From math and science to literacy and the arts, this toolkit has everything you need to engage students in fun afterschool activities while extending content knowledge across the curriculum. Each subject area is filled with standards-based multi-media resources including: research-based practices, sample lessons, interactive activities, and video segments taken from afterschool programs across the country. Whether you’re an experienced afterschool program director or a new volunteer, you will find a range of user-friendly practices and sample lessons, the research that tells you what works, specific how-to instructions, and outcomes to look for.
The Walking Classroom Institute is a nonprofit organization dedicated to improving the health and education of all students. The Walking Classroom program is an in-school obesity intervention that promotes health literacy and develops and supports lifelong fitness habits for all students while addressing different learning styles. The method combines standards-aligned academic content and exercise during the regular school day.
Using WalkKits pre-loaded with a year’s worth of standards-aligned audio content, students walk, listen and learn.
The Walking Classroom actively seeks corporate and foundation support so that after school facilitators can get The Walking Classroom for free. After school facilitators interested in implementing The Walking Classroom but who are unable to fund a class set, apply for a donated set here.
What are the key issues affecting girls today in the U.S.? What approaches can afterschool programs employ to best support the success of boys, specifically boys and young men of color? We’ll begin to address these large-scale questions in a new ongoing webinar series focused on gender-specific programming in afterschool.
The series kicks off with an overview of data on the state of girls and delves into afterschool programming developed to address girls’ specific needs. Guest speakers will discuss a recent report highlighting key issues and major trends affecting girls in the U.S., as well as share research-based programming developed to support girls’ growth and development academically, socially and emotionally. In subsequent webinars, we’ll address gender inequality within STEM education, share practical tips from program providers and discuss best practices.
Bayer’s “Making Science Make Sense” ToolBox is a collection of free resources that include step-by-step, hands-on experiments for youth that can be done in home and out-of-school environments.
The ToolBox includes
Experiment Cards—“kitchen science” experiments done with simple household products.
Experiment Guides—more experiments as well as simple scientific explanations for everyday phenomena and nature questions like “What is a flame?” and “Where do bugs go in winter?” and “Why do socks stick together?”
Audio Series Experiment Book—a selection of the MSMS Audio Series’ most popular segments; matching them with easy hands-on science experiments using common household materials
Activity Book—elementary-appropriate puzzles, word searches, experiments and fun science facts
Periodic Table of Elements—Illustrated with everyday uses of the elements
More and more young people are learning about science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) in a wide variety of afterschool, summer, and informal programs. At the same time, there has been increasing awareness of the value of such programs in sparking, sustaining, and extending interest in and understanding of STEM.
To help policy makers, funders and education leaders in both school and out-of-school settings make informed decisions about how to best leverage the educational and learning resources in their community, this report identifies features of productive STEM programs in out-of-school settings.
Identifying and Supporting Productive STEM Programs in Out-of-School Settings draws from a wide range of research traditions to illustrate that interest in STEM and deep STEM learning develop across time and settings. The report provides guidance on how to evaluate and sustain programs. This report is a resource for local, state, and federal policy makers seeking to broaden access to multiple, high-quality STEM learning opportunities in their community.
Khan Academy offers practice exercises, instructional videos, and a personalized learning dashboard that empower learners to study at their own pace in and outside of the classroom. They tackle all kinds of curriculum, from math, science, computer programming, history, art history, economics, and more. The Khan Academy math missions guide learners from kindergarten to calculus using state-of-the-art, adaptive technology that identifies strengths and learning gaps. They’ve also partnered with institutions like NASA, The Museum of Modern Art, The California Academy of Sciences, and MIT to offer specialized content.
Showcasing one lesson appropriate for youth by grade (Pre-K through 8th grade) and by topic (9th through 12th), this is the Kitchen Community’s list of quality STEM activities. Many of these activities can be modified and be used for youth in a variety of grades.
The STEM in the Garden curriculum consists of a series of 6 Modules. The order of the modules loosely follows the growing season/school year.
Though you can follow this order, all of these activities can easily be done at any time of the year to fit with your needs.
EverFi’s courses help educators engage students with powerful content and allow them to cultivate critical skills in areas of financial literacy, digital citizenship, STEM, health and wellness, entrepreneurship, civics and African American History. All courses are delivered through a digital platform and are accessible to students beginning as early as 4th grade.
Community partners can play an important role in your program. Learn how to utilize industry and community partners to extend and strenthen STEM programming with these Click2Science resources.