Tag: stem & stories

4 November STEM Activities to Try [ep.37]

Check out the full episode on 4 November STEM Activities to Try:

Subscribe to the podcast HERE on your favorite podcasting platform.

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Episode Summary

Looking for easy November STEM activities to try?

In this episode, I will be sharing with you four ideas that you can implement in your classroom right away.

There is a lot to celebrate during the month of November, so these STEM challenges that I'm going to be sharing with you aren't tied to a specific holiday or celebration.

These fun ideas will help you harness the crazy energy during this month and put it into productive use with these STEM challenges.

In this episode, you’ll learn:

STEM & Stories: Great Turkey Race Activity
LEGO Corn Mazes
Engineer Inspiration Boards
People in STEM with a green screen twist

Resources Mentioned:

K-5 Core Year Long Plan Lessons: https://naomimeredith.com/k5stem
- Exclusive Code for $30 off the bundle Podcast Listeners: PODCASTK5
The Great Turkey Race by Steve Metzger
STEM & Stories Lesson: The Great Turkey Race
Turkey Catapult Video
LEGO Basic Bricks
LEGO-Like Base Plates
Engineer Inspiration Boards:
People in STEM Digital Graphic Organizer
Person in STEM Green Screen Video Example- Mae Jemison

Some items are linked to my Amazon Affiliate account. When you purchase through my link, there is no added cost to you, but I receive a small commission in return.

Episode Transcript:

Naomi Meredith 00:00

Looking for easy November STEM activities to try? In this episode, I will be sharing with you four ideas that you can implement in your classroom right away.

Naomi Meredith 00:40

There is a lot to celebrate during the month of November, so these STEM challenges that I'm going to be sharing with you aren't tied to a specific holiday or celebration. I tried to mix it up for you so that you could do this all month long or really any fall month. As I said, they're not Thanksgiving specific or any holidays specific. So let's jump into these fun ideas where you can harness the crazy energy during this month and put it into productive use with these STEM challenges.

Naomi Meredith 01:15

The first STEM Challenge is STEM and Stories, which is one of my favorite things to do in the STEM classroom. It relates to the story, The Great Turkey Race. As a class, listen to the story or read the story out loud. You know that I love pre-recording read-alouds for my students. So if I know I'm going to be doing this book, a lot of times, I can have the video recording of me reading it, and then this gives me a little bit of extra time to set up any materials that I need for the lesson. Either way, you're going to be using The Great Turkey Race, and spoiler alert, there are some turkeys who are going to get eaten, and they want to escape the farm. Your STEM challenge is going to be related to this story, and there are a couple of different things that you can build for this challenge. You can have students build both things that I'm going to mention or one or the other depending on the time you have and the age of your students.

Naomi Meredith 02:14

First, you'll have students create a simple catapult that will be used to launch the turkeys over the fence, which we'll talk about the fence in a second. There are a lot of different ways that students can build catapults. One of my favorites that I will link in the show notes is a simple video that I created. There are popsicle sticks, rubber bands, and a plastic spoon. The way that we will create the catapult is students will wrap a rubber band around the popsicle sticks. I like to use the big fat ones since they give you more leverage within this challenge. They will wrap the rubber bands around the popsicle stick to hold the plastic spoon, and they will create basically the letter V. So, think about you have a popsicle stick with a spoon on one popsicle stick. Then there's a bottom popsicle stick, and at the tip of the V, you're going to wrap one more rubber band to connect the two, and this will create the letter V, which you will put a stack of popsicle sticks in between that are also secured with rubber bands that will be the fulcrum. This will allow the spoon to be able to be pushed down and eventually launch the turkeys over the fence.

Naomi Meredith 03:25

What I like to use for turkeys are pom poms. You can even glue pictures of turkeys to bring the story to life. Of course, we have the fence that the turkeys are trying to get over, and students can build their fence using a lot of different materials. My favorite for this challenge is to use raw spaghetti and Crayola modeling clay, which doesn't dry out. It's super inexpensive, and students will use those two materials to design a fence that the catapult will launch the turkeys over. If you're doing this challenge with younger students, the catapult might be a bit tricky. So you can have catapults pre-made before doing this challenge. The younger students may not be able to create the fences. One hack to this so that you're not the one building all of the catapults. If you do this challenge the day before with older students, they could be the ones in charge of the catapults and then save them for the younger students. I don't usually let the students keep the catapults after this challenge because I don't want to be responsible for other objects that will be flying in the classroom. So if you aren't going to save the catapults, I have students cut the rubber bands or untwist the rubber bands, and then we put all of the materials away. They are a little bit sad, but I tell them these are very simple materials to get at home. You can make it the same way or a different way, but we're going to reuse the materials as much as possible. So this is definitely a fun STEM challenge that you can do within the month of November.

Naomi Meredith 04:57

The second November STEM activity that you can try in your classroom is LEGO corn mazes. I don't know about you, but have you been in a corn maze, especially a haunted corn maze? I have! This was maybe six or seven years ago, and I distinctly remember it was a haunted one, and I was there with some of my friends. My one girlfriend and I were holding tight to each other, and I was so scared. I said, “Becca, I was like, Becca, we're gonna be okay, I'm so scared,” or something like that. In the haunted part, all the employees were saying, “Becca, Becca.” So we're a little bit traumatized. After that experience. I haven't been in a corn maze ever since. Luckily, for this challenge, it's not as scary. Again, this only uses a few materials that you might already have in your classroom.

Naomi Meredith 06:32

All you need are some big LEGO base plates and LEGO bricks and marbles or any small balls that are similar in size. There are some really great LEGO-like base plates on Amazon that work just as well as the original version. Definitely recommend taking a peek at those, and I'll link those in the show notes for you. I don't recommend using non-LEGO brand Legos since those don't have the same effect. They just don't hit the same way. So students will create their own LEGO corn maze. You can even print out different things that the marble can roll to, like a scarecrow, pumpkins, just different little images that they can attach to their designs. This is fine because this won't take very long in the classroom, and students can test one another's designs. You can even add that last piece where they can count how many dead ends they have, and how long it takes to get from the start to the finish, they could find the average time where they have multiple trials. So you can really extend this project if you would like or if you need a simple one-day challenge. You can do that as well.

