October Recap

Congratulations on surviving October, one of the most challenging feats in teaching prowess!

Since you’re so busy doing your thing, I know you are bound to miss some of the things going on in my blog, YouTube channel and TpT store. Hopefully, these monthly updates will help you catch all the updates and teaching tidbits to make your teaching life that much better! (Click: September Recap to see last month’s updates.)

NEW RESOURCES

If you know my STEM challenges, you know I always include an extension option for students to create a process flow to show how to build their designs. Communicating clearly and succinctly is often a difficult task for students. I started the “Speak-Listen-Draw” task card product line you see here to help students develop these skills in small, manageable, fun tasks. There are options to practice oral and written communication contained within. These are just the beginning. Be sure to check it out and keep your eyes peeled; more are on the way soon!

PRODUCT UPDATES

In September, I updated all of the Thanksgiving challenges, so in October I aimed to update all of the Christmas & winter STEM challenges. I came so close! Everything below is updated and the final challenge (Sleigh & Slope) will be ready by Nov. 7. You are definitely going to want to re-download these if you own them, because I added a lot of new goodies! You’ll find new primary response pages with expanded room for response, new cross-curricular extension ideas and handouts, and more!

BLOG POSTS AND GUEST POSTS

YouTube

Videos are up for 3/5 of Thanksgiving STEM challenges to give you plenty of time to prepare! Mini Mayflower, Protect-a-Pilgrim, and Pumpkin Picker are live; Corn Cultivator posts Nov. 10 and Turkey Transporter posts Nov. 13.

**CLICK HERE FOR THE THANKSGIVING CHALLENGE-WALK-THROUGH PLAYLIST**

Life

Well, last month, I said I was going to work on work-life balance. I failed to make any significant changes in this area. I am embarrassed, but also glad to hold myself accountable on this blog. Back to the drawing board. Oh jeez, even that sounds like work! Maybe I should say, “Back to the beach” instead?

COMING IN NOVEMBER

I’ll be updating the Sleigh & Slope STEM challenge and posting video walk-throughs for the remaining Thanksgiving challenges on YouTube. I’ll start posting the videos fro Christmas & winter toward the end of the month, and I’m working on adding a couple of new resources to the Speak, Listen, Draw series.

WHAT ELSE?

If you want to receive notifications of these monthly recaps, you can follow me on Teachers Pay Teachers. I send a monthly note linking back to this post so all the links are easy to find (see the image below)! You can also follow this blog.