Naomi Meredith [00:00:00]:

So you're ready to start hosting a STEM after-school club. What types of STEM after-school clubs can you be hosting? Based on my experience of being a teacher for 11 years and 5 of those being a K-5 STEM teacher, I have a whole list of STEM after-school clubs that you can try, and these are all clubs that I hosted in my classroom that my students absolutely loved and provided a variety of experiences. So let's dive into these fun club ideas. 

Naomi Meredith [00:01:30]:

Pretty soon, I will be hosting a live workshop to take you behind the scenes on how I set up my favorite club of all my school-wide news. Not only will I be showing you exactly how the news ran day today, but all of the prework that I did at the beginning to get it all organized to get kids signed up. All of that behind the scenes work to what we actually did every week to set up the news where we didn't have to go live every day and depend on that. There is a whole method to the madness Everything is all streamlined, and I kept track of it all. So I could show you exactly what I did. I don't want you to miss out on this super fun opportunity. So make sure you join the wait list because you'll be the first to know when it's live And for people on the wait list, you always get a bonus. So make sure you join at Naomimeredith.com/newswaitlist. It's also linked in the show notes, so you can check it out there. In the last episode, I talked about the three reasons why you should host a STEM after-school club.

Naomi Meredith [00:02:20]:

If you haven't gone back and listened to it, no worries. Keep listening to this episode. And then when you're done, Go check out that one because they all go together, and it will all make sense. I love after-school clubs so much they're a lot of fun to plan, and also it's an awesome opportunity for students. My first year teaching K through 5 STEM. I went a little bit crazy, and I hosted 4 days of clubs. The only day that didn't have clubs were Wednesdays. But those clubs were all different because I wanted to have a whole variety of experiences for my students and have them interact with STEM in a lot of different ways.

Naomi Meredith [00:03:06]:

Also, in my district, all of the clubs were actually free. So We're a really nice opportunity for them to join. When I did do creative clubs, sometimes I charged a small fee of $3 just to pay for extra materials. And that was plenty when I had about 20 to 30 kids. That could buy me enough supplies for what I needed for the projects I was thinking about. Also, for 2 of my other clubs, I designed shirts, which I'll talk about when I get to these clubs later in this episode, And that was optional. Students didn't have to buy a shirt, but this was a good way to promote the club, which again will make sense in a second. When I hosted clubs, the clubs typically ran for 4 to 6 sessions in a row. So if their club were on a Tuesday, it would run for the next 4 to 6 Tuesdays.

Naomi Meredith [00:04:03]:

The other specials, teachers in art, PE, and music, we went through and tried to really plan these sessions together so that it all made sense when it came to when a new club would start, when it would end, and all of those different sessions. There were a few clubs that I hosted that did last the entire year, but then they had their own schedule. So it goes into all of that management and all of that pre-work when it comes to setting up a club. which I will talk about in the workshop. And if anything, if you're not even going to do school-wide news, joining the workshops is helpful because the way that I set up that club is exactly how I set up all of my other ones. So you'll get the templates in that workshop anyway, so join it for the 1st hour and then leave for the next. I don't know. But they're all of that work, and all of that management helped it run smoothly for the rest of the year I had all the kids set up and organized, so I didn't have to worry about it again.

Naomi Meredith [00:05:05]:

Another fun thing that I ended up doing once I had my school I knew running is me and the other special teachers started to make commercials promoting our clubs when it came to the time to sign up. They were anything fancy. A lot of times, my commercials had my dog Frederick in them, which all of the students in the school knew who Frederick was because he was in my commercials a lot, and he was also on the news with me when I had to record something last minute at my house, but it was so fun because we had made commercials about our clubs, and then our clubs were always full because they knew about them because they would go home and tell their parents about it. So it was a really fun way how we promoted these opportunities for kids. So kids always signed up. We also tried with our clubs when it came to signing up, where we would mix up the grade levels. So sometimes I would have a 4th and 5th-grade club running, and then the PE teacher might have a second and third-grade club. So kids could have a lot of different experiences.

Naomi Meredith [00:06:10]:

Sometimes we had clubs with kindergarten and 1st grade. I did that my 1st year, and the kids are really, really, really hired at the end of the day. So that's definitely up to you if you host clubs for kindergarten and first. I don't recommend it. I love the little one so much. They are my favorites, but they're also really tired at the end of the day, and it's just a lot. So that's my 2¢ on that. My clubs ran for about an hour after school.