Naomi Meredith 08:35

The third November STEM activity that you can try in your classroom is to create a one-page engineer inspiration board. I love creating these boards, and I have them created for all of the months of the year and all of the major holidays throughout the year. Some of the things that you can celebrate in the month of November are Dia de Los Muertos, which is November 1, Thanksgiving, and you can even have a board that represents Veterans Day or even just the month of November in general. With this one-page board, you can have real images or icon images of things that represent that holiday or that month. This gives students inspiration to build it however they want. This works great for a soft star if you were starting off your day with STEM station rotation or if you need something for a substitute. These engineer inspiration boards are great for that because students can build with whatever materials they have on hand, whether it's Makerspace items, blocks, playdough, or a combination of all those things. Then they can even share their designs by taking a picture or video of their work on the platform that you choose.

Naomi Meredith 09:47

Finally, the fourth November STEM activity that you can try in your classroom is to create green screen videos that go along with people in STEM that you are thankful for. This is a great literacy and STEM connection because students will do some research about people in STEM who have made an impact. They might already know about some people, or there are so many different things to look up in Epic Books, which is my favorite research tool for students. If you want to hear more about other research tools that I love to use with my students, make sure to go back and check out episode 17. And, of course, I list Epic Books. But there are some other favorites that I love to use in this STEM space as well. Students can research their favorite inventor that they know about or another person instead and find out information about them and how they have made an impact in the world of STEM. You can, of course, have students create a bulletin board of their findings. But I also recommend making this even more interactive. Remember those talking heads that we used to have students do where they colored a picture of the person that they researched? They might even cut out a big hole where they could put their head within that poster board. Or sometimes we have them dress up as that person. Then you have something like a wax museum. Well, take that idea, and let's bump it up a notch. You can have students create a script or a presentation about that person. They can pretend to be that person but use a green screen. If you have students wear a green shirt that matches the green background that you're using or a blue shirt that matches the blue background. My personal favorite, I will say kids with super, super blonde hair, when you do green screen, there's sometimes a tint of green in their hair, just the way the color of their hair is they have more yellow in it, and sometimes their hair will disappear. So I do like using blue because, with blue, I have had fewer issues when it comes to editing. But again, definitely your preference. Have students wear a colored shirt that matches the background, and then they can read their script and pretend to be that person. When you're in the editing app, you can overlay a picture of the real person, but instead of their face, it'll be the student's face. One thing I have done, I don't think it always matters, but you could use a green circle to cover up the person's face that they're talking about to make sure that it's not showing, but I don't think you'd necessarily always have to do that. But play around with it and see what you can do. I have a video example of this linked in the show notes. I remember doing this with my students, and I gave them no prior background. I just pressed play. When I recorded the video, I accidentally didn't press stop right in time. So my head kind of floated off the screen, and the kids started screaming. So make sure to watch my video example. It's pretty fun. But it's a cool way to get kids excited about people in our world that have made a difference in the STEM community or just in our world in general and people that we should definitely be thankful for.

Naomi Meredith 13:05

As a recap, here are the four November STEM activities that you can try in your classroom. First is the STEM in stories challenge that goes along with the great Turkey race. Next, our LEGO corn mazes. Third, our engineer inspiration boards, and fourth, people in STEM that we're thankful for with a green screen twist. I hope you enjoy these fun, themed challenges. You know, I like a good theme. But I also love lessons that are rooted in standards and have a purpose in mind. It's definitely good to mix these all up because there is a lot of STEM to teach. Thank you so much for joining me today, and I'll see you in the next episode.

Related Episodes/Blog Posts:

Connect with Naomi Meredith:

Check out more inspiration on her website: naomimeredith.com
Connect with her on Instagram: @naomimeredith_
Watch this episode on her YouTube Channel: Naomi Meredith
Join the Facebook Group, The Elementary STEM Coach Community | Technology & STEM for K-6 Teachers

More About your host, Naomi Meredith

Naomi Meredith is a former classroom teacher turned current K-5 STEM teacher and coach. Her role not only includes teaching over 500 students in her school, but also leading professional development and co-teaching with teachers to help them integrate STEM & Technology.

With over a decade of experience along with a M.Ed. in STEM Leadership and STEM certificate, she helps teachers navigate the best practices, strategies and tools out there.

She truly believes that any teacher out there can learn how to use STEM & Technology in their classrooms effectively. She can’t wait to connect with you and be your guide!

More About The Elementary STEM Coach Podcast

Are you tired of scrolling online for your next great STEM lesson? Do you feel like there is no time to plan, research and test meaningful STEM lessons, so you throw together a hands-on activity and hope that it works? What systems and routines should you set in place to help students be creative, critically think, and collaborate?

The Elementary STEM Coach is a podcast for K-5 STEM teachers, classroom teachers, GT specialists, and homeschool parents looking for actionable STEM solutions. Each week, Naomi Meredith will share tools, resources and lesson ideas that are actionable in your classroom and create highly engaging experiences with your students. You’ll learn systems and routines that will create control in the chaos and that will keep you organized all year long.

Your mindless scrolling days are over! Your new STEM-best friend is now here in your ear buds!

5 Halloween STEM Activities to Try [ep. 27]

Check out the full episode on 5 Halloween STEM Activities to Try:

Subscribe to the podcast HERE on your favorite podcasting platform.

Have a STEM question? Leave a voice message for the podcast!

Episode Summary

With Halloween right around the corner, you are most likely thinking of Halloween-themed STEM activities to try.

If you’re looking for ideas fun ideas for STEM activities that are perfect for class parties, one-day challenges, and class rewards, then I have you covered.

In today’s episode, I will share five Halloween STEM activities for you to try.

