A New Understanding of the Childhood Brain
This is a short video produced by the Atlantic magazine that talks about new research that has been going on over the past 10 years on the link of early…
NASA Inspired Activities for Free
Are you looking for new, engaging activities that spur young people’s imagination and creativity? The Boston Children’s Museum has just completed a new set of NASA-inspired challenges, accessible from the…
Making Math Fun
My students love math if you could believe it or not. During homework time many will ask for me to create practice problems for them to solve. I started to run out of ideas off the top of my head and started to search the internet for helpful resources. I found a couple of websites that quickly became very popular to my students. Here are the top 5 websites my students use during our after school program. (more…)
The Power Struggle (part 2)
In Part One of The Power Struggle, I focused on tips to empower educators in building their self-awareness during or before a potential power struggle. In Part Two, I will…
Extreme Experiments
My students are always excited to do science experiments, especially because they don’t have the chance to do experiments during the school day. We will often use this book called Candy Experiments when doing a science activity with the students. (more…)
Top 4 Sites for Planning Physical Activities
When students are dismissed from school and arrive to your program what is the first thing you notice? Give up? The amount of energy they have! The first category of resources I want to share is for physical activity. These students have been sitting at a desk for most of the day receiving a very little amount of time to get their energy out of their systems. At my program I always try to include activities where my students have to get up and move around. This helps them better focus later on when I need them to regroup and focus on something different. Here are my top 4 resources I use when planning the physical activities for my program.
The Power Struggle
Part 1: Awareness Does this sound familiar? Educator: "You are always interrupting my program by making by silly fart noises. Cut it out." Student: "You're always blaming me for stuff…
From My Classroom to Yours
Being a director for a morning and aftercare program is no easy task. The children always have a ton of energy and it is the responsibility of you and your staff to keep them engaged in activities from the moment they arrive to your program to the moment they leave; sounds easy but it most certainly is not. (more…)
New Middle School OST Grants – Up to $100k
Thinking about how to support middle school OST? The New York Life Foundation has opened a new Aim High grant opportunity focused on middle school. Aim High will provide $1.95M…
Sweat the Small Stuff
Little Details Matter At the age of 15, I started working as a camp counselor at a local community center in Bridgeport, CT. I was a drill sergeant back then. …