Welcome to Vivify’s Blog!
Earth Day STEM and a FREEBIE!
Earth Day is a great opportunity to combine STEM with environmental awareness! Today’s students will be entrusted with preserving our planet for future generations. Industrialization, population growth, oil spills and other dangers threaten the safety of our home. Learning the science of plant growth and other critical functions of life here on Earth provides the foundation for engineering and technology developments that may save our planet.
This Earth Day, we challenge you to join us in giving kids hands-on STEM challenges that allows them to plant, design, and rescue. Find a freebie at the end of this post for you and your kids to enjoy too!
Not all STEM is Equal: 3 Stages of STEM Education
STEM education is sweeping the nation. From robotics competitions to coding games, school districts are scrambling to provide STEM programs while teachers sift through thousands of Pinterest pins in search of quality activities. We need further clarification to distinguish these levels in STEM education. To help guide educators and administrators, we propose the following 3 stages of STEM Education.
Valentine's Day STEM Frog Challenge
It’s almost Valentine’s Day and my kids are already plotting how to deliver those special messages to the ones they love! As a STEM educator, a valentine delivery must be more than dropping heart shaped paper into handmade mailboxes. So, we made a Valentine’s Day candy delivery STEM challenge using frogs - origami frogs that is!
Thankful for STEM & TAME
Oh, how thankful I am for STEM! Long before "STEM" became a buzzword, the ancients began calculating and discovering, and building and uncovering, to make their world-- our world -- a better place. What are you most thankful for? How has STEM been a part of what you are thankful for?
Fall and Halloween STEM
Halloween is almost here, and we have just the thing to celebrate with your kids and classroom! ...an engineering challenge is my favorite way to immerse kids in a hands-on STEM learning environment throughout the fall season
Back to School STEM!
Back-to-school signs now greet me at every store, but I am still in denial that the lazy day of summers have come to an end! Soon, students will fill the hallways with laughter and shiny new backpacks, and teachers will clutch their coffee mugs and brace for another year! To help ease you into the new school year, Vivify invites you to start the year with some hands-on STEM challenges!
STEM Summer Activities!
In honor of all that you do to balance your life and pouring love and learning into the lives of those you teach, head over to Teachers Pay Teachers today and tomorrow only to save up to 28% site wide! Our recommendation would be to take advantage of this sale to stock up on all things STEM! We have created a 3 months full of STEM activities that will continue to inspire and enrich your students' learning all summer long!
Earth Day Oil Spill Challenge
Need a fun and hands-on Earth Day activity? Challenge your students to an oil spill clean-up! Read on for a STEM challenge that teaches environmental consciousness, problem solving, and team work along with extension math problems that use measurement, percentages, and volume calculations. Our students loved this activity, and we think yours will too!
STEM Family Night Planning Guide
STEM Family Nights are awesome! They generate excitement for STEM in your school and community by allowing students, teachers, and families to explore STEM together in a fun way! I planned my first STEM Night this past November, and after a big success, we planned three more! We worked with each middle school campus to create a family night that best fit the school culture, and we were excited to have over 400 participants engaged in activities each night. We got the whole school involved from administrators, teachers, coaches, student organizations, and parents to put on a meaningful night of STEM exploration. Want to plan your own night? Read on to learn how!
The Importance of Failure
When you hear the word “FAILURE”, what comes to mind? What feelings surface? Failure is something adults face often; for example, in our jobs when we fail to meet a deadline, in our relationships when we fail to act appropriately to situations, and in our homes when we fail to get chores accomplished or items fixed, to name a few. How a person responds to failure, and more importantly, how one goes on to succeed may be based on how he or she is conditioned at a young age.