind of got thrown into it with a passion that we had. So if you wouldn't mind telling us more about yourself and your teaching background and how you became a STEM teacher.

Kristin Kinner  02:41

Well, Hi, Naomi. Thank you so much for having me on your podcast. As you know, I'm an elementary to STEM teacher. This is my first year in STEM. I've taught for over 25 years in first, second, and fourth grades mostly. I've been a learning specialist and a reading specialist, so I have a background in special education. Currently I inspire over 725 students to follow their passion in STEM. I love meeting and collaborating with other innovative educators and just exploring new learning with my students.

Naomi Meredith  03:16

You have a lot of kids? 

Kristin Kinner  03:18

Yes. 

Naomi Meredith  03:20

Wait, did you say sixth grade you have or is it just K through five?

Kristin Kinner  03:24

It's K through six, and then we have a discovery program at my school, which has four self contained GT classrooms. So I have those classes as well. So I teach teach eight classes a day. 

Naomi Meredith  03:40

Wait, how does your schedule work with eight classes? I thought six was a lot. I have six. How does your schedule work?

Kristin Kinner  03:47

So I start in the morning and I teach sixth, fifth and fourth. Then I have lunch and we have two buildings. So then I take my stuff over to the primary building and I teach K-3. Then I teach the discovery class at the very end. Yeah, it's busy.

Naomi Meredith  04:06

Do you have two separate classrooms then, or are you teaching in their classrooms?

Kristin Kinner  04:11

I do. I have two separate rooms. I have an innovative lab at the intermediate building and I have a STEM lab that's particularly primary in a primary building.

Naomi Meredith  04:22

I did not know this. I need to go visit your school. I did not know you did that. That's a lot.

Kristin Kinner  04:33

It's a lot of fun though. And it keeps me moving and motivated.

Naomi Meredith  04:37

So what has been your favorite part about teaching STEM? Because you you have so much background in teaching and you're, I mean, I don't know when you can retire by but you could be like “Hey, see ya,” but now look at you. You're in STEM. So what have been your favorite parts about it so far?

Kristin Kinner  04:52

I really love robotics. So we're doing a lot of robotics right now. Bee bots are being used with Kindergarten and first grade. Then I've got Dash robots for second, third and fourth. Then we're going to get into using the Vex Go Systems with fifth and sixth grade as the year progresses. Yeah, so it should be fun.

Naomi Meredith  05:16

Yeah. Have you even opened up those Vex Go Sustems? Yeah, I haven't used those, but I've heard really good things about them.

Kristin Kinner  05:22

I have opened them up. I haven't done a lot with them. I'm gonna do some exploring over Christmas break to see what we can find.

Naomi Meredith  05:34

Yeah, cuz are those the kits where they actually build the robot? Or am I thinking of something else?

Kristin Kinner  05:39

Yeah, they will actually build the robot. Yes.

Naomi Meredith  05:44

That is so cool. Wow. So you have that many classes a day. So you love robotics? Has there been anything that like surprised you? Because I know coming from the classroom is a lot. You and I were talking at the InnEdCO conference, and you're so sweet. Like, I'm so nervous. I don't know where it to start. I'm like, “Well, you've been a teacher for a long time. I think it'll be okay.” But has there been anything that has surprised you where you're like, “Whoa, I did not expect this?”

Kristin Kinner  06:16

No, I think the hardest thing is going from teaching primary for so long to working with some of the older students. But a lot of the things that we've done, I tried to plan something that kind of fits with each grade level. So sixth grade, we use the global goals. They created PSAs to kind of talk about what they might do to work toward a global goal. Fifth grade, we have hydroponic gardens. So they are doing a whole hydroponic gardening unit, that's just for their grade. With fourth grade, I'm working with otter cares and doing Project HEART, which is a service or a philanthropy unit. So they're going to be creating some service projects that we carry out through STEM, just to keep some things going for each of them.

Naomi Meredith  07:08

Yeah, so how often do you see the kids then? Because those sound like really big projects? I haven't heard of global goal or otter cares. Do you do these projects in five days? Or is this something that would carry on for multiple rotations? How does that work with your timing?

Kristin Kinner  07:26

So I see each class for a full week, Monday through Friday, and we have a four week rotation. So we have four classes on each grade level. So I repeat my lessons four times with sixth grade, the global goals, or the 2030 sustainable goals. So like, no poverty, free freshwater, those kinds of things. All people have proper nutrition. They worked on researching, and that took, like, a week. Then the second week was putting together what they wanted to put on their public service announcement. Some of them did Google Slides, because they were familiar with that. But once we introduced the green screen and actually recording using iPads, they were able to record. A lot of them recorded, and had and made videos and stuff.