In this episode, you’ll learn:

Monster mouths
Jack-o'-lantern robot coding
Spider pulleys
Slime explorations
There was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Bat STEM stations

Resources Mentioned:

Episode Transcript:

Naomi Meredith 00:00

Looking for some fun Halloween STEM activities to try. I've got you covered. These are perfect for class parties, one-day challenges, and class rewards. Let's jump into these spooktacular activities.

Naomi Meredith 00:47

To help me get in the mood for this episode, I wore my Jack-O' Lantern shirt. Let me tell you, I am definitely a STEM teacher elementary teacher at heart. My Teacher Honey and I aren't the same age. He's older than me. I tell him when it's Halloween time, I need to have my millennial moments and get in the mood and dress up, which makes it even more fun because we have our little dog Frederick and Frederick and I do the couple's costumes. My Teacher Honey doesn't do any of that. My first year when I got Frederick, I was an astronaut, and Frederick was my little rocket. I made him a little rocket pack out of water bottles that I painted with silver paint and used tissue paper for the flame. So super cute! I had that picture hung up on my wall for a long time, and the younger students kept asking me if I was a real astronaut, and they totally believed me that I was even though I'm holding my dog in the picture. Depending on what mood I was in, I would tell them, “Yes, I am. And that's why I'm a teacher.” But no, I'm really not a real astronaut, but it was a fun costume.

Naomi Meredith 01:59

The second Halloween with Frederick, I was Miss Frizzle, and he was my little lizard. Of course, I wore that outfit to school but didn't bring Frederick along. When I brought him to doggy daycare and picked him up that afternoon, he actually won the costume contest, which I didn't even know was a contest. I just wanted to dress up, so that was super fun. This year, I am going to dress as a Starbucks barista, and he is going to be my little puppet chino. So poor little Freddy Fred has to dress up with me, and my Teacher Honey is off the hook.

Naomi Meredith 02:36

So, of course, I'm very excited about this episode because I have five Halloween STEM activities for you to try. I think that you and your students are really going to love them. They aren't tied to Halloween specifically, so if your school or classroom doesn't celebrate Halloween, you can still do these in your classroom. They have a spooky twist, but they're not necessarily let's celebrate Halloween together. So you can still implement these in your classroom no matter what your school or classroom celebrates. Also, if you're looking for more activities, I have five different STEM challenges that I talked about in episode 23, and they are all about fall. You could do all of these Halloween-themed ones and all of the fall ones and just have a fun STEM-themed classroom experience.

Naomi Meredith 03:25

The first Halloween STEM activity to try is Monster mouth. A lot of times when I am getting inspiration for my holiday-themed STEM activities, I like to browse the Dollar Tree and the Target dollar section to help me give ideas. Also, it's a good excuse for me to buy some things. So that's pretty fun, too. For this challenge, you will need plastic vampire mouths, googly eyes, and LEGO bricks. You can tie in a monster-themed story. One of my favorites is I need a monster. The book itself is so cute, but there also is an adorable little animation of the story that I will embed in the show notes that you should definitely watch with your class. It's a little spooky at first, but then it's just a happy, cute ending. I've even shown it to my Kindergarten class, and they're a little bit scared, but then they're okay. After reading this story, you can have students create their own monsters. You can have them start building right away, or they can plan their design. The creations are absolutely hilarious because of what they come up with. What makes this quite a challenge is they can't use any tape to tape on the monster's mouth. They have to engineer a way for the teeth to be held by the LEGO bricks. Students have such creative ideas, and it is so fun to take pictures of their creations and send those out to families in Seesaw, Flipgrid, or whatever platform you use. If you only have a small class of kids, you can let them keep those little vampire teeth. Or, like me, when I teach all the students in school, I do have to take them back. I will say I have had some kids walk off with them, and that's pretty disgusting because they have been used a lot of times. But this is a fun monster-themed challenge to try.

Naomi Meredith 05:21

The second Halloween STEM activity to try is Jack-O'-Lantern robot coding. Back in that fall episode, I talked about the importance of having a grid for students to code the robot to, so make sure to go and listen to that part. But for this one, you will want to have a grid for your specific robots, with dice with different faces of Jack-O'-Lanterns on them and different sizes of pumpkins. Likewise, those same images you can have printed out on cards that are mixed up and spread all along the grid, students will roll one of each dice so one dice with the Jack-O'-Lantern face and one dice with the pumpkin size. In turn, they will code their robot to collect the Jack-O'-Lantern phase that will go on the corresponding pumpkin size. If you want to make this even more hands-on, instead of having cards, you could have felt pumpkins that you could cut out on a Cricut machine or even by hand and different Jack-O'-Lantern faces that you've cut out. Those could be lining the border of your coding mat. When students code to those different sections, they can actually build the physical Jack-O'-Lantern. So there are a lot of variations to this. You can have a lot of fun with it and have a different building experience when it comes to coding.

Naomi Meredith 06:45

The third Halloween STEM activity to try is spider pulleys. Again, this is another low-prep one, but the kids absolutely love it. After talking about the science of pulleys and different pulleys out there, students can create their own pulley system that will help pull the spider up to their web. For this challenge, all you will need are those cute little spider rings that you know as a kid, you got to put one on every finger and think you're beautiful. I'm not saying that I did that. Wink wink. But you have those spider rings, yarn, and pencils, and you tie a long piece of string on those rings and onto the pencils. I recommend doing this ahead of time, so they're ready to go. This is a big challenge for a lot of kids to make those tiny knots. So just go ahead and tie those before you start the challenge. Then you have tiny spider webs printed out on paper and LEGO bricks, or you can even use Makerspace items. Students will create a system where the pulley can be in their design and be steady, and while they turn the pulley, the spider can go up the web. Again, you could send kids on their way with these rings or keep them for a lot of different classes.