Naomi Meredith [00:06:40]:

I was still done at the end of the day by 4 p.m., got to go home, and there were about 20 to 30 kids in each club. Almost all of them I ran by myself. Here and there, I had some clubs I had some help with, which also depended on the club that I was running, but most of them, I was running by myself, and it worked out just fine. So let's get into those eight STEM after-school clubs, the different kinds you can run, and I'm gonna be sharing with you just a little synopsis of what I did in each one. For some of them, I do have lesson plans created. Some of them I don't. Some were just like on the fly, or sometimes it was a curriculum that was already created.

Naomi Meredith [00:07:22]:

which is going to make sense as you're listening to this. So if I do have materials currently at the time of this recording, I will share them with you here. And, again, when it comes to the whole setting up a club, the whole process is exactly what I did for my school-wide news. So join in on that waitlist, Naomimeredith.com/newswaitlist, because then you can see, like, how to even set up a club to begin with. With the clubs I'm going to mention, you really don't have to do them in any certain order. I don't really have them in a certain order anyway. They're just When I thought of them, I wrote them down. So here they all are, the 8 different types of STEM after-school clubs that you can try.

Naomi Meredith [00:08:05]:

The first one that you can try is computer coding or anything related to computer creation. This will take literally no prep from you, which is awesome when it comes to hosting an after-school club. The program that I really like to use for this club setting when it comes to computer programming on the computer is Google CS First or Google Computer Science First. It is a free program, and at the time when I did it, they actually sent stickers that went along with the challenges. It changes all the time. They're always updating it and making it better, so I'm not quite sure if that is still a thing with this program. But what I really liked about it is that there are different themes of coding. So there's a whole theme that you are deciding to create your challenge around.

Naomi Meredith [00:08:58]:

So there's fashion and design, there's storytelling, but you're solving this problem through coding, which is pretty awesome because real world problems are using coding as one of the ways to solve them. So it was pretty cool. The curriculum's all laid out there. they have a lesson that the students watch. They have videos. and then they apply what they learn using scratch. So they have both at the same time, and they are building upon that challenge to really solve it. It's super cool.

Naomi Meredith [00:09:33]:

I highly recommend it. It's a great way you could do this club a couple of times a year and just choose a different seam. I had everybody work on the same theme. So when I presented the club, it was computer coding, fashion, and design. So they knew what we were getting into, which was pretty fun. On this side note, this isn't exactly computer coding. Now I know there are elements to coding with this, but you could do things like a Minecraft club. You could use Minecraft for education, as an option if you don't want to do that as a regular classroom lesson, or also you could do a 3D printing club.

Naomi Meredith [00:10:13]:

This is a great time to try out 3D printing because the biggest management is you managing the prince as a teacher. So if you do this as a club, You only have a handful of students. You're learning the platform. So try it as a club this year. And then the following year, you could do it with everybody. So a great way, pretty low preps since you're using student devices. You don't really have a whole lot of other materials to worry about. but computer coding on the computer is a great option.

Naomi Meredith [00:10:43]:

The 2nd type of STEM club to try is using LEGO bricks. Whether you have LEGO education kits or LEGO just mixed LEGO Bricks, This is a great club as well. Again, minimal prep. I did 2 versions of this club. I did LEGO 1.0 and LEGO 2.0. In LEGO 1.0, we just had quick one-day building challenges A lot of them I just made up, like building the tallest tower, and then we measured them with yardsticks. It was pretty fun. The kids liked it.

Naomi Meredith [00:11:20]:

It wasn't so fun when the towers fell over, and they had to clean it up, but it was things like that that they would build in one day. We would learn about it. We would watch some videos about it. They would try the challenge, and then they'd clean up and go home. Super low maintenance. When it came to LEGO 2.0, They didn't have to come to 1.0 to start. It's just a fun name I came up with. In LEGO 2.0, we use LEGO Bricks and other materials to merge them together and do stop motion animation.

Naomi Meredith [00:11:49]:

This is actually when I tested out stop motion animation. I had never done it before in a class. So I tried it in my after-school club. I loved it. I love teaching it. There are a lot of units I actually like to teach. I feel like in every unit I teach, I love that one, which is pretty true. but it was really fun teaching stop motion animation came up with a whole unit, and actually, with that unit used it for a summer camp class that I taught all about stop motion.

Naomi Meredith [00:12:19]:

So that was a lot of fun. That lesson, I do have the whole thing that you could use for an after-school club. So you can check that out in my stop motion bundle, which I'll link in the show notes. If you were looking more up for a LEGO challenge. I recommend looking into the junior 1st LEGO League. I might have mixed up the words of that. I always mess that up. but that is a competition based LEGO challenge.