Naomi Meredith  08:22

So is this more like project based learning? Or do you use the Engineering Design Process or kind of both? Because that's super interesting. I haven't talked to anybody who's done long term projects like this, that I'm so curious how you set that all up.

Kristin Kinner  08:38

I can share it with you. It was just basically I had like a doc that they filled in, and I shared through Google Classroom. That kind of was the framework for what I wanted them to find out, and for what I wanted them to share in their public service announcement, and they just went from there. They're on my website, so you can see what some of the kids did.

Naomi Meredith  09:04

Oh, yeah, we'll definitely have to link that. That is super interesting. It's funny you say that. I'm with you on having a harder time with the older kids. I mean, I think your lessons are really good. But a lot of people are the opposite of you. A lot of people struggle with the little kids more than the older kids. So are there any strategies you would say for the little kids that people should try? Because a lot of people I get have a lot of questions about little kids.

Kristin Kinner  09:30

I tried to connect the younger ones to stories. So a lot of the k one might be more just build oriented and creating that way. This week, we did your lesson on 10 on the sled, so they had to decide what they wanted to build for their sleds and came up with some really cute ideas. Those books are like kind of the vehicle to launch a lot of my lessons. First, second, and third, we did Tacky the Penguin. It was Tacky in the Winter Games. So they had to do a direct drawing of the penguin. Then they had some clothing that they had to either design or there was a copy page they could color them in. But I took it a step further with the second and third graders. They had to create a coding path for Dash Robot to dress Tacky, say to put the pieces all around the coding mat and collect them using the robot. So kind of integrating a few different things.

Naomi Meredith  10:40

 Oh, that's a great way to start. I know I've talked about this in past episodes, like if you can integrate books, that is the best way to get started, or are just busy times of year engaging younger students, and even for sub plans. I don't know if you've left books for subs, that's something I definitely have done. It's super, like everybody loves reading. But a lot of us in elementary love reading books anyway, we have a lot of our favorites. So you might as well integrate that. Do you ever do like STEM stations with the little kids or other types of projects?

Kristin Kinner  11:15

Yes, I do. I have some trays that are set up just for that purpose. So I have like six different trays. So when projects are finished, there's different things that they can go to. If I'm ever out, I usually leave STEM stations for a set, because the directions are there on the card, and the materials are ready to go. So I just put them on the table and read the directions and have the kids go like four to a table. Then you rotate after 15 minutes, and it keeps it easy for the sub and it keeps the kids engaged.

Naomi Meredith  11:51

Yeah, what types of things are on the trays? I'm trying to visualize these trays, I'm so curious.

Kristin Kinner  11:58

One is just a whole collection of pipe cleaners. They have to make a net to collect a ball, which is like a paper ball. One, I have Legos set up in this large tray that my daughter made. She's a student at CU. I put LEGO platforms in there. They're building a whole hockey station in there. So kids can work on it continually. Then others can add to it. One of them is using Keva blocks to build a bridge. So there's different supplies. I just take out the container and put them on tables and explain what's what. Tthen they're easy to pack up to.

Naomi Meredith  12:39

Oh, yeah, I love that organization. I'm thinking too like, what about the space, but you said you had two buildings you go to? So that's nice too where you have, oh, here's more of the primary supplies in the secondary because having those, you need a lot of stuff. I feel like for the little kids, I don't know, that's something that I have found. When I came into my classroom, I didn't have any of that building stuff. So I asked classroom teachers if they have any extra math manipulatives. I used most of my budget that year on just simple building supplies that you mentioned. But I know that you had to gather, well, I mean, you had to gather a lot of supplies for two rooms. How did you get all the supplies for your classroom? Because that's a lot of stuff you need.

Kristin Kinner  13:21

So I was very lucky to step into a well equipped, innovative lab and that was at the intermediate building. So fourth, fifth and sixth. We had a lot of tools for the students to learn and a lot of the consumables. I just set up another room in the primary building, which was a little more challenging, but I write a lot of grants and get a lot of funding from different companies. So all robotics last year, we're funded through different brands. Yeah.

Naomi Meredith  13:53

Wait, so do you write directly to the companies? This isn't Donors Choose? How do you do this? This is amazing.

Kristin Kinner  14:00

So there are some companies like one grant I got was through Toshiba America. It was $1,000, and I received funding for six Dash robots, and some other supplies for the robotics like chargers and stuff, so I can charge six of them at a time. Yeah. Then this year, I got a grant through Westera, and they funded the lights for my hydroponic gardens. Because like a true engineer, designer, I had gardens, but I didn't have grow lights. So I was like, Oh, they're not growing. I had to come up with a way to problem solve and come up with lights because nothing was growing. This whole project was flopping. So I wrote a grant and Westera and my principal both bought a set of lights for our gardens. So now they're growing like there's no tomorrow.

