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We created this STEAM Innovation Choice Board that is aligned to 5th grade's ELA Benchmark Unit 5: Technology but feel free to use it with your students even if you don't use that ELA curriculum or grade level!
This choice board was designed because we know students gravitate towards certain innovation activities over others, especially in the remote learning setting. These can easily done as an independent learning station in the ELA classroom. The activity options include the following:
We believe these options will supplement and extend their learning in ELA. Please feel free to modify the lesson and directions for your own students. Let us know how it goes, we are constantly modifying & innovating for our teachers and students! Stay tuned for lots more! ~ Christine and Marla (co-creators of Innovation & STEAM activities for San Marcos Unified School District) Preview Your Copy
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We created this STEAM Innovation Choice Board that is aligned to 4th grade's ELA Benchmark Unit 5: Technology but feel free to use it with your students even if you don't use that ELA curriculum or grade level! This choice board was designed because we know students gravitate towards certain innovation activities over others, especially in the remote learning setting. These can easily done as an independent learning station in the ELA classroom. The activity options include the following:
We believe these options will supplement and extend their learning in ELA. Please feel free to modify the lesson and directions for your own students. Let us know how it goes, we are constantly modifying & innovating for our teachers and students! Stay tuned for lots more! ~ Christine and Marla (co-creators of Innovation & STEAM activities for San Marcos Unified School District) Preview Your Copy Innovation Option #2 This Renewable Energy Slide Deck (preview | copy) is another innovation option for 4th grade teachers aligned to BM Unit 5. We created it for Unit 3 5th grade but we can see how much it relates to your essential question for this unit. Please check it out and see if it's helpful for supplement and/or extension to your teaching. As always, please feel free to use as is or modify for your own class' needs. We believe both these options will supplement and extend their learning in ELA. Please feel free to modify the lesson and directions for your own students.
Let us know how it goes, we are constantly modifying & innovating for our teachers and students! Stay tuned for lots more! ~ Christine and Marla (co-creators of Innovation & STEAM activities for San Marcos Unified School District) Here's an Innovation Unit aligned to 3rd grade's ELA Benchmark Unit 5: Technology but feel free to use it with your students even if you don't use that ELA curriculum or grade level!
Students will learn about various innovators who have made a difference in our world. They will then choose one innovator to dive in deeper into researching. Some teachers may choose for them to write, create speeches, or presentations in class. Some may assign for asynchronous work to supplement Unit 5 learning. Make sure to check out the exciting innovation creation choices! As always, please feel free to make a copy (your copy here) and modify for your own students and instruction needs. We believe these options will supplement and extend their learning in ELA and be a fun innovative approach to learning about innovation...past, present & future! Let us know what you think, ~ Christine and Marla (co-creators of Innovation & STEAM activities for San Marcos Unified School District) A HUGE thank you to the Double Peak School 3rd Grade Team for sharing their work with us for a launching point under the Discover and Research phases! We appreciate your willingness to share your work with San Marcos Unified and educators beyond! CSEdWeek is an annual program to inspire K-12 students to take interest in computer science. Code.org organizes CSEdWeek as an "Hour of Code" campaign to encourage every student to code for at least one hour (but I say they can code for MORE!) Every year I host a school-wide Hour of Code celebration complete with tracking cards, raffle tickets, prizes and more! This year Hour of Code/CSEdWeek is December 6th-12th and I highly encourage you to join the movement (sign up here). Marla Rosenthal and I designed this Computer Science Choice Board to make it easy for teachers and fun for students to learn about computer science while exploring the many coding platforms. Click here to watch a tutorial on the many ways you can use this choice board with your students. I plan on launching this for CSEdWeek then students can use all year long! Check it out and feel free to make a copy and modify for your own computer scientists. Let me know how it goes! Happy Coding! ~Christine TK-8 Version (entire choice board) TK-2 Version (modified from choice board for our youngest coders)  UPDATE: I plan on revamping these Bootcamp lessons this year using Google's AMAZING Applied Digital Skills lessons. There are so many already done lessons with video tutorials for your students. Feel free to take a copy of the Bootcamp and change the videos to Googles! They are definitely better than the videos I created for my students :) Here are Innovation