Naomi Meredith 07:57

The fourth Halloween STEM challenge to try is slime explorations. I know a lot of teachers and parents have different opinions when it comes to slime. I recommend, if you can, and if the weather is nice enough, doing this outside. It's a great way to explore the outdoors with this messy experiment. This is also a great lesson on matter and all three states of matter. You can explore how slime does not always follow the rules of solids, liquids, and gases but is more of a non-newtonian fluid. You could talk about all of that science with students. This is also a great way to try different recipes, and students can compare the different types of slime and what they can and can't do. For example, some of the things you can have students observe are which one was the stickiest, which one was the smoothest, the gooiest, the most bouncy, and the most stretchy. My favorite slime out there uses baking soda, glue, and contact solution. You can just Google it and find the recipe. A way to make this even spookier is you can buy glue that glows in the dark. I know that it glows in black light, but I'm not 100% sure if it glows in just a dark room, so test it out. They make big jugs of it, and it's sparkly and so much fun. Another thing too for the slime is having some gloves on hand for students who have sensory needs. Not all kids like the sensation of slime, so having this available is a great backup for students who still want to experiment with this fun challenge but don't necessarily want their hands in contact with the slime.

Naomi Meredith 09:43

The fifth Halloween STEM challenge to try is There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Bat. I have four station ideas that you can use in your classroom. This will get two days of planning done for you if you do two stations a day after you read this story or listen to an audio version. Now, most kids think this book is really funny. I had a Kindergarten class one year that had the weirdest reaction. They kept saying, “Eww! This is gross,” or, “Oh, what's wrong with her?” So that Kindergarten class wasn't a huge fan. Most classes just laugh and think it's funny, but this class had a totally different response. So read that story and have the different things that the old lady swallows and pictures of those things. They could be real or clip art versions.

Naomi Meredith 10:37

Here are the four different stations that you can use that go along with this story. The first one is students can use LEGO bricks or whatever type of blocks that they have. They can build the different items that the old lady eats and then have an old lady face, and they can feed her all of those different items in the order that it happens in the story. This is really good for the beginning, middle, and end, paying attention to details and having the sequential steps of a story. So you're tying in those ELA standards. At the second station, you can add in some robotic coding. You have the different pictures of those things that the old lady ate, and students can code to those different items in the story and in the order that they happened. The third station that you can have is students can create pixel images of those things that the old lady ate. My favorite way for kids to create pixel art is using the boards that are from the Bloxels kits. I will link this in the show notes for you. Bloxels actually has a paid subscription where students can use the images that they create on the board and then put them into a game that they can create. I actually don't buy the subscription. I just really liked the boards, and the kids love the little pieces. It's great for fine motor skills and seeing the big picture, and breaking it apart into sections. The Fourth Station that you can have that will go along with the story is that students can build the different items that the old lady ate using digital blocks in Seesaw or ones that you can create in Google Slides. You can even have students graph the number of different blocks that they use. For example, if they create a bat using specific pattern blocks, they can graph how many of each type of block they used in their design, so you are adding in that math piece.

Naomi Meredith 12:27

As a recap, here are the five Halloween STEM activities that you can try in your classroom. First are monster mouths. Second, Jack-O'-Lantern robot coding. Third, spider pulleys. Fourth, slime explorations. Fifth, There was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Bat STEM stations. Also, I would love to invite you over to my Ultimate STEM Resource Library where these challenges and even more October-themed STEM challenges are there for the rest of this month and other fun bonuses as well. You definitely want to jump in on this membership because there are some awesome changes coming up for 2023 that I definitely don't want you to miss out on. Thank you so much for being here, and have a happy Halloween.

Related Episodes/Blog Posts:

Episode 23/5 Fall STEM Activities to Try
Blog Post: Pumpkin STEM Activities & Technology Lessons
Blog Post: Spider STEM Activities & Technology Lessons
Blog Post: Winter Holidays Around the World Websites for Kids
Blog Post: Winter STEM Activities Kids Will Love

Connect with Naomi Meredith:

Check out more inspiration on her website: naomimeredith.com
Connect with her on Instagram: @naomimeredith_
Watch this episode on her YouTube Channel: Naomi Meredith
Join the Facebook Group, The Elementary STEM Coach Community | Technology & STEM for K-6 Teachers

More About your host, Naomi Meredith

With over a decade of experience along with a M.Ed. in STEM Leadership and STEM certificate, she helps teachers navigate the best practices, strategies and tools out there.

She truly believes that any teacher out there can learn how to use STEM & Technology in their classrooms effectively. She can’t wait to connect with you and be your guide!

More About The Elementary STEM Coach Podcast

Your mindless scrolling days are over! Your new STEM-best friend is now here in your ear buds!

How Do You Structure a STEM Lesson? [ep. 25]

Check out the full episode on How Do You Structure a STEM Lesson?:

Subscribe to the podcast HERE on your favorite podcasting platform.

Have a STEM question? Leave a voice message for the podcast!

Episode Summary

With all the cool tools and resources out there, it's important to structure your STEM lesson so that it is rooted in standards but still engaging.

In this episode, I will be sharing with you four different ways that you can plan and structure a STEM lesson and make it work for the time that you have in your classroom.

In this episode, you’ll learn four different ways that you can structure planning your STEM lessons:

Multi-day projects
Challenges of the day
STEM and stories
STEM stations

Resources Mentioned:

Grab my free, K-5 STEM Year-long plan: naomimeredith.com/yearlong plan
Elementary STEM Coach Podcast Voicemail-Leave your questions here!
STEM Teacher 101-Course
Not a Box Lesson Plan & Cardboard Straw Maze
STEM Snack Pack: Foil Boat Challenge
Sun, Moon & Stars STEM Stations for 1st grade
Science: Moon Phase Puzzles
Technology: Day & Night Robot Coding
Engineering: Space Engineer Inspiration Board
Math: Constellation Geoboards

Episode Transcript:

Naomi Meredith 00:00

With all the cool tools and resources out there, it's important to structure your STEM lesson that is rooted in standards but still engaging. In this episode, I will be sharing with you four different ways that you can plan a STEM lesson and make it work for the time that you have in your classroom.

