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.

We are back for 2025 and I am so happy to be back. I originally planned to have a break for the winter season for the podcast. I decided that like over a year ago, but I had to take a couple of extra weeks because I was sick for over a month and my voice sounded terrible.

I could barely talk without coughing. And so this is honestly the first day that I have been able to without coughing. And so my voice sounds a tiny bit off.

Just know it has been a month for me since I have really recorded a longer form video, but it feels so good to be back and welcome you for the new year. If you are new around here, I typically have a theme for each episode. And so if you go back and listen to any of my past episodes, you can feel out the vibe for this show.

And so this episode is different than what I typically do. So if you're like, I don't like this kind of style. Don't worry if you're new around here, keep listening, because this is more of a fun, personal episode, all STEM related that I think you're definitely going to enjoy because you help me out with the questions that I'm going to be answering.

This is an ask me anything episode. So I asked way back a few weeks ago over on my Instagram at Naomi Meredith, what would you like me to answer on this podcast, and you provided some great questions. I also have a few audio questions that some of you have sent me.

And so we are going to get to answering those on today's episode. Also, after listening to this, you have other questions for me, feel free to send me a DM or send me an email. This really helps me know what type of content I should be creating even almost 200 episodes and which is insane.

There are still plenty of episodes to record about. I am not at a loss for ideas. And when you ask me questions, that helps out a ton because you're the ones listening to this.

And so this helps me know what do you want to hear about a couple of you asked, are you teaching again, because you may have noticed in my emails that I send, and also on my social media, I appear to be in a classroom. And I am currently in a classroom right now. I'm not officially teaching again, per se in my own classroom.

But I am teaching in different ways, which if you listen to my episode 108, actually talk about my journey and STEM education, and how I'm staying in STEM education, just in different ways. And so at the end of the 2023 school year, I did leave teaching in a traditional classroom, K through five STEM, but I've continued to teach. And currently, right now, I am still in the middle of a K through five STEM long term subbing position.

I've talked about this in other episodes as well. But one of my friends in my old school district, who I know fairly well, asked me in the spring, if I would be able to take on her long term STEM position for her maternity leave. And it's longer than typical, I started mid October, and I'm going all the way up to mid February.

And so I did have to decide if that's something I wanted to take on along with all the contract work that I do. And also the after school clubs that I run for my STEM Explorers club side of things. And so after really thinking about it, and what my schedule would be like during that time, I said yes to her.

And so yes, there are videos of me in the classroom, and I'm teaching different things here, and they're coming up with a new lesson plan ideas. So yes, I'm teaching all day, sixth class of the day, a very similar position to what I had before that will be ending in mid February, actually on my birthday, Valentine's Day is my last day long term STEM subbing. But then I'm going to be continuing my after school STEM clubs for my business, and then also still subbing for my STEM teacher friends here and there when they need my help.

Along with that, someone asked a follow up question is, well, why did you decide to sub you left the classroom? Why did you take on this long term STEM position? I wasn't subbing before. So like I said, I've helped out a couple of my STEM teacher friends exclusively and have subbed their classrooms, mainly because I have the license in that district. And so if I'm available, I figure I might as well help them out.

I will teach what they have planned for me, or I'll teach something else, just get me out of the house and try different things. So that's a huge reason. But really a couple things.

Well, first of all, with the friend that I'm helping out is really helping her. That's a long time to be gone and plan lessons for K through five STEM, six classes a day, what three, four and a half rotations. Having taught that before, I just felt bad.

I didn't want her to plan that much. And it's kind of that slower time of the season in terms of my other contract positions when it gets into the holidays. Well, not so much with social media one, but for other like content creation and lesson planning type contracts I have, it's a slower time of year.

And so I thought it was a really great time. And then it actually ended up working out where I was able to purchase a car and it's going to actually help me pay off that car. So it was extra income for me, didn't necessarily have to do the subbing, but just knowing I'm helping out a friend and being able to try different lessons and she could just relax and take care of her baby.