Naomi Meredith [00:12:46]:

It can be a bit pricey. the prices change quite often. I did it for 1 year because our district decided to fund that, and then we did our own challenge within our district. But essentially, you have LEGO education kits. They do tell you which one you'll use. And then you have a challenge, and then the students build and solve a challenge, and there's lessons that go along with it. So it is pretty self-guided. Again, it is a bit pricey.

Naomi Meredith [00:13:12]:

So look into it first. but if you want more of a competition or something more guided, that's a good thing to look into. The 3rd type of STEM club that you can host is a school-wide news club. Again, this is one of the most favorite clubs I have ever, ever, ever hosted. It was like having my own class again. which is why I think I liked it because I had the same group of kids. I thought of the idea one day when I was walking my dog, Frederick, and it popped into my head, and I figured out how I was going to do this. My biggest challenge was that I didn't want to be going live every day because, for me, that was my planning time, and I needed my plan time to plan.

Naomi Meredith [00:13:56]:

And then here in Colorado, you get snow days, we get a delayed start, and I didn't want the news to be dependent on weather and kids getting there. So I figured out a whole system of how to have the news pre-recorded. So my students would only come on Mondays, and then it would be the way we scheduled it out. Everything was ready to go for the next week or so. In the 1st year, I only had a courting team of kids. I had 40 kids, so I split them into 2 groups, and we alternated weeks, and it grew so much in popularity. The kids up absolutely loved it. I had little kids begging me to be on the news.

Naomi Meredith [00:14:37]:

The following year, it doubled. I had 80 kids sign up. So I had about 60 kids on my recording team and 20 on my editing. No. That's not true. I had 50 in my recording and then 30 in my editing. So we would record on Mondays. I had 3 groups of 20, and then we edited on Tuesdays.

Naomi Meredith [00:15:01]:

I had 3 groups of 20. And then, the way I scheduled it out, they all had the same amount of time to be in the club. So it was a whole lot of fun. We had a logo. We had a brand. We had a whole brand about it. It was a huge privilege to be on it. kind of in a lot of ways, like student leadership, but in a different form.

Naomi Meredith [00:15:22]:

the kids were literally obsessed. So was I. I did have teachers help me with this one and help guide the news, but it was a whole lot of fun and very informative. We actually informed the school about what was happening. It wasn't just random. Oh, what's the sports for today? Like, we actually kept up with what was happening in the school. What were the current events of elementary school life? So I'm gonna share it with you.

Naomi Meredith [00:15:47]:

That's a whole snapshot of what we did, but I'll share with you how I set this up. So join that waitlist at Naomi Meredith.com/newswaitlist. The 4th type of STEM Club that you can host is creating things with your hands. I did this in a few different ways. One of them is that I hosted a Makerspace club, and this is where I tested out a lot of my seven stories lessons that you can get in my shop, which I'll link to the ultimate bundle in the show notes. This was so much fun, where we would read or listen to a short story and then complete a related STEM challenge. I did charge about $3 for this club so that I could cover the cost of materials that I didn't have on hand, and that was plenty. Most of it was recycled materials anyway.

Naomi Meredith [00:16:37]:

This was a great club because, again, I tried out lessons and things that I liked and didn't like. It also let me see as a teacher how I wanted my classroom maker space to be set up because I have it had it set up all the time. It wasn't something that I would bring out when I wanted. It was always set up. So having a club setting helped me see, okay, how is the flow of materials? Are there places where kids get stuck? where should the scissors go? Where should the markers go? What is a what makes sense in this situation? So that actually helped me find the flow of my maker's face. If you wanna hear more about Makerspace, I highly recommend going back to listening to episodes 5 and 6, and I break down that whole thing And then all the things that I use to set it up, I have a bundle of that as well. So everything I just said will be linked in the show notes. Another creating club that I started but actually didn't get to finish.

Naomi Meredith [00:17:35]:

So I was really, really sad about this. I started a digital branding basics club. In this club, the whole purpose was for students to create a fictional brand where they would be providing a good or a service, and they would develop the whole brand around it. So we were going to create a basic website to talk about brand colors when it comes to the psychology of that and why certain colors are used for certain things. Design a logo that they create digitally and also get it cut on our school cricket machines. And with the logo, we're also gonna put it either on a shirt or on a hat, which I, again, was so sad. I didn't get to do this club because the COVID shutdown happened.

Naomi Meredith [00:18:19]:

So we had 1 week of this club, and then it never happened again. And then, I went in a different direction with my club, so I didn't have the chance to fit that one in. So creating clubs, definitely recommend it could be a little more prep work, but kids love it. The 5th STEM club to try is an experiments club. This is a great way to do those experiments that you haven't done in a while that take a little bit of prep, like slime and ooblec. Only do ooblec if you don't have carpet on your floor. Definitely don't do that. And, also, just those things that are, engaging that they might miss out on the regular class.