Naomi Meredith 00:49

In the last episode, Episode 24, we talked about how to organize all of those ideas and lead up to the actual lesson planning for your STEM lessons. So make sure to go back and check that out because we are at the tail end of that episode and are now getting into how to dive into that planning. Also, if you're curious about how actually to plan your whole STEM scope and sequence, I also recommend checking out episode 14, where I go more into detail about that process. So how do you structure a STEM lesson? Here are four ways that you can structure your STEM lesson, and I know that you are going to find a way that works best for you. You may even try all four of these ideas.

Naomi Meredith 01:37

First are multi-day projects. For this and all of the different ways to plan, I am going to be talking about how I use the Engineering Design Process as my base, especially when it comes to those multi-day projects. I am really zoning in on the Engineering Design Process. If that's a process that you're not using, this is when you can implement project-based learning, design thinking, the launch process, or even the scientific method, whatever method you are using for planning. This is when I think about those longer multi-day projects. When I'm thinking about multi-day projects, I'm thinking projects that will obviously last more than one day, about three to five days, and you have 40 minutes plus with your classes. I will definitely stretch out and use all of my days with my second and fifth graders and really dive into all of those stages of the Engineering Design Process.

Naomi Meredith 02:37

For my first and Kindergarten students, I typically have their multi-day projects last about three days. Then I use the remaining two days of my week doing STEM stations, which is another way of planning. We're going to talk about this later in the episode. When working on multi-day projects, here is how I break up all of the stages of the Engineering Design Process. Day one is all about ask and imagine, so using all of those resources to build background and really dive into that S-the science part of the project. Day two is finishing up any imagining and zoning in on their plans, and being thoughtful with those plans. Then days three through five are all about creation, experimenting, and improving, which those stages go back and forth a lot. Then eventually sharing their work in a way that makes sense for that project.

Naomi Meredith 03:31

I do see kids K through five, five days in a row, the same six classes throughout that same week. If you're a teacher who sees different classes every day, here's how I might split up your multi-day projects. Day one would be all about your asking, imagine. On day two, you could finish up the imagining stage, dive into the plan, and start to gather materials. Maybe you don't have them build quite yet because you probably don't have anywhere to store projects that are being built. Then the final week that they come, day three, or if you do want to carry it into day four, the kids are diving into the creation, experimenting, improving, and sharing piece. Again, remember to have smaller projects. This will also help kids get their buildings done a lot faster. If you are storing projects for more than one day, if the projects are smaller then you will have more ways to creatively store those projects. I know storage can be really tricky, especially when we're not always going into classrooms that were originally designed to be a STEM space.

Naomi Meredith 04:39

Now multi-day projects might not work best for everybody, and that's okay. Sometimes your schedule is out of your control. So this is for my people who do see the kids one day a week, or if you need ideas for sub plans, if you have a weird week, if you do see kids once a week, one day, but then you see them again the rest of the week. So, for example, there was one year that I taught, and my schedule was a bit funky. On Mondays, I taught eight classes a day, I did say eight, for 35 to 40 minutes. I can't remember exactly. But I taught eight classes in a day, it was insane. Let me tell you, I was super sweaty at the end of the day, that was on Mondays. Tuesday, I was co-teaching with the classroom teachers to help them implement STEM and technology in their instruction. Then Wednesday through Friday, I had the same classes, my same six classes K through five, for three days in a row.

Naomi Meredith 05:40

For my multi-day projects, I had to zone in, make them more simple, and even shorten some stages of the Engineering Design Process. I also, on those Mondays, didn't connect it with my Wednesday through Friday schedule because it wasn't always the same kids that lined up for that week. So I use this method of the challenge of the day on my Mondays, where it was a quick STEM lesson that had elements of the Engineering Design Process and still planned with standards. I would start and finish within that Monday. So that's all the time that we got.

Naomi Meredith 06:17

So this brings me to my second way to structure your STEM lessons, and that is the challenge of the day. Like the name says, you are done with a challenge in one day. It has elements of the Engineering Design Process, so you can go through them very quickly or zone in on one or two of them. You are literally done in one day. Here are some examples of challenges of the day that I have done in those random one-day lessons. The year that I had that one day is when I did all of those Dot Day activities. They were quick, they were fun, and students were able to express their creativity, but they were complete in one day, which was perfect for Dot Day. If you're interested in hearing about the types of activities that I did for Dot Day, make sure to go back and listen to episode 16, where I give you five different STEM lessons that you can try in your classroom. Another great use of these one-day activities is to do those themed holiday lessons. At the time of this recording, I am in the middle of the fall, and I have five fall STEM activities that you could try in your classroom back in episode 23. Another great use of your challenge of the day is thinking about those quick STEM projects that are rooted in standards that students can explore and zone in on those science topics.

Naomi Meredith 07:42

I do take home STEM kits called STEM snack packs. These are quick challenges that families can do together and explore, or it could be a great option for the challenge of the day. If you really don't want to plan using the STEM snack pack models, then this could also be a great sub-plan. One of my lessons for this is the foil boat challenge. Students are given one large piece of foil, and they have to design a boat with just the foil. Then they test different objects to see how much they will weigh. So they make a hypothesis of how many of that same object they think their boat will hold, and then they try lots of different things within that boat. They can even calculate the weight of the items that it held. Things that you could put in your boat would be small marbles, LEGO bricks, popsicle sticks, or any tiny things that you might have laying around. You could find the weight of those things and help them do the calculations. So again, quick one-day activities where it really is a challenge of the day.

Naomi Meredith 08:46

The third way that you can structure your STEM lessons, it's very similar to the challenge of the day, but that is STEM and stories. This one is definitely a favorite for when I have sub plans. If you're a library specialist who is implementing STEM, this is definitely for you. Of course, read the story to your students, and if you are short on time, I recommend you pre-record yourself reading the story. You could get an ebook version of the book and screen-record yourself reading it. It's even more fun if you're reading it at home with your pets or your children. I have my little dog Frederick when I do this, and the kids love it because I talk to him throughout the story. The kids feel like they're at home with me, and they have that connection piece as well. If I am personally the one pre-reading the story, the students are just as engaged as they would be if I was reading it in person.