It worked out timing wise for me and I planned for it. So it all works out from there. I don't know if I'll take a long term sub position, STEM sub position like this again, never say never.

But the subbing here and there hasn't been so bad, it gets me out of the house. So when I'm free, I put it on my schedule, and I'm able to work it out. And it works well with my other contract jobs.

But I have been very, very busy. Maybe that's why I got so so sick during the winter break, the little bit before winter break and a little bit after just going 100 miles per hour since I am doing a lot of other things on top of teaching and running my business. But I had it all worked out.

And logistically, it was a good fit. So that's why I chose to do it. Some people asked me, hey, a STEM position is going to be opening up in my district.

Should I take it? What is your advice? A few of you asked me, hey, a STEM position is coming up in my district. Should I apply or should I take that type of position? What is your advice? Before I became a K through five STEM teacher, I was a classroom teacher for six years. I taught second grade for two years and third grade for four years.

And that time in the third grade classroom, I was ready for a change. And I wanted a STEM type position because I wanted to teach more kids and have different kinds of challenges and differentiated lesson planning. Yes, you differentiate in the classroom, but just having that wide range of grade levels, I really wanted to take on that challenge.

Now, I'm not going to lie. If you have a similar question or you're kind of noticing that maybe you're listening to this podcast thinking, is a STEM teacher position right for me? I will say I'm not going to sugar coat it. It is very overwhelming.

It's very overwhelming with the lesson planning. Now, I love to lesson plan. I love that creativity side, but there's the part of the lesson planning and also learning what STEM tools do kids need to know and why and how to give them a wide range of experiences with the tools that you have and what do you need to purchase? It's overwhelming.

On top of that, the timing of teaching, it's very, very quick. And also the behavior management, you are typically teaching the whole school. So if that sounds like, whoa, that doesn't sound fun, take it into consideration.

So those are things I did keep in mind, but it was a lot jumping into that. Also, I'm helping out my friends subbing because that's a lot to handle. But the biggest question, really thinking about it, and this is something I ask myself all the time when making big life decisions, not just that STEM teaching job, but big life decisions.

I always ask myself, am I going to regret not doing it? And if you say, no, you know what? That's cool. I feel good about it. Then that's your decision.

But if you know, oh, I should have done this. I'm going to regret not doing it. You need to just go for it.

Worst case scenario, you don't get it. And maybe you have a position already and stick where you're at. I do think about things and what the different possibilities are.

But when it comes into making that decision, I always ask myself, will I regret not doing it? If the answer is yes, I will regret it. Then I go ahead and do it. So maybe not the best advice, but it's worked well for me in my adult life and even part of my childhood.

So that's my advice for you. If you do end up getting that job, I'm here for you. I have all these episodes.

I have a STEM teacher 101 course, workshops, all those things, lesson plans. So you're in the right place if you end up getting that job. This isn't exactly a question.

But on one of my past episodes, I was talking about coding and Scratch. And I wasn't quite sure about something in the platform. And so one of you actually messaged me with a voice message with a good tip about using Scratch.

So I want you to listen to this. Hi, Naomi. My name is Peg Bullock.

I am a Pennsylvania STEM teacher currently sitting on the beaches of New Jersey listening to your podcast. You mentioned about Scratch and the inability to share. We discovered CS First in Education, which uses the Scratch platform.

It doesn't have the extensions and all the bells and whistles, but it is set up like a Google Classroom. Kids join your classroom, and then you can share their projects on a big screen so much easier. It also eliminates all that public forum with all of those projects that they just want to play instead of creating and making on their own.

So check out CS First. Thank you so much, Peg, for that. I have used Google CS First when it first got started, but I haven't used it since the update.

So that's good to know that it kind of limits some of those extra features that can be really frustrating about Scratch, and kids get into the weeds of other kids' projects and music and all those things that you really want them to focus on the coding. All right, one of you asked, what are your favorite STEM books? For professional reading, I have two lists, a list for 2023 and 2024 to help get you started on your professional reading in terms of having a well-balanced professional experience when you're reading about STEM. I don't have one for 2025.

