I teach 5th and 6th grade STEM in the lovely Pacific Northwest in a small, rural town called Chimacum. My goal is to help students discover that all learning is life-long and that 21st century tools can be used for work as well as fun.
Feb 19
My 5th and 6th grade STEM classes have been working on robotics using the Lego Mindstorm EV3 kits since December. Students built their first robot then took the Lego Mindstorms programming lesson tutorials before we began some activities and challenges. We still have two major challenges left in this unit before we transition to our …
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2023/02/19/students-excited-by-robotics-and-ai/
Dec 29
I used Chat GPT to write a blog post so I thought I’d play around with it some more and try it out to help me lesson plan. I asked Chat GPT some questions about the unit we’re working on in my STEM classes to see what it knew. It surprised me because I didn’t …
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2022/12/29/chat-gpt-for-lesson-planning/
Dec 14
My first ever blog post written with the help of an AI! I am adding my own commentary and adding to the blog post the AI wrote for me so from this point on anything you see italicized is written by me. Normal text was written by the AI! I have continued to be active …
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2022/12/14/are-they-helpful-or-crutches/
Dec 04
Thursday, December 1, I had the honor of being invited to present at one of our state’s Senate Early Learning & K-12 Education Committee meetings! Thanks to my WEA workshop partner, Tammie Schrader, who introduced me to the Senate Committee chair, Senator Lisa Wellman, and recommended me to speak and share I got to speak …
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2022/12/04/senate-committee-session-on-gamification/
Nov 28
Minecraft Education Edition has some amazing Hour of Code worlds that are fun to play to have students learn a little bit of coding. This year’s new addition to the collection is the Escape Estate and it looks great. But what if you want something more in-depth? If you are looking for more coding with …
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2022/11/28/coding-in-minecraft/
Nov 27
Another great activity I started this year with only requires beakers, crayons, water, and salt! Spoons help, too. If you Google Floating Crayons you’ll find more ideas, resources, and even YouTube videos. For this activity, Crayola crayons are the best. I don’t normally endorse products but cheaper crayon brands float in fresh water and that …
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2022/11/27/do-crayons-float/
Nov 26
In 2004 I was part of the North Cascades and Olympic Science Partnership (NCOSP). Of all the amazing activities we did in the years that I participated in NCOSP there is one activity that I am still doing with students 18 years later. The activity, also known as inference cubes, is a fantastic way to …
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2022/11/26/observation-or-inference/
Nov 22
We always start school with students on the day after Labor Day so this year our first day with students was Tuesday, September, 6. I wanted to start with a bang on the first day so I decided to have students experiment with making slime! It was a hit! Day 1 Students started by all …
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2022/11/22/great-day-1-activity/
Aug 05
I am honored to have been chosen as the 2022 award recipient for the Northwest, Region 10, of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Presidential Innovation Award for Environmental Educators or PIAEE! The award winners were mentioned on the EPA’s websites and social media on July 1 and the awards ceremony happened in Washington DC on …
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2022/08/05/the-epas-presidential-award-for-environmental-educators/
Aug 01
I wrote about struggles I’ve always had with reading before, but I’ve never really reflected on my struggles with Math. Reading is more prevalent so I face my struggles on a daily basis. My struggles with Math are not as obvious, especially because the types of Math I use daily are Maths I can do …
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2022/08/01/best-math-combo-ever/
I'm a Curipod Ambassador! :)
I've presented at NCCE
2016, 2017, 2019, 2022,
2023, 2024, and 2025!
I presented at WSTA 2015!
