There are so many ‘buzz’ words in education – Common Core, reading workshop, rigor, goal-setting, project-based learning, STEM…just to name a few. 😉 In my district, STEM has been THE spotlight word.
 In the mornings, we always have a ‘spare’ few moments (i.e. all three 5th grade homerooms are never ready to trade at the same time) and normally we watch a Flocabulary video or practice root words as we wait. With the increased focus on STEM, I have begun sharing this time using 3-5 ‘spare’ moments a week learning about different careers my friends could have in the future. I used this article as a starting place!
On our first morning (Monday), I set-up a Socrative quiz asking students what they wanted to be when they grown up, if they planned on going to college, and what kind of careers they wanted to learn about. From architects to professional soccer players, the jobs ran the gambit, and I am excited to share some lesser-known opportunities with them.
I’ve been scouring You Tube for engaging and appropriate 2-4 minute videos to share. After we watch the videos together, we have a life chat. We talk about our initial reactions to the job, the great things/not so great things about the job, and who in our class we could see in that position. I’ve enjoyed these few low-keys moments as a team, and I can see it building classroom community.
Here are the first two jobs we have learned about. On Tuesday, we loved seeing a group of people “interview” for the position of Lego designer!
Today, many of my boys were loving the idea that they could make a career out of designing and playing video games! “We can make money playing video games??!!?” “I could be good at this!”
In the coming days we’ll be learning about movie stunt designers, a computer programmer, and a prosthetic designer. Here’s to broadening horizons! Do you have other unique jobs you enjoy sharing with your students? If so, please share! My kids have been so excited to see what career I ‘pick’ for the mornings. 🙂
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Rachel Vincent says
February 20, 2014 at 3:34 amWhat a fantastic idea of sharing unique, interesting jobs with your students! I need to do this! Many of my students just want to be professional athletes. Now I'm all for following their dreams…but let's face the facts…most of them won't be pro athletes.
Rachel
A Tall Drink of Water
Jessica says
February 20, 2014 at 4:11 amWhat a great post! One of the schools in my district is becoming a STEM magnet school soon. I'm sorry to say that I don't know much about it, but it sounds interesting!
What I Have Learned
Eclectic Educating says
February 20, 2014 at 11:44 amWhat a great way to get students motivated. It helps makes the learning in the classroom seem relevant to real life. It is also great to have goals!
Amy
Eclectic Educating
Kate :) says
February 22, 2014 at 12:29 amGreat idea! I could see us doing this during our Morning Meeting time! Thanks for sharing!
Kate 🙂
McDee's Busy Bees
Christy says
February 27, 2014 at 10:44 pmWonderful idea! Thank you for sharing!
Christy
Teaching Tales Along the Yellow Brick Road
Chelsea says
May 1, 2014 at 4:10 amLove this post! We are working on our informational text unit right now about innovations. I can connect these two careers to our engineering and media topics! Thanks for sharing!
Chelsea
Fifth Grade Wit and
Whimsy