I think that's a great start. That will take you at least a year, if not both years. But start there.

Check out those book lists. They are on my website and also linked in the show notes. And in terms of kid books, my top three favorites in no particular order, I really love The Very Hungry Caterpillar.

I love Rosie Revere, Engineer. And I also love the book After the Fall. Different authors for all three, but I have a lot of different favorite STEM books, but top three, top of mind, those are my favorites for kids.

And hence why I have STEM lesson plans for all three of them, because I really enjoy those books and using them with kids. So you can check those out in the show notes as well. All right, one of you asked, what is the best way to organize plans for STEM teaching or K through five, K through eight? As a whole big picture view for my STEM lesson plan.

So for each unit and what I am doing day by day, I use a Google Sheet that is categorized and color coded and everything is linked inside to what I need for every single day. For every year I teach, I actually make a copy of that last year's document. So I make a new copy of that whole entire spreadsheet book so that I can refer to the old one.

If things update and change, the student skills change, I get new materials, I need to implement that into my curriculum. So having that spreadsheet is really, really helpful in terms of what am I teaching the whole entire year and what standards am I teaching. In terms of actual day by day lesson plans, I actually share about that in my workshops that goes into this next question I want you to listen to.

Hi there, this is Kristen Hartsell from Texas and Texas has TEKS instead of standards and they're very strict about them. So I was wondering if your workshops and your ideas go along with the Texas TEKS as well as the standards that you have already. For those of you who don't know, I live in Colorado so I don't use the Texas TEKS.

I actually was just in Texas for part of winter break. I got to tour NASA, which was really fun. So I don't have specific, specific experience using the TEKS.

However, inside of my K-2 and my 3-5 STEM planning on-demand workshops, I focus everything and center all my lessons around standards. In those workshops, I talk about Common Core State Standards, Reading and Math, and also the NGSS, Next Generation Science Standards. But the method and the way that I plan can definitely be tailored to if you use TEKS or if your state really focuses on their state standards for science, which Colorado actually does.

Colorado has their state standards for science that are based off the NGSS, but they add some of their own and take out other ones as well. So if you are looking into my on-demand workshops and you're worried about which standards am I using, it's really a brainstorm session with the teachers who attended and you can actually see how we connect all of those standards together, which again is what you would tailor for yourself. We are planning a unit, but we're not planning the whole entire year in that workshop.

That can't really be done in two hours. We do plan a unit together using standards, so you will be able to make sense of that using what are we working on and then how can you apply this to the standards that you use to teach. So it's very interactive, hands-on, even just watching that recording, so I think you'll still get a lot out of it.

Someone else asked, how can you get to be a guest on the podcast? There are a few ways. Sometimes people reach out to me. Sometimes I reach out to them, whether I have seen them somewhere on social media or someone has referred me to that person.

So those are the main ways. I am currently not interviewing guests right now, but towards the end of spring, I will open up my interviews again. Both ways, having the people reach out to me or I reach out to them or re-reach out if I talked to them before, but I have planned a fun summer series where there will be more interviews because you have more time to listen to the interviews in the summer.

So that is the main reason. If you're thinking, I would love to be a guest on your podcast, then feel free to reach out to me. We could chat about it.

Just currently at this time in January, I'm not taking on interviews, but they will open up in a few months. That is it for our Ask Me Anything episode. I hope you enjoyed it.

I love having these open conversations with you and getting back into the swing of things. So thank you so much again for hanging out with me. We are going into 2025 together.

Again, if there's anything you want me to chat about or something I'm missing on the podcast that I should record an episode about, let me know. I have a long list of things of episodes I need to create and get content for, which is great. And so keep that up and I can't wait to see you all soon and get all of those new episodes up and rolling.

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 elementarystemcoachpodcast at gmail.com. Also, make sure to check out my website, Naomi Meredith.com to see all the show notes from today's 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.