Bootcamp lessons that focus on teaching students beginning of the year computer skills as well as Digital Citizenship (DC). The goal is to teach the technology skills to students to make it easy for teachers to utilize the tools in their instruction. Please see below for the breakdown of lessons by grade level. Teachers can break it into 5 different lessons or send the entire Boot Camp challenge at once. Please make sure to look over it carefully as there are steps teachers need to take to set it up for their own students. The lessons are across multiple grade levels within TK-2 and 3-5 but all lessons can be used for all grades. Feel free to make a copy and modify for your own student innovators! Thanks to my #STEAMDream teammate, Marla Rosenthal, for collaborating in all of this for our district and so we can share far and wide! K-2nd Innovation Bootcamp Preview/Copy 1: Computer Intro & Care/DC 2: Seesaw Basics/DC 3: Seesaw Basics/DC 4: Seesaw Basics/DC 5: Flipgrid/DC My friend & STEAM teammate, Marla Rosenthal and I designed these choice boards for our district's ELA Unit 8 Benchmark Earth Science curriculum. We made them into choice boards because we know students gravitate towards certain innovation activities over others. The activity options include the following:
Follow me to keep updated on everything I share freely in the name of innovation! ~Better Together, Christine Insta: @makedesigninnovate Twitter: @christinekdixon 1st Grade Earth Science: Observing the sky 2nd Grade Earth Science: Wind & Water3rd Grade Earth Science: Weather& Climate4th Grade Earth Science: Earth's Changes5th Grade Earth Science: WaterEach week Marla Rosenthal and I are making these fun STEAM Challenges for our students to keep creating at home during distance learning. I put the challenge on Google Classroom along with a Flipgrid post. I love hearing about their engineering design process and seeing them proud of their creations. I encourage them to take their Flipgrid selfie only with their creation and their smile (no Flipgrid emojis, etc) so I can download their pictures to share with our DPS community. They can even earn a badge for their digital sticker books! So much fun! Here are the STEAM Challenges (linked on pictures below) you can copy for your own students. I'll keep adding them here so check back often if interested. Happy Making! We designed this Fairy Tale Choice Board to align with ELA Benchmark Unit 6 (Learning from Characters who Solve Problems) but it can work for any integrated STEAM & Language Arts focus. My friend & colleague, Marla Rosenthal, and I created these choices because we know students gravitate towards certain innovation activities over others. The activity options include the following:
Better Together, ~Christine We created this STEAM Innovation Choice Board that is aligned to 2nd Grade's ELA Benchmark Unit 5: Technology but feel free to use it with your students even if you don't use that ELA curriculum or grade level!
This choice board was designed because we know students gravitate towards certain innovation activities over others. The goal is not for students to complete all activities, rather to choose multiple options and to show their learning through the Digital Innovation Journal. We believe these options will supplement and extend their learning in ELA. Please feel free to modify the lesson and directions for your own students with your own copy. ~ Christine and Marla (co-creators of Innovation & STEAM activities for San Marcos Unified School District) We created this STEAM Innovation Choice Board that is aligned to Kinder/1st grade's ELA Benchmark Unit 5: Technology but feel free to use it with your students even if you don't use that ELA curriculum or grade level! This choice board was designed because we know students gravitate towards certain innovation activities over others, especially in the remote learning setting. The activity options include the following:
~ Christine and Marla (co-creators of Innovation & STEAM activities for San Marcos Unified School District)
Here is the Life Sciences Virtual Makerspace and Innovation lessons I co-created with Marla Rosenthal for the 4th and 5th grade teachers in our district. This ties in with our ELA Benchmark Unit 3, however, can be used in any grade level or curriculum.
The virtual makerspace is full of read alouds, videos, games, coding and innovation links with the focus on nature and our natural resources. The STEAM and Innovation lessons are linked on the TV in the makerspace as well as below. The 4th grade focus is on our National Parks and the 5th is on renewable energy. Both lessons have students learn about the content then have them "show what they know" by creating an infographic or video commercial (PSA). We have three more units we are sharing:
We are sharing all of these because we are passionate about spreading innovation and sharing with teachers. I hope it brings some sort of relief to you in your planning...our work as teachers is hard enough right now. ~Better Together, Christine Virtual MakerspaceSTEAM/Innovation lessons
Here is the Animals: Habitats & Adaptations Virtual Makerspace and Innovation lesson I co-created with Marla Rosenthal for the 2nd and 3rd grade teachers in our district. This ties in with our ELA Benchmark Unit 3, however, can be used in any grade level or curriculum.
