My good friend and colleague, Donna Lasher, has a wonderful website I’ve spoken about before on this blog, Big Ideas for Little Scholars. In addition, she has a Facebook Group that does book studies and exchanges resources. She has invited me to speak with the members of the group this month in a Facebook Room … Read more
I know that it’s hard to imagine doing anything “extra” after this crazy school year, but some schools like to do book studies over the summer – and some teachers, like me, get reinvigorated by reading professional books. I’d like to toss this one out there as an idea for those of you searching for … Read more
The single most impactful adjustment I made to my curriculum in the later decades of my teaching career was to make room for students to work on issues they chose that were interesting and relevant to them. This was scary for me because I never had any idea where the year would lead me. But … Read more
Teachers and researchers came together to create the CoBuild At Home website during the Covid-19 pandemic with the goal of encouraging children and their caregivers to use common household items to build and create. You can find multiple project ideas on the site that range from extracting DNA from food to making art from sneezes. … Read more
One of the challenges I have with students when we are doing Design Thinking is to teach them to embrace constraints. Sometimes I will get feedback from them at the end of projects that “we should be able to do whatever we want,” despite my explanation that my experience has shown that complete freedom can … Read more
Two Bit Circus is a foundation that describes its mission as follows: “We serve children in all economic situations by creating learning experiences to: inspire entrepreneurship, encourage young inventors, and instill environmental stewardship.” The organization has aimed to achieve these goals through activities such as summer camps, STEAM Carnivals, and workshops. Although many of these … Read more