Naomi Meredith  15:01

Oh yeah, well, this is like kind of off topic, but it's similar. So when my family moved out of Colorado, like you take stuff to Goodwill, so my mom's like, take all this stuff to Goodwill. I'm like, okay, so she loaded all this stuff in my trunk. While I'm unloading it, all the people at Goodwill were laughing at me. Then I realized she put a bunch of grow lights and growing things in my trunk. So I really set somebody up for their home garden, whatever that may be like in Colorado, you guys can connect the dots. But yeah, you definitely need the lights for sure. Growing herbs, like legit herbs, my mom, like grew herbs on my counter, like, that's it not illegal. But um, yeah, that's a good point. So how did you find these grants? I've never heard of this. I'm thinking of Darrell. Darrell, if you're listening, you've asked me about grants. So you need to listen to this part. How did you find these?

Kristin Kinner  15:53

I searched for educational grants, we can search by state. I found Toshiba that way. That was actually the second grant that I'd gotten from Toshiba. I'd got one a few years back. It was mostly for a collaboration station just for like furniture, and some other games and tools in my first grade class probably about six or seven years ago. I still have the table. But yeah, it's just a nice way, especially if you need some of those, like, the Keva blocks. I have zoob tubes and extra Legos, if you need any of that stuff. Just a small grant, aside from Donors Choose, they will fund a few different things.

Naomi Meredith  16:35

Oh, yeah, that's great advice because I know that can be really inhibiting in our position, like you have found where you need stuff. I mean, you can definitely teach them with having cardboard, and a Makerspace. But I feel like Makerspace is just one unit, which if that's all you can afford, it's better than nothing to be honest. But we really want to provide these experiences for kids and buying high quality materials that are going to last more than one time. So having the Bee Bots or Blue Bots are definitely worth your investment. More so than those Code and Go Mice do the same thing. They're not very good. But that is so smart. I did not know you could do that. That's really helpful for people. If you guys don't know where to get started, I have a free guide for just a spreadsheet of different things that you can buy with different budgets. So that can help with your pricing and has a lot of the stuff that you mentioned Kristin with all of those really hands on materials, because you need you need all that cool stuff. I mean, it really helps like their imaginations and thinking of the world in new ways. So you said that the 10 on the sled was super fun with your kids? Has there been anything else of mine that you've used in your classroom that you've seen success with your kids?

Kristin Kinner  17:53

I've used a lot of your resources. 

Naomi Meredith  17:56

Oh, okay. I did not know this. 

Kristin Kinner  17:58

I did. Your marble maze, and the kids went bananas. They loved it. One kid made a really tiny one that was probably like four inches by four inches. They use cocktail straws around the edge. We even made marbles out of pieces of clay with one of the groups.

Naomi Meredith  18:18

Oh, yeah.

Kristin Kinner  18:21

Yeah, they did some amazing things. We did your spider pulley in October and they got to keep the spider ring.

Naomi Meredith  18:30

Oh, look at you go. I don't. I take them back. I think I said that on my episode too. I'm like, I don't let them keep them. Well, you are the nice STEM teacher, and I'm like give them back.

Kristin Kinner  18:40

That's because I ordered a bag of about 500 of them. I'm not gonna get rid of these in just a year. What else did we do? Oh, I used your cardboard maker tree. We created a wish tree. We did a wish tree for all the specials teachers. We put little ornaments on them, and we asked for some donations like markers, glue sticks, masking tape and scotch tape because I do not have a lot of those at all.

Naomi Meredith  19:11

Yeah, I run out of masking tape like it's water. Yeah, I ran into that so is such a cute idea. Have you gotten any donations? We are recording this in December. Have you gotten anything yet?

Kristin Kinner  19:23

I have I got some markers, and I think there's a few more that'll be coming in through the week. But just very excited.

Naomi Meredith  19:32

Oh I love that and you could definitely do that. You can make it like a palm tree I don't know for summertime or if you have parent teacher conferences. What a cute idea on how to use that one. I didn't even think of that.

Kristin Kinner  19:47

We did you're all about me brick build. I did it with six during the first week of school and they loved that. They keep asking for more Legos and I think just picking the colors and giving them a little, you know, they could pick what they wanted. But I don't know, it was kind of cool. It really worked out well. I used your Rube Goldberg lesson to show how matter travels through the ecosystem. 

Naomi Meredith  20:12

Oh, how did that one go? I'm always curious to see how that one goes in classrooms.

Kristin Kinner  20:17

So that was with fifth grade, and it was toward the beginning of the year. They kind of wanted to get it really involved with different animals. I was like, you only need three, have three, one to try to three. Like and if you want more than that, once you get to three, let's add on. But they enjoyed that. We saw some videos about different Rube Goldberg systems. There are some cool ones out there and gave them some inspiration. Then they created some amazing things. Yeah, I use a lot of your stuff. 