The virtual makerspace is full of read alouds, videos, games, coding and innovation links with the focus on nature and our natural resources. The STEAM and Innovation lesson is linked on the TV in the makerspace as well as below. This lesson has students learn about the content then have them "show what they know" by creating a Google Slides presentation. However, teachers can modify this for whichever edtech tool they want. I plan on having my own students code their understanding using Google CS First and Scratch coding. We have three more units we are sharing:
We are sharing all of these because we are passionate about spreading innovation and sharing with teachers. I hope it brings some sort of relief to you in your planning...our work as teachers is hard enough right now. ~Better Together, Christine Virtual MakerspaceSTEAM/Innovation Lesson
Here is the Animals: Habitats & Adaptations Virtual Makerspace and Innovation lesson I co-created with Marla Rosenthal for the 2nd and 3rd grade teachers in our district. This ties in with our ELA Benchmark Unit 3, however, can be used in any grade level or curriculum.
The virtual makerspace is full of read alouds, videos, games, coding and innovation links with the focus on nature and our natural resources. The STEAM and Innovation lesson is linked on the TV in the makerspace as well as below. This lesson has students learn about the content then have them "show what they know" by creating a Google Slides presentation. However, teachers can modify this for whichever edtech tool they want. I plan on having my own students code their understanding using Google CS First and Scratch coding. We have three more units we are sharing:
We are sharing all of these because we are passionate about spreading innovation and sharing with teachers. I hope it brings some sort of relief to you in your planning...our work as teachers is hard enough right now. ~Better Together, Christine Virtual MakerspaceSTEAM & Innovation lesson
For our littles, here is a Plants & Lifecycles Virtual Makerspace and Innovation unit I co-created with Marla Rosenthal for the Kinder and 1st grade teachers in our district. This ties in with our ELA Benchmark Unit 3, however, can be used in any grade level or curriculum.
The virtual makerspace is full of read alouds, videos, games, coding and innovation links with the focus on nature and our natural resources. Click around and see all that it includes! We have three more units we are sharing:
We are sharing all of these because we are passionate about spreading innovation and sharing with teachers. I hope it brings some sort of relief to you in your planning...our work as teachers is hard enough right now. ~Better Together, Christine
Here are all K-5 Virtual Makerspaces and STEAM/Innovation lessons Marla Rosenthal and I created to go along with ELA Benchmark Unit 3: Life Sciences. Click below to access previews of each (see blog posts for copies)
Happy Innovating! ~Christine
Click on the Makerspace or Innovation Lessons above for preview versions.
One of the many silver linings that have come out from distance learning due to COVID is the many educators who have shared their lessons, resources and ideas freely. This #BetterTogether theme has become my mantra and I am so grateful for everyone out there that believes that we can benefit EVERY student, not just our own. In the Spring I found the talented and generous Darrell Wakelam on Twitter and was amazed by his beautiful artwork with tutorials all using household recyclables. He wanted to make sure art and making was still happening during distance learning and I knew they were the perfect complement to what I was creating with our STEAM challenges. I created the following slide decks so my students could access the tutorials. Make sure to check out the entire download section on his site. Thank you Darrell for sharing your art and making with us! Unit 2 Characters: Virtual MakerspacesPart 1: Virtual Makerspaces- Literature Themed These innovation virtual spaces are full of clickable links to videos, read alouds, online games, coding, edtech activities and more! There are 3 makerspace versions (K/1, 2/3 and 4/5) all with a Literature and innovation theme. These makerspaces were created to tie into the ELA Benchmark Unit 2 Characters theme, however, they can be used even if that is not your curriculum. (See here for Unit 1 Government themed Makerspaces) Teachers: The following linked in the Makerspace need you to create a FREE class account so students have logins. If you do not set up, please delete from Makerspace
Unit 2 Characters : design thinking challengesThis Design Thinking engineering challenge has been designed with the goal students can learn asynchronously, however, it would be beneficial for teachers to guide students along the process for accountability. The pacing and how you use this lesson is completely up to your discretion. Part 2: Design Thinking Asynchronous Challenges: Teachers can assign through Google Classroom and encourage students to learn and play with the many innovation activities throughout Unit 2. Kinder/1st Grades 2nd/3rd Grades 4th/5th Grade We hope these help teachers and encourage spreading innovation during distance learning. Please feel free to make a copy and modify for your own student innovators.
