Free Stuff

It's one of the best four letter words out there— FREE—especially when you're on a tight budget. Maine Educator found a few freebies!

NORTH AMERICAN BEAR CENTER

Bring the only black bear and wildlife learning facility into your classroom! K-12 students learn from the bears about behavior, ecology, and interactions with humans. Lesson plans for different age levels range in topics from how and why bears store fat to the hibernation metabolism in black bears.

FMI: https://bear.org/ educational-outreach/ lesson-plans/

DOCS TEACH

DocsTeach is a source of primary documents from the National Archives and activities for social studies teachers and students in grades 3-12. This online tool for teaching history and social studies uses documents from the National Archives. Students can get involved in the process of historical research with thousands of documents, videos, maps and more.

FMI: www.docsteach.org

MAGNET ACADEMY EAT PLAY GROW

Magnet Academy features demonstrations, videos, activities, downloads, and more on magnetism and electricity for grades K-12. The online resource allows educators to seach by topic, age level, format, and grade level. The demos, videos, and activities answer your questions about all things electric and magnetic!

FMI: nationalmaglab.org EatPlayGrow provides activities to encourage children and parents to make healthy choices in nutrition, physical activity, and sleep. Entire curriculum, lesson plans and family handouts are available. The engaging lessons for grades preK8, combine art-making, storytelling, music and movement activities and hands-on educational lessons about the importance of making positive choices that most affect health.

FMI: www.nhlbi.nig.gov/ health/educational/ wecan/tools-resources/ eatplaygrow

Learning and Line Dancing

Early Career Educators head to Texas for Training

When asked "do you want to go to Texas to meet with other early career educators and learn more about how you can become more involved in the union," a group of early career educators didn’t blink an eye and said “yes.” When you think about it, a trip where they’d learn something and maybe do a little line dancing seemed like an easy ask. What this group didn’t realize is how much they would learn about the union, what it does, and how it could support them in their work and their local.

The training, designed for the Young Education Professionals of the MEA (YEP-MEA), was part of a national effort by the National Education Association to engage early career educators, a much-needed task. In the next ten years, it's estimated there will be two million new educators who join the profession, most of whom will be millennials (born between 1981-1996.) With the change in the face of the profession, especially in Maine, the nation’s oldest state, MEA and NEA are working to ensure those who are entering the profession feel supported in their work and don't leave the job.

The group who travelled together to Texas came back with a renewed effort to focus on membership recruitment and engagement of early career educators. So far, the effort is paying off. In several local associations “teams” of early career educators are recruiting new members and working together to provide both professional development and networking opportunities for their members. 10 Maine Educator • November 2019 Alison Gray, Saco EA

Nyiesha Delima, Saco EA

"After the opportunity of attending the NEA Early Career Educator Conference in Houston, I was able to learn valuable skills on how to engage new educators. With these skills, I am currently working on three membership drives within Scarborough. Our goal is simple: show the benefits and the amazing opportunities by joining the association for new educators. The benefits of adding new and young educators to your local are critical to continued success both on local, state and national levels. Early career educators can provide new ideas, insights and can fill roles and committees. New and young educators' engagement help to continue the longterm gains and legacy of success and builds a bright future for our association."

William York, Vice President Scarborough EA

If your local association is interested in creating a team of early career educators to help in this cause, contact MEA at editor@maineea.org. The Association is always looking for other early career educators who are willing to engage in the work of the union.