Naomi Meredith [00:18:58]:

They may or may not be doing those things. So hands on experiments are a great club. With that, I also hosted an after-school club, which, honestly this one I didn't really like very much, but we did it. I tried it. Didn't do it again. but hosted, where we were setting up a school weather balloon that we were going to send up into near space, and the students were picking the things that we would have as the experiments that we would send up with the weather balloon, and they also set up the frame with help with some people from our district. And then, I had to go and set up a school-wide assembly event where the whole school went to watch this balloon getting set up, and the kids who were in the club got to help with that process. I didn't like this one as much because it was very teacher driven.

Naomi Meredith [00:19:46]:

And I and, like, teacher driven in a sense where I was doing a lot of the learning and the trainings, and also I did have to drive and get the balloon. So I had to drive for 2 hours and then go find it in the middle of a field and drive back Also, this was very weird. It's weird how a couple of clubs got affected by this, but the day the balloon got launched was the last day the kids had school for the spring because of the COVID shutdown. So it was weird. I thought it was cool, a cool experience, but also a lot of work for the teacher. So keep that in mind. Another club, number 6, that you could try is having a technology support club. This one is a lot of fun because you can train the kids on certain technology skills that are needed in the school that are constantly being asked of you, and they're your eye support team.

Naomi Meredith [00:20:40]:

So I would tell kids that I am the manager and you are my employees, and I'm gonna train you on the ways of the different things that are needed in the school. the 1st year I did it every other week. And then, in the following years, I just did once a month. That was plenty. But if I needed help with certain things or teachers were asking me questions because I was the technology person. I would send out my eye support team, and they would be there to help. I did also have a logo and shirts for this 1, and they would wear them proudly, and they were definitely a lifesaver. Another fun thing that I had these kids do in the club is that they made videos for our school-wide news, and they would make videos of certain processes of how to use technology like plugging them in, hanging up headphones, logging into Seesaw, and they also made cleaning videos that we would send out every so often on the news.

Naomi Meredith [00:21:29]:

And likewise, during testing season, there were certain technology things that 3rd through 5th-grade teachers had to do. So those kids helped me make videos as well that we could play on the news. Two more clubs are coming at you. I told you it had lots of ideas. The 7th club that you can try is robotics. There are a lot of different curriculums out there, so this is actually a great time to use the curriculums that come with your robots. My favorite is the Dash robot by Wonder Workshop, and they do a whole robotics league competition that comes out in the fall. So I recommend trying that.

Naomi Meredith [00:22:05]:

Also, the Vex robots are really great. There is a competition element. So if you could get other schools in your area to do it, it's a lot of fun. I haven't hosted Vex as a club, but I have judged it, and it is super, super cool. So If you have the money in the space for it, again, that one can be a bit pricey, but that one is a lot of fun and a good challenge. And the last type of club, that isn't really a club, but you can create take home STEM kits. This developed when we actually couldn't do after-school clubs, and I can do a whole episode about this one, but I created Take Home's STEM kits that were for purchase. And in the kit, there were 4 different STEM activities that had the instructions, a video, all the supplies, All of the related science, people in STEM, and explorations, all included in this box, and a new kit came out every month for 6 months.

Naomi Meredith [00:23:02]:

So it was a lot of fun to put these together. A great way for kids to be involved with STEM at home. I did make commercials to promote these to get kids to buy them. I didn't really make any profit off of it at my school. It was really just to fund the materials, any extra money I just put back into the program to buy more masking tape, which is something I always seem to run out of, but I do have a couple of commercials I made. I will post those in the show notes They're pretty funny. One of them has my dog Frederick who is the star of the video. So check them out.

Naomi Meredith [00:23:33]:

They're silly. They're cheesy, but they were a hit. As a recap, here are the 8 different STEM after-school clubs that you can do in your classroom. 1st, computer coding, 2nd, LEGO, 3rd, school-wide news, 4th, creating clubs, 5th, experiment clubs, 6 technology support, 7th, robotics, and 8th, which is a club, not really a club, take home STEM kits. In the next episode, I'm going more go into more depth about the benefits of having a school-wide news crew. which you definitely don't wanna miss out on. It definitely changed our school-wide culture for the better. So that is an episode I'm really excited to record.

Naomi Meredith [00:24:19]:

And while you're at it, make sure to check out the show notes. There are a lot of fun goodies in there, including the link to sign up for the wait list for my live workshop training, and you can find that at Naomimeredith.com/newswaitlist.