Naomi Meredith 09:44

STEM and stories challenges allow me to gather any supplies that are needed. Also, when I have students who are coming in that have a hard time with transitions, they come in later in my lesson so that way I can chat with them and handle any of those situations. Once the story is over, all the kids are ready to go. I definitely recommend doing this. This is a great time-saving hack. STEM and stories lessons can last for one day, or you can also stretch it out to multiple days. One of my favorites is after reading the story, Not a Box, students will create a straw marble maze. I use Amazon cardboard as their base, and I have it pre-cut. The students use tape and straws to create the maze for their marble to travel through. You can experiment with different marbles, such as round marbles or marbles with a flat side, to see how it changes the pace of their game.

Naomi Meredith 10:44

After listening to the story, on day one, students can create their straw cardboard maze. On the second day, they can do all of the math and peer reviews that go along with it. They can calculate how fast the marble goes through their maze. They can add points to their game, write the rules, and then have other people play their game and receive feedback on how the game went. This allows them to make modifications along the way. Just like any of these, you can always extend them further and add even more elements of STEM. STEM and stories are a great way to highlight those common core standards that go along with reading literature. Or you could even do a nonfiction text and really highlight their informational standards as well.

Naomi Meredith 11:28

The fourth way that you can structure your STEM lesson planning is using STEM stations. During my first few years teaching STEM, I did STEM stations with K through five. This was a way for me to test out all the random supplies in my classroom, see what would work for different types of grade levels, and see my kids' skills and capabilities when it came to using different types of tools. Now while being in my fifth year teaching STEM, I have a pretty good grasp of what the capabilities are for all different grade levels. I only use some stations with K through one. Again, this isn't just a primary thing. I highly recommend using stations when you're short on time, so you can also test out all of those interesting tools. For most weeks, when I'm teaching Kindergarten and first grade, I will do a longer project that is three days or a smaller challenge of the day project around the same theme. The last two days are STEM stations. The way that I like to structure STEM stations, and that has worked best for time, is I have four stations, and students rotate through to a day.

Naomi Meredith 12:41

So here's how I explain it to the kids, “Hold up two fingers on one hand, put up two fingers on the other hand. What is two plus two?” They usually can tell me four, and I'm all, “Great. We're going to do two today and two tomorrow. If you don't get to your favorites today, when are you going to do them?” They say tomorrow. So they understand that they will get through all the stations as long as they're at school and everybody's happy. I can get through explaining the lessons, often showing a short video that correlates with the science standard. They're able to do the first station, clean up, stand at their clean station, point to the next station they're going to, complete that station, clean up, and they are ready to go all in 45 minutes. Also, I don't throw out random things for the kids to do. I still plan everything with themes and with standards. Again, this does take careful planning, and you can pull out bits and pieces of the Engineering Design Process.

Naomi Meredith 13:44

Now I told you I like to plan with four stations. So naturally, I plan each station that goes along with each letter of STEM, science, technology, engineering, and math. This also helps make sure that I am planning stations that have a variety of tasks for students to do, they are getting a well-balanced experience and their STEM station rotations. For example, here are the four stations that I used when I taught the sun, moon, and stars to first grade. We first started off with a related video with Sideshow kids. Then the science station was moon phase puzzles, where they had all of the different moon phases cut up, and then they put those puzzles back together and got to learn and recognize the details within each of those phases. The technology station was day and night coding where students used to Bee Bots or Blue Bots. They rolled a dice, and there were pictures on the grid that went to each of those things that can be seen during the day, night, or both.

Naomi Meredith 14:44

The engineering station was some space inspiration. So students had LEGO bricks to build various things that go along with space and all those different images that were provided to them. If I want to mix it up with that space engineering board, I do have some flash cards I got from the Target dollar spot forever ago. They show real-life pictures of things that can be found in space and interesting facts on the back. I had both options for students, and they could choose what worked best for them. The math station was geoboard constellations, and students had different images of famous constellations that they could build using the geoboards and then check off on their laminated list of which constellations they were able to build during that time. Stations can have a little bit more prep work when it comes to supplies. But if you are teaching a lot of classes, it's definitely worth the time. Then you have the tools ready to go for many years to come, and the kids are even more engaged because they all go together and are planned around their standards and go along with that theme.

Naomi Meredith 15:51

As a recap, here are the four different ways that you can structure planning your STEM lessons. First are multi-day projects. Next are the challenges of the day. Third are STEM and stories lessons, and the fourth is STEM stations. This episode is about finding a planning structure that will work best for you and really root your lessons in standards and research so that the experiences are super meaningful and you are digging into those experiences in your own STEM way. If you want lesson planning templates for this and really dive into structures and routines when it comes to planning and setting up your STEM space, I welcome you to join my course, STEM teacher 101, where I dive in deeper on all of these topics, give you templates and resources, a bonus community to chat with and you even get five PD credit hours that you can take in your own time and be the STEM superstar that you are.

Related Episodes/Blog Posts:

Connect with Naomi Meredith:

Check out more inspiration on her website: naomimeredith.com
Connect with her on Instagram: @naomimeredith_
Watch this episode on her YouTube Channel: Naomi Meredith
Join the Facebook Group, The Elementary STEM Coach Community | Technology & STEM for K-6 Teachers

More About your host, Naomi Meredith

With over a decade of experience along with a M.Ed. in STEM Leadership and STEM certificate, she helps teachers navigate the best practices, strategies and tools out there.

She truly believes that any teacher out there can learn how to use STEM & Technology in their classrooms effectively. She can’t wait to connect with you and be your guide!

More About The Elementary STEM Coach Podcast

Your mindless scrolling days are over! Your new STEM-best friend is now here in your ear buds!

