In the Beginning…: The Genesis of an Idea In the ever-evolving landscape of education, finding ways to engage and empower students is a constant challenge. In the pursuit of fostering creativity and self-directed learning, my building administrators brought the concept…
At my elementary school, each year we have a theme. This year’s theme is MINDSET and the way it was kicked off in September at our first whole school meeting was with my building administrators reading a story to students.…
I recently collaborated with my school’s librarian, Rachel Morling, to develop a 3D design unit where the students created a playable game piece for Monopoly, by Hasbro. She approached me to create an end of year activity for fourth graders…
Breakout EDU releases a daily Lock of the Day which is a single lock challenge. Sometimes they put a call out to crowd source, from the community, lock ideas. Their most recent was before Valentine’s Day and my lock submission…
I was approached by one of my fourth grader teachers. She was looking for an activity for her students to celebrate the end of their Mystery Unit in ELA. The students learned vocabulary like: mystery, crime, culprit, evidence, etc. They started to write…
In my district, we have a school which is just fifth grade. Each year, during Computer Science Education Week, they celebrate an entire day devoted to coding called Code Day. I was asked to be a guest speaker since I’m…
One day my principal asked me for some help. She was part of a district wide administrators’ book study (The 15 Invaluable Laws of Growth by John C. Maxwell). Her group was responsible for leading a review of chapter 4,…
An Osmo from Tangible Play is an amazing educational tool used to enhance the interactivity of an iPad. It takes the power of the iPad’s camera and combines it with the interactivity of various manipulatives to create an engaging learning…
March Madness Brackets are all the rage every spring, so much so, education has adapted & differentiated it for various means. Ever see a bracket for favorite children’s literature? How about educational technology? Maybe you’ve seen Kyle Niemis’s annual Ed-Tech…
Recently my district went Hybrid for a week. The teachers had afternoon Google Meet check-ins with students. The intention was not to teach any “new” information; in case any students couldn’t join in. I reached out to my fourth grade…