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.
Mar 19
I work with amazing people. Teaching is a difficult job and during a pandemic, it’s more stressful than ever. Having colleagues that are caring and supportive will keep us from burning out. I wouldn’t have been able to stay at my district for 24 of the 30 years I’ve been teaching if I didn’t work …
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2021/03/19/outstanding-tech-educator/
Feb 15
We started the school year with two-thirds of our 6th graders coming to school on a hybrid schedule with the other third fully remote. Our hybrid kids were placed into two cohorts, A and B, and each cohort was halved to make them small enough to keep kids six feet apart (Cohorts A1, A2, B1, …
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2021/02/15/back-to-hybrid/
Jan 19
This was the favorite logo 6th graders drew and submitted last year for our 6th grade esports club. I think it’s a great looking drawing and wish I knew how to turn it into a logo! I just a photo of the drawing complete with the crease in the middle! LOL But that’s a problem …
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2021/01/19/one-way-to-run-a-remote-esports-program/
Jan 18
January 18, 2021 LA Works hosted an incredible series of events in honor of this year’s Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr Day of service. One of the events was a tour of Washington DC and Dr. King’s historic 1963 march to the Capitol, which ended with his awe-inspiring I Have A Dream speech in Minecraft! …
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2021/01/18/2021-mlk-day-minecraft-march-on-the-capitol/
Dec 31
In my 30 years teaching I’ve gotten 48 grants in 24 years totaling just under $371,000. In the last 22 years straight I’ve gotten at least one grant per year every year. That’s quite the streak and the Ocean Guardian Schools project is one of those grant opportunities that I can apply for year after …
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2020/12/31/grants-and-prizes/
Dec 30
Last year I started a 6th grade esports club and we got off to a great start before the pandemic closed our schools. A group of kids in the club remained active during the spring. I expected more to be able to participate because the nice thing about esports is that we don’t have to …
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2020/12/30/esports-thriving/
Dec 29
I’ve been taking 6th graders to our little stretch of Chimacum Creek to gather water quality data since 2001! In all those years we’ve seen our stream flow go from pretty low to really low. In all those years, we did have one year where after some major rain the water level went from ankle …
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2020/12/29/flooding-event/
Dec 28
The first week of school I sent home all my Ocean Guardian School project information, permission slips, and photo release forms. Once I got all the permission slips, which I had to have them all because I could not send kids anywhere while the rest of us left the room, I was able to start …
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2020/12/28/outdoor-education-during-a-pandemic/
Dec 27
Our district leaders met this past summer to plan what the start of school was going to look like. We surveyed families and based on the results our re-opening team decided that since our county was at low risk with regards to COVID cases we could offer families at least their overall 2nd choice – …
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2020/12/27/the-hybrid-schedule/
Dec 26
Before I share an amazing resource for getting some awesome gamified Science lessons, I wanted to share a cool resource for having students request photos to be taken of locations on Earth from the International Space Station (ISS)! Yes, the students choose where the ISS camera will take the photos based on the ISS’s orbit! …
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2020/12/26/gamified-science/
I'm a Curipod Ambassador! :)
I've presented at NCCE
2016, 2017, 2019, 2022,
2023 and 2024!