Naomi Meredith  20:49

Oh, you're so sweet. You sent me pictures of the posters. I didn't know like, I don't know. I'm like, Hey, I'm doing this in my own classroom. But the Rube Goldberg one is so fun. I don't know if you showed this. But kids like that's in Home Alone. I'm all Oh, yeah. Is it? Right? Yeah, like go watch it on Disney plus, like, it's just a good movie. I'm like, also a little sad. He's by himself. When we showed the part the part I could find on YouTube, where he was setting up the trap where it's actually really dangerous if you rewatch it, but then we didn't watch it actually go it like being launched, like hurting the robbers. I don't know if we can show that at school. But he's like pouring water on the steps. Then he has like, the fan with the feathers are like, Oh my gosh, but yeah, we were showing that when I did that with fifth grade, too. They were talking about him like, oh, yeah, let's watch that part. So super fun. I don't know if you had this happen. A lot of the kids didn't know what a Rube Goldberg machine was. But they kind of knew the concept. Did you see that too? When you were teaching it.

Naomi Meredith  20:49

A little bit. But again, I shared videos to kind of say this is who Rube Goldberg was, this is why it was famous, and this is what we're doing to try to find a difficult way to solve an easy problem was kind of how. 

Naomi Meredith  22:15

Yeah, totally. Again, it's so fun. I have told kids like you should make them at home over break and send me videos. It's a great at home activity on a cold day.

Kristin Kinner  22:30

It's a good idea.

Naomi Meredith  22:32

Oh, yeah, I'm not patient enough for that. But I would love to see the kids videos.

Kristin Kinner  22:38

I would bet they do it too.

Naomi Meredith  22:40

Oh, yeah, I think so. So if there's anyone else, I didn't send you this question before so I'm getting you on the fly. But if there is a teacher, and who is thinking about a similar role as you, they've been teaching for a while, do you have any advice for them? Because I know you love your position. You're just so sweet and modest about it. But I know you love it. 

Kristin Kinner  23:04

I do love it.

Naomi Meredith  23:05

Yeah, I know you. So what would you say to someone who is like you even six months ago, what would you say?

Kristin Kinner  23:13

I would say try them out in your classroom, like have your current kids pick a day, maybe it's like, fun Friday, but pick a day and have like different challenges where the kids are trying them out because you know your audience and you can tell them, hey, I want you to test the sound I try. I want to try something new with you. I used to do that with my first graders all the time. Now I have all those first graders because they were in my class over the past five years. So now they're in second through sixth. So I've got like robotics experts in the classroom, and I've got kids in every room that kind of know, what are some things that we did together. So they can now be the experts and lead others. That's kind of what you want to do. You want to find what they're good at, and you want them to feel like “Hey, I know this stuff.” So I'm gonna help you out and feel good about what they're doing.

Naomi Meredith  24:08

I think that's such good advice. I think that's so good because it is a lot teaching all the kids in the school. But I know like some teachers who listen to this are interested in STEM who are a classroom teacher, they don't know where to get started, or maybe they only teach a few grade levels. So I think that's really good to hear because it can be a lot at first. Like it is, it's a lot and even for me still starting new units it can be like super overwhelming sometimes but I think that's really good just to jump in. You're showing them to you have a growth mindset, and that's like really important in STEM like you're demonstrating what a growth mindset is because I think sometimes as teachers we don't always do that. But I think that's really good advice to give them. So you mentioned you had a website, are there any other? So how can teachers connect with you and get in touch if they have more questions?

Kristin Kinner  25:07

So I am on Twitter @kinnerswinners and I have a WordPress blog, but it's been a while since I've added it's called Innovationinfirst.wordpress.com. Then I'm trying to get better at Instagram, and that's where I'm k_kinnerteaches

Naomi Meredith  25:34

Yeah, I think they'll love that and definitely reach out. I think you have a lot of great nuggets that teachers can connect with and reach out to you and just fill up their STEM network. So I appreciate your time. Thank you for using my lessons. I had no idea that I never know I don't know who gets the things all the time. So it's just pretty cool, like hearing what you're doing in your classroom and how you're inspiring kids. I can't wait to talk to you at the end of the school year and just like how it all worked out for you.

Kristin Kinner  26:06

Oh, you're awesome. Yeah, your lessons are amazing. They're pretty clear, pretty straightforward and really easy to follow. So that's what I really liked about them.

Naomi Meredith  26:16

Good. Well, thank you. Well, thank you so much for being here. I appreciate you.

Kristin Kinner  26:21

Anytime! I will see you soon.