Engineering Mindset #4: Children Consider Criteria and Constraints that Require Tradeoffs If you’ve tried to solve a problem, or teach problem solving skills in a blue sky sort of format…
Week 4 Over the week leading up to the holiday, I spent a significant amount of time trying to get my technophobic father onto a more reliable video chatting platform.…
Engineering Mindset #1: Children Consider Problems in Context Considering and designing with the engineering design process In our last post about the properties and use of materials we talked about…
Winter is a time for children to enjoy their favorite holiday traditions - playing in the snow, celebrating around the table, sharing stories with loved ones. This holiday season join…
In our Summer Enrichment program, I chose to read a chapter of L. Frank Baum’s Wizard of Oz to the children each day. During Chapter 1, the group was very interested in the cyclone. Several children had never heard of such a thing and were full of questions. This led to an afternoon full of Internet searches for pictures and videos. One insightful first grader commented that “it is scary that a cyclone can show up out of nowhere and ruin everything.”
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There is no denying that the COVID-19 Pandemic has affected afterschool in a variety of ways; from scheduling and numbers to safety protocols to activities and interactions. It is very easy to focus on the negative effects, as COVID has seemingly thrown a big old virus-y wrench into the gears of the well-oiled machines that are our afterschool programs. Unfortunately, the coronavirus is here and it clearly doesn’t care if it makes things difficult for anyone, including afterschool educators.
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In these stressful times, people who work with kids and families are often the ones who are most likely to see mental health issues as they come up. The following…