Stay tuned for more coming soon! Happy Innovating, Christine and Marla San Marcos Unified- TOSAs I've never been able to find the right video overview of Design Thinking for my TK-8 students so I made this to help my students, our teachers, and hopefully any other educator interested in design thinking. This, in no way, is the perfect video or the exact way you should teach design thinking. Rather, it's an iteration...my iteration...on how design thinking happens in our Double Peak School Makerspace. It's constantly changing as I go through the design thinking process as an educator myself. My pride of the Innovation Program we have built the past 5 years and the TK-8 innovators we are educating is immeasurable. Happy Innovating, ~Christine I just finished the 2nd set of our Virtual Makerspaces designed for our district's K-5 teachers and students and I am so excited!
These innovation virtual spaces are full of clickable links to videos, read alouds, online games, coding, edtech activities and more! There are 3 makerspace versions (K/1, 2/3 and 4/5) all with a Literature and innovation theme. These makerspaces were created to tie into our ELA Benchmark Unit 2 Characters theme, however, they can be used even if that is not your curriculum. (See here for Unit 1 Government themed Makerspaces) There will be a Part 2 post coming next week once my cohort, Marla Rosenthal, and I complete the Innovation lessons linked to the TVs. These will be hands-on Literature Design Thinking lessons we have created for teachers and students during distance learning. We hope these help teachers and encourage spreading innovation during distance learning. Please feel free to make a copy and modify for your own student innovators. Stay tuned for more coming soon! Happy Innovating, Christine Kinder/1st Grades 2nd/3rd Grades 4th/5th Grades Are you looking to include some Innovation & edtech into your Benchmark plans with your students??
My friend and colleague, Marla Rosentha and I have you covered! We are creating Virtual Makerspaces and Innovation Lessons that tie into ELA Benchmark unit themes. You can used these with your students even if you don't use this ELA curriculum. This first unit is on Government and Citizenship. We are both Innovation TOSAs who work with teachers and students on all things technology, coding, robotics, engineering, design thinking and more! We want to help all teachers interested in continuing innovation for students even during distance learning! For each Benchmark theme, we will create a Virtual Makerspace full of clickable activities as well as a robust Innovation Lesson students can learn asynchronously. Below links are a one-stop shop for all grades. Notice the 1st link is the PREVIEW so you can check it out, the 2nd link is your very own copy. Please feel free to modify for your own students and instruction. Let me know how it goes and stay tuned for more coming soon! Happy Innovating, ~Christine Preview Copy (all grades linked) Your Copy (all grade level Virtual Makerspace and Innovation Lessons are linked in Speaker Notes): I have always been an advocate for giving students a choice in how they present their knowledge. Whether it is showing what they learned from a math lesson, a book they've read, or their cumulative understanding of an ELA unit of study, giving students the freedom in choosing the "how" to present the "what" is so crucial.
I've made many versions of "Show What You Know" choice boards throughout my journey as Innovation Coordinator for TK-8. I so enjoy teaching students ed-tech tools in the Innovation Lab and Makerspace and then seeing them use their tools in their toolbelts all year in their classrooms. It also honors the unique personalities and strengths of our diverse students as well as the different ways they learn. If students all learn differently, shouldn't we give them a choice in how they represent this learning? So as I try to plan for this next school year, I knew I needed to create a choice board that would continue to build and evolve no matter where we are on the distance learning journey. Below are two versions of my "Show What You Know" choice board you can make a copy of for your own teaching. Notice the Choice Board has a LOT of choices. You definitely do NOT want to give all of these choices at the start. It also depends on the age and grade-level of your students. Most importantly, it depends on your lesson and what knowledge you want students to show. The idea is for the teacher to use the lock at the bottom left of the board to cover up those options that are not appropriate to the task or grade level. I believe students will enjoy this gaming aspect and will also enable them to continually learn new tech tools throughout the year. Show What You Know Choice Boards (click on the links for your copy) Version #1 (without student tutorials): This was my 1st version and wanted to leave it without tutorials in case teachers, TOSAs or coaches wanted to modify for their own users Version #2 (with student tutorials): This version is a prototype, meaning it will continue to grow and evolve throughout the year as I work with my students. I have many more tutorials I need to create so check back often if you are interested. Lastly, I'd like to thank all of you for your overwhelming response to this labor of love! I am blown away with how many educators have reached out to me and are excited to use this with their students and schools. It makes me so happy to know that so many students may benefit from this choice board. My Twitter and Instagram post responses are a testimony to my strong belief that we, as educators, are all in this together! The collaboration & sharing is