How Do I Organize All of My STEM Lesson Ideas? [ep. 24]

Check out the full episode on How Do I Organize All of My STEM Lesson Ideas:

Subscribe to the podcast HERE on your favorite podcasting platform.

Have a STEM question? Leave a voice message for the podcast!

Episode Summary

STEM lessons are so much fun to plan, but they can be overwhelming. There are so many cool lesson ideas out there.

But how do you organize them all, especially when you teach Kindergarten through fifth grade STEM? How do you even fit it all in?

In today's episode, I'll be sharing with you my system to organize all of your STEM lesson ideas and help you choose lessons that will work best for your STEM space.

In this episode, you’ll learn four ways to help you plan and organize your STEM lesson ideas:

Brainstorm themes
Research standards
Plug your lesson ideas and standards into your year-long plan
Fine-tune your lessons

Resources Mentioned:

Grab my free, K-5 STEM Year-long plan: naomimeredith.com/yearlong plan
Elementary STEM Coach Podcast Voicemail-Leave your questions here!

Episode Transcript:

Naomi Meredith 00:00

STEM lessons are so much fun to plan, but they can be overwhelming. There are so many cool ideas out there. But how do you organize them all, especially when you teach Kindergarten through fifth grade STEM? How do you even fit it all in? In today's episode, I'll be sharing with you my system to organize all your ideas and help you choose lessons that will work best for your STEM space.

Naomi Meredith 00:56

I recently received an email from a fellow STEM teacher that inspired this episode, and I wanted to read that to you. “Hey, Naomi, I've been teaching STEM for a couple of years. My biggest challenge is being organized with all the resources I'm now finding more of, focusing on my plans for the year, and each grade is my biggest challenge. Doing themes would be ideal, but I seem to be all over the place. Any advice?” from Ban K.

Naomi Meredith 01:24

Before I jump into my response, I want to make sure that I am best serving you with my podcast and answering your specific questions. I want to hear your voice. You are always welcome to email, but I also mean your literal voice. I have set up a special voice message system where you can leave me an audio message, hit record, ask your question, and even have the chance to be featured on the podcast. Think of it like one of those help columns that used to be in newspapers. You don't even have to use your real name if you don't want to. You can say things like struggling STEM teacher, or excited for STEM can be examples of names. I will link this voice message system in the show notes for today and all future episodes. I really can't wait to hear your messages and gain inspiration for future podcast episodes!

Naomi Meredith 02:27

Okay, back to the question from this email. I totally get it. I am definitely an ideas person. I am not one to be running out of ideas, whether it's podcast episodes, lesson plans, things to wear for my bachelorette party, you name it. I always have so many ideas swimming around in my head. If you want to get a peek inside of my brain, it's like when you have so many tabs open. I can only focus on one at a time. But I always have lots of things running in the background that I am constantly working on. I definitely understand how it can be overwhelming when you are seeing all of these cool ideas online, on social media, and in books, you read. You start wondering how you can organize all of these in a sequential way that makes sense for your STEM space so you're not just teaching a bunch of random stuff.

Naomi Meredith 03:27

I'm going to be sharing with you my system for organizing all of these ideas and putting it all together so that it makes sense. There is a progression of learning. The first step is to brainstorm themes. This is the most fun part, and this is where you are going to start organizing all of those ideas. You don't need to be super specific about what the actual lesson looks like. This is all about getting it out of your head and putting it in a place where you can visually see what is going on. You can do this digitally or on paper. You can do it in any note tracking system like Google Keep or Trello, which is one of my favorites. But this is where you will brainstorm and add in all those ideas. You are going to organize these ideas somewhat so that when you get into the next stages of this system, it's going to make a lot more sense. You're going to set up a piece of paper, physical or digital, and each piece of paper is going to have a major STEM theme that you are planning for. You can definitely take a peek at my free K through five STEM year-long plan to give you some ideas and some major things that you definitely want to have in your STEM planning.

Naomi Meredith 04:46

The themes that I am thinking of are coding, robotics, Makerspace, and 3D printing. You should have each of these listed on their own sheet of paper, and when you see ideas or you have ideas of your own, you learn something at a conference, you might even learn something from this podcast, add it to your brainstorm list and try to categorize them. This will actually help you visually see what types of lessons you have tons of ideas for and ones that you need more research on. Also, this will help you create a balance throughout your year, so you're not doing one or the other. You can create a whole bunch of experiences for your students. So this will be your first go to place to jot down any of those ideas, it doesn't mean you have to teach them. It's going to help you organize everything that's floating around in your head.

Naomi Meredith 05:41

The next step is to dive in and do backward planning when it comes to standards research. When you think about it, your lessons really do need to be rooted in standards and have that connection to the NGSS or science standards in your state, Common Core, which includes English language, arts, math, and even those speaking and listening skills, along with the ISTE standards for students. Even if you want to think bigger and broader, the four C's, this is where you want to take a peek at your lessons and what types of lessons can really hit those standards. You might have to do some research on what would fit, what would not fit, and also which activities are more of a filler activity. There is nothing wrong with these types of STEM projects. They have a place for different situations. For example, I love those little filler activities, and so instead of me teaching those in the classroom, I see them as a great opportunity as sub plans for last-minute things when I am super sick and I have to pull that out. I also create take-home STEM kits, which I'm figuring out how to do an episode all about that. This is something that I'm actually experimenting with my own students right now. So it's definitely in beta mode. But think about how you can send home these ideas with students, where families can support them in this learning where it is more guided step by step and not as deep. So those filler activities definitely have a place, but they might not be with your really high-level instruction.

Naomi Meredith 07:22

The standards research is going to help you pick and choose which lessons should be taught within your classroom. Also, when researching those standards, you might even see some common themes and standards that connect across the grade levels. For my video and audio production unit, I picked standards that went along with earth science and space science and how those all connected together within all the grade levels. Each grade level had its own video and audio production unit, and all the standards connected together, which made the planning a whole lot easier. I could see these connections as a teacher and also when I was creating those lessons for my students over the years to help them make those connections. So research those standards, get to know them, and put them in with that STEM twist.

