STEM
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FarmBeats for Students: Hands-On Agriculture STEM with micro:bit (Grades 3–8)
Discover how FarmBeats for Students and the BBC micro:bit bring agriculture, coding, and engineering together through engaging, hands-on STEM activities. This blog explores how students can collect real-world data, solve authentic farming challenges, and develop critical thinking, problem-solving, and computational skills while preparing for the careers of tomorrow. Perfect for teachers looking to make STEM…
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Using Google My Maps in the Gifted Classroom: Mapping The Global Innovation Lab
The Global Innovation Lab is growing! 🌎🚀 In this post, I share how Google My Maps is helping us connect classrooms around the world so students can collaborate on real-world challenges like water conservation. If you want your students to think bigger, create meaningful solutions, and learn alongside students from other communities and countries, I…
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Finding Professional Development That Actually Works for the 3–5 Gifted Classroom 🚀
This blog post shares my love for finding meaningful professional development for the 3rd–5th grade gifted classroom. As a self-proclaimed PD junkie, I’m always looking for fresh ideas that support STEM, coding, robotics, maker education, creativity, and real-world problem solving. One of my favorite PD resources is Infosys Pathfinders, a free platform that offers valuable…
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Boredom Isn’t the Enemy… It’s the Beginning of Innovation
By Beth Smith, M. Ed. | #smithingifted I’m bored.” Every teacher has heard those two words. Parents hear them during the summer. Teachers hear them during the school year. We often scramble to solve the problem by handing children another worksheet, another app, another video, or another activity. But what if boredom isn’t actually the…
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📊 Google Sheets in the Gifted Classroom: Building Data Literacy for Future Innovators
By Beth Smith | #smithingifted Could Google Sheets Be the Most Underrated Tool in Your Gifted Classroom? When most teachers think about Google Sheets, they think about gradebooks or budgets. In my gifted classroom, it’s something entirely different—it’s a tool that helps students think, collaborate, and solve real-world problems. My students use Google Sheets to…
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🎙️Giving Every Student a Voice: The Power of Podcasting in the Gifted Classroom
By Beth Smith, M. Ed. | #smithingifted One of my favorite ways to engage gifted learners is through student-created podcasts. I will never forget my first attempt at Podcasting. Look how far we have come in education and technology. I taught 6th grade Reading at Lincoln Middle School in Rio Rancho, NM. My students came…
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#smithingifted tech tools
By Beth Smith, M. Ed. | #smithingifted Dash Robot meets Our Hometown One of my favorite ways to teach coding is by making it feel like a real-world mission. The Dash Robot “Our Hometown” Bot Mat does exactly that. Instead of having students simply drive Dash forward, backward, left, and right, this mat turns coding…