crucial and even more important right now with distance learning. Thank you for being a part of my PLN! Better Together, Christine My daughter, Madilyn, has been begging me to teach her how to create her own virtual room after seeing my Virtual Makerspaces I've shared. Her favorite shows are on the HGTV Home network and she is constantly redesigning her room. In fact, during this COVID quarantine, she's become a bit obsessed with it (mom eye roll here). So the other day I sat down and showed her a very rough tutorial and she went off to her room, laptop in hands. Ten minutes later she came back and blew me away with her creation! I was not only impressed with her virtual interior decorating skills, I saw how she lit up with creativity and excitement. It made me realize that students should be creating these! It's actually a perfect way to start out the year for students to design their own classroom or room showing their unique personalities and a way to share their likes and passions with their teachers and classmates. In addition, if we are to start the year with distance learning, how incredible would it be if teachers let them create their own digital learning environments? If you are a teacher who has created a virtual classroom, I highly encourage you to create the resources you want students to access, but then let your students do the designing. There's many ways to do this, I'll leave that to another blog post. Back to Maddie. I dedicate this lesson and post to her and I hope you'll share it with your students to give them a chance to create their own. They'll also learn a lot of tech tips and tricks as well with the video tutorials along the way. Happy Shopping! 👀Window Shop (preview version): bit.do/virtualdreamroomtutorial 🛒Go Shopping (your copy): bit.do/virtualdreamroomtutorialcopy 
Have you fallen down that Bitmoji/ Virtual Classroom Craze "rabbit hole" yet? Well, I definitely have! Who wouldn't? It's like playing with a virtual dollhouse, right? Maybe it's being cooped up due to COVID quarantine but anyone else redesign their actual living spaces multiple times as I have? I've made an office, redecorated my kids' rooms, built an outdoor living area, and transformed my 3rd car garage into a workout room. I'm driving my husband nuts! Added to the huge need for interior design, the unknown of what school will look like in the fall has had me playing with my own version of these virtual classrooms, Makerspace style! I began in May by creating my Summer At Home Virtual Makerspace. Click here to preview and feel free to make a copy for your own. My project now is creating these Virtual Makerspaces for K-5 according to ELA Benchmark Advance themes and adding in the STEAM lessons my friend and fellow STEAM colleague Marla Rosenthal and I create for our district. Click here to see these pretty awesome 7 STEAM Challenges we made to share for distance learning. For any of my fellow STEAM/STEM/Makerspace teachers who are in the same uncertain place, I wanted to share this unfinished project just in case it may help. I'll continue to update here as I go. PHASE 1: Just the Bones Here's my Virtual Makerspace for now. This is the structure of it and am adding this now in case anyone wanted just the structure of it without themes. Note everything is editable, just go to Slide Menu and Edit Master. Preview: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1FKEpaFgvLONfT8sW6BdGX7wBNiWzMn0Zrl3cd8zM9Yk/preview Copy: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1FKEpaFgvLONfT8sW6BdGX7wBNiWzMn0Zrl3cd8zM9Yk/copy PHASE 2: Virtual Classroom Example- Government Themed Here's a work in progress so you can get an idea of what I'm creating. This one is a Government themed (works for our ELA Benchmark theme but can be really for anyone) The innovation lessons and innovation activities (see whiteboard) aren't linked yet because they are not finished. Stay tuned! 
As we quickly and without warning pivoted to Distance Learning on March 13, 2020, it weighed heavily on my heart that all my plans for innovation TK-8 would halt abruptly. I knew that no matter what distance learning looked like we MUST keep innovation going for our students. Therefore, my counterpart and friend, Marla Rosenthal and I dove into creating these Thematic At-Home STEAM Distance Learning Resources we could share not only with our schools, but our districts and beyond. We are very happy to share these freely because we want to spread innovation and we know as educators, we are absolutely Better Together! Click on the links below for the lessons, feel free to modify for your own classrooms, schools and districts, and keep innovation happening in every students' education!
Perhaps it was a perfect date to mark the day that marked a complete transformation to what our "normal" looked like. Friday the 13th was the day when we were all working happily with our students and heard whisperings throughout the day that we would not be returning due to Quarantine restrictions. At that point, none of us would ever predict it would be through the summer months. It. Was. Surreal! The next few months of distance learning were stressful, insanely busy, and absolutely unprecedented. I was not only working to help all teachers district-wide try to navigate distance learning, I was continuing desperately try to keep innovation happening for all students, and also help my own daughters deal with this online learning. Here are some highlights that I look forward to looking back on during better education times and reflecting on how we all were forced to be design thinkers, innovators, and engineers in this changing world!
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