Naomi Meredith 08:18

Once you have researched those standards, it's time to plug them into your year-long plan. Back in episode 14, I talked about how to write your STEM year-long plan. So make sure to go and check that out that will really help you with this step. I dive more into detail right there. You have your brainstorm, you research the standards, then plug them in into your year-long plan where you can visually see that progression of learning that I was talking about. Again, this will also help you see the holes in what you're missing and where you might have to go back to that brainstorm stage and find lessons that will be high-level learning standards space that will work well within your classroom. You might have an idea of how you want to teach these lessons. But you don't have to be totally married to that right now. You are just plugging in those lessons and those standards to see where you need to fill in those holes.

Naomi Meredith 09:17

Finally, step four is to really fine-tune those lessons and decide how you want to teach them. For all of my lessons throughout the whole entire school year, I use the Engineering Design Process as my base. I am always referring to this process and how it changes with all the different ways that we are creating and building to solve a problem that is always my base, every single unit from K through five. Now there are different ways that you can actually plan your lessons when it comes to the Engineering Design Process. So you can definitely mix this up for your students and make it work best for your classroom. First, we have the long-term projects that go into detail within Engineering Design Process. This will probably take about three to five days.

Naomi Meredith 10:07

If you need help with the Engineering Design Process and you are unsure of what I am talking about or how you can actually plan using this, I have a whole bunch of episodes for you to go back and listen to. It starts with Episode 15, where I talk about what the Engineering Design Process is and how you can use it in your planning. From there, we skip ahead to Episodes 17 through 22, where I have a mini-series about each stage of the Engineering Design Process. Then it is finished off with a nice pretty bow with my first guest interview with one of my STEM teacher friends, and how she even does the Engineering Design Process with quick one-day challenges. Again, you don't have to plan with the Engineering Design Process, there definitely is a place for it within the K through five STEM space. There are actually standards that talk specifically about the Engineering Design Process when you go and take a peek at the Next Generation Science Standards. So you are backed up by standards, and you can definitely plan long-term projects.

Naomi Meredith 11:10

Here are three other ways that you can plan your lessons. You can also think about how you want to integrate STEM stations. This is especially great when you only see kids once a week. You could do two stations per day. For week one, the kids could do two stations the following week. The students can do the last two stations, so you have four stations total, and maybe each one has a different part of the Engineering Design Process that is linked to the standards. Another way that I like to do stations is, especially with my younger students, Kindergarten through first grade, I might have a long-term project that lasts three days. I really zone in on those stages, and we get them done. The creation might even just take one day for my little babies. Then the last two days, I will have four stations. Again, they will do two stations one day and two stations the next day. Each station will go along with the theme for the week or that long-term project. Then each station hits a different letter of STEM. So one is the science station, one is technology, one is engineering, and one is math. So I have a whole balance of things.

Naomi Meredith 12:20

Yes, it does take a bit more planning to have that variety of things for the little kids. If you have come from the classroom before being a STEM teacher, you know you need a lot of stuff for those little kids to keep them engaged and excited. It is definitely worth that extra planning, and you will have plenty to do for those little ones. Another way that you can plan is to have a challenge of the day. This could be related to a STEM book, fiction or nonfiction, or even thinking about those quick engineering design challenge sprint's that my good friend Jen Sevy discussed in her guest interview. There are four different ways that you could plan, which are multi-day projects, STEM stations, the challenge of the day, or planning them with STEM and stories.

Naomi Meredith 13:06

As a recap, here is the structure you can use to help you plan and organize all of those ideas floating in your head and get them organized in a way that makes sense, which can eventually turn into your year-long plan, and then your standard-based lessons. First, brainstorm themes. Next, do your standards research. Third, plug them into your year-long plan. Fourth, fine-tune your lessons. Having plenty of ideas is definitely a good thing, and you have that growth mindset where you want to bring in all those awesome experiences for your students. However, you definitely want to organize them in a way that makes sense, so you're not just pulling out random STEM lessons, but instead, it all cohesively goes together, and you have a whole structure for all of those ideas.

Naomi Meredith 13:59

In the next episode, we will actually be talking more in detail about those four different types of STEM lessons that I just mentioned. I think this will really help you when you get into that lesson planning stage and how you can make these experiences even more meaningful for your students. Also, don't forget to leave me a voice message using the link in the show notes. I definitely want to hear those questions. I think that'll be a really fun way for us to interact and have a community with this growing podcast.

Related Episodes/Blog Posts:

Connect with Naomi Meredith:

Check out more inspiration on her website: naomimeredith.com
Connect with her on Instagram: @naomimeredith_
Watch this episode on her YouTube Channel: Naomi Meredith
Join the Facebook Group, The Elementary STEM Coach Community | Technology & STEM for K-6 Teachers

More About your host, Naomi Meredith

With over a decade of experience along with a M.Ed. in STEM Leadership and STEM certificate, she helps teachers navigate the best practices, strategies and tools out there.

She truly believes that any teacher out there can learn how to use STEM & Technology in their classrooms effectively. She can’t wait to connect with you and be your guide!

More About The Elementary STEM Coach Podcast

Your mindless scrolling days are over! Your new STEM-best friend is now here in your ear buds!

Help! I Teach 5 Different STEM Classes a Day! [ep. 12]

Check out the full episode on Help! I Teach 5 Different STEM Classes a Day!:

Watch the video version of this episode here on YouTube:

Episode Summary

Are you a STEM teacher that teaches 5 different classes a day?

Do you feel overwhelmed with figuring out how to structure your time throughout the day?

Teaching 5 different STEM classes a day is the equivalent of teaching the entire school.

In today’s episode, I share different ways to structure your STEM lessons when you teach different classes daily. Using these strategies to restructure your STEM lessons will help you feel more confident in the lessons you teach and less overwhelmed.