Since 2006, I’ve created high-quality educational materials including lesson plans, activity guides, magazine articles and complete custom curriculums for a variety of clients. Below is a selection of my work.
Denver Arts & Venues’ Youth One Book, One Denver Program:
Youth One Book, One Denver (YOBOD) is an annual summertime shared reading experience for ages 8-12. Summer programs like Boys and Girls Club, Denver Parks and Rec and other independent camps are invited to give their students a post of literacy during the summer with YOBOD. Families across the metro area are also invited to participate as Denver Arts and Venues provides activities to combat the “summer slide” (learning loss) and bring books to life through author visits and creative tie-ins to the selected texts.
I contributed to the selection of texts, created an activity booklet for families and an extensive guide for educators to use with children enrolled in summer programs across the city for the selected texts listed below (usually one text for older children and one for younger children). I also conducted educator trainings to prepare summer staff.
Unannounced 2020 Books (postponed due to the pandemic)
The Cardboard Kingdom | Super Narwhal and Jelly Jolt (2019)
Insignificant Events in the Life of a Cactus | Inspector Flytrap #1 (2018)
Upside-Down Magic | Not Your Typical Dragon (2017)
Young Minds Inspired National Partnerships Including:
Heeley’s – Students celebrate their differences and their own unique identity as they collaborate on fun language arts activities.
Pilot Pens – “Help Erase Bullying for Good,” an ELA and SEL program designed to help students recognize bullying, understand its causes, learn prevention strategies, and become upstanders in the community.
Pork Council – Lesson plans that invite students to learn more about how sustainability practices have helped pig farmers increase food production while reducing environmental impact, and discover pork recipes from around the globe.
Uber – “Take Care of Each Other,” a campus safety initiative that focuses on ridesharing safety, sexual assault prevention, and personal safety both on and off campus.
Sonic the Hedgehog – Building on the concepts of speed and problem-solving, the Sonic the Hedgehog: Adventures in Math program challenges kids to use their own special powers to solve a series of math problems and puzzles inspired by the film, Sonic the Hedgehog.
Scholastic National Partnerships Including:
Sony – Inspired by the “Smurfs” movie, created resources supporting writing and language standards that also encouraged students to think about how their interests and skills can connect for a big future.
Amazon – Drawing inspiration from Amazon Prime’s “Just Add Magic” and “The Stinky & Dirty Show” series, composed lesson plans and family activities for grades Pre-K through 5th that encouraged caring and sharing.
3M Post-it – Wrote, crafted and photographed fun educational activity ideas for grades K-8 using Post-it Notes that was featured on a co-branded website.
American Association of Orthopaedic Surgeons – “Decide to Drive,” a program featuring Common Core-ready activities that raise driver awareness among teens while reinforcing key language-arts and mathematics skills, including text analysis, supporting claims, summarizing data, and understanding statistics.
Con Edison – Activities to teach students in the New York City area to use electricity safely and efficiently through engaging reproducible worksheets and informative family take-home magazines.
Corporation for National and Community Service – Incorporated the messages of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. as well as the remarkable stories of other Civil Rights leaders, John Lewis and Ruby Bridges, to create a curriculum-focused service lessons for grades 3–5 and 6–8 to inspire students to “lead in deed.”
Elmer’s Teacher’s Club – What can you do with glue? Developed creative Common Core-ready lessons that showed teachers how hands-on activities can lead to great learning outcomes.
WeAreTeachers Articles Including:
“Teach Kids How to Read Digital Texts Deeply” – Digital literacy article and ready-to-use slideshow for teachers.
“Your Guide to Teaching Kindergarten Online” – A rich resources of ideas for teaching kindergarten online. Also created guides for teaching grades 1st – 5th online.
“Free Bullet Journal Pages That Help Teens Build Resiliency” – Downloadable activity pages for teens to cultivate SEL skills.
“12 Great Third Grade Assessment Ideas” – Move it, show it, mark it, and voice it! Also created articles for assessment ideas for grades K, 1st, 2nd, 4th and 5th.
Scholastic Instructor Magazine Articles Including:
“20 African-American Heroes Your Students Should Meet” – There is more to Black History Month than honoring Martin Luther King Jr. This article introduces students to a new generation of heroes through a series of short biographies with relevant links.
“Be a Hero for the Planet” – Paint your school green with Earth-friendly activities! This article includes easy-to-understand explanations of the science behind global warming followed by suggestions for making “greener” choices at home and school.
“Speak Out: Public Speaking Activities for Grades 3-5” – Five Common Core-ready lesson plans to develop public speaking skills.
“‘Visit’ the National Parks” – Take students on an end-of-school road trip with these virtual activities celebrating the beauty, richness, and diversity of America’s national parks.
“Pumpkins, Pumpkins, Everywhere” – Take pumpkins off the front porch and put them to work in the classroom! Creative ways to use pumpkins in every subject for grades K-2.
“Let’s Go Fly a Kite!” – Breathe fresh air into springtime lessons with kite-flying fun that teaches math, science, social studies and visual arts.
Denver Art Museum:
Creativity Resource Lessons – Through the Creativity Resource at the Denver Art Museum website, teachers can access dozens of high quality lesson plans that use artworks from the museum’s collection to teach language arts, social studies and visual arts. Working with art history experts at the museum, I authored 18 lessons for grades 3-5 featuring works of American Indian art. http://creativity.denverartmuseum.org/lesson-plans/lesson-plan-author-bios/
Samples from this body of work: American Indian Art History Detectives | Create Your Own Parfleche! | Pack your Parfleche!
Webinar: “Promoting 21st Century Skills Through Collaborative Classroom Projects” – Find out how the year-long collaborative project I developed with the Denver Art Museum helped my students acquire 21st century skills and motivated them to learn about Chinese culture and art, all while creating activities and games for museum visitors to use. Watch webinar
Colorado Academy:
Cultural Revolution English Language Arts Curriculum – Drew upon my years of study in Chinese language and history to create a custom curriculum for 9th grade students reading Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress. This dynamic curriculum invited students to explore the Cultural Revolution era in China from a myriad of perspectives while analyzing primary source materials including music, art and fashion of the time period.
Nick Cave Soundsuit-Inspired Music/Visual Arts Curriculum – Collaborated with the lower school music teacher, art teacher and a local seamstress to guide the 2nd graders at CA on a journey through sound, movement and costume construction as they prepared a performance art piece inspired by Nick Cave’s Sounduits to present at the annual CA Art Show. Article: CA Art Festival Redux.
HarperCollins: Ungifted/Supergifted Teacher Guide (2017) Ungifted_Supergifted Teacher Guide