For Teachers

Workshop Schedule

RAFT workshops are designed to facilitate the practice of hands-on learning, to offer low-cost professional development opportunities, and to enrich the education of children. Our workshops offer YOU the opportunity to enjoy the fun of interactive learning.  Register by selecting sessions of interest below and enroll on-line!  If you have any questions, please e-mail amy@raftcolorado.org

Stay tuned for our Fall Workshop Schedule. We are currently celebrating the success of RAFT Symposium 2012 and will be formalizing all our Fall workshops in the next week.

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Friday, June 7, 5pm – 7pm,
Curriculum & Cocktails
Come relax on a Friday after a long week. Meet some new people, have a beverage and discuss what works with students today. Have a new idea for the classroom that you want to test out first, come play around with RAFT materials and get feedback from other educators about your thought. Not sure how to manage an unruly classroom, come discuss possibilities with other educators who may have some success stories for you to test out!
TARGET AUDIENCE: Anyone interested in networking with like minded professionals and talking out ideas.
COST: Free!; Non-members, you will need a day pass in order to shop.
 
Friday, June 21, 5pm – 7pm,
Fabric Arts & Sewing
Join in the fun. Every other Friday you can find time to network, connect and engage with like minded educators. The event is free and we encourage you to spread the word to other friends! This week the focus is Fabric Arts & Sewing. Participants will have the opportunity to use the green room sewing machine as well as explore the other ways kids can create with fabric a sew in alternative ways.
TARGET AUDIENCE: Anyone interested in working with fabric and learning various techniques for sewing!
COST: Free for Members!; Non-members: A day pass is needed to shop, attend with a member friend and get a guest day pass, attend solo and day pass is $15
 
Friday, July 5, 5pm – 7pm,
Curriculum & Cocktails
Join in the fun. Every other Friday you can find time to network, connect and engage with like minded educators. The event is free and we encourage you to spread the word to other friends! This week the focus is Curriculum & Cocktails. Conversation will be directed by the needs of those participants that show up. We will discuss issues and problem-solve as a group over wine and beer.
TARGET AUDIENCE: Anyone interested in networking and connecting with like minded educators
COST: Free for Members!; Non-members: A day pass is needed to shop, attend with a member friend and get a guest day pass, attend solo and day pass is $15
 
Tuesday, July 9, 9am – 12pm,
RAFT Symposium: Bubbles, beyond play: The Science and Math of Soap Bubbles
Why are bubbles round? Where do those soap bubble colors come from? Soap bubbles are an exciting entryway into a vast array of science and math content and the practice of 21st Century Skills. In this workshop you will engage in hands-on exploration of activities that can go right into the classroom. These activities can lead to science questions about the forces that shape bubbles, the chemistry of bubbles, diffusion across bubble surfaces and the colors in bubbles. They also lead to math questions such as how do you measure bubble size, at what angles do bubbles surfaces meet, and what is the solution to minimizing surface area? All of these explorations will involve critical 21st Century Skills of Invention, Self-direction, and Critical Thinking and Reasoning.
TARGET AUDIENCE: Grade pk – 8 teachers
COST: Members: $5; Non-members: $20
 
Tuesday, July 9, 9am – 12pm,
RAFT Symposium: Don’t let S&M squeeze out the T&E
In efforts to support students in understanding and expanding their abilities to use 21st Century Skills, STEM sometimes overly focuses on the Science and Math that are most familiar to educators. However, the T & E are easy to highlight and explore with kids when you have clear terms and understanding of their role in STEM. Technology exists as tools and there are multiple opportunities and experiences that can be created by letting kids Engineer with repurposed materials. Come explore with RAFT as we lead you through some T & E experiences that can help to broaden S & M to completely engage kids in STEM!
TARGET AUDIENCE: Grade pk – 5 teachers
COST: Members: $5; Non-members: $20
 
Tuesday, July 9, 9am – 12pm,
RAFT Symposium: Cruising the Creative Process
Engage your students in creativity using the Denver Art Museum’s collection. Explore the stages of the creative process (preparation, incubation, illumination and verification) and discover ways to integrate them into your lessons and units of study in any discipline. Be ready to investigate objects closely, hone observation and inquiry skills and get inspired to problem solve, experiencing each stage of the creative process along the way.
TARGET AUDIENCE: Grade pk – 8 teachers
COST: Members: $5; Non-members: $20
 
Tuesday, July 9, 1pm – 4pm,
RAFT Symposium: Rockets – From China to the Moon
Join retired NASA Aerospace Engineer, Tom Graves as he takes you on a journey through history. Explore the science behind rockets, ways to bring that learning to your students and the “Race to the Moon.” Enjoy the hands-on experience and activities that you can bring straight back to your students as well as discuss and learn from an expert who was there as history was being made. Tom is also going to share artifacts and photos that he has from his time with NASA as well as answer all relevant questions of participants during this jam packed session.
TARGET AUDIENCE: Grade 2 – 8 teachers
COST: Members: $5; Non-members: $20
 
Tuesday, July 9, 1pm – 4pm,
RAFT Symposium: Hands-on Literacy
Come experience the fun of hands-on reading, writing and communicating activities that can help liven your literacy block. These activities can be used as great extensions for students who are avid readers and writers and need challenges and opportunities to apply their learning, while others are great motivators to engage struggling learners who may be uninterested in reading and writing due to difficulties they experience. We all need to know how to communicate in many forms, come fill your toolbox up with some fun engaging ideas that will support every type of learner that you may have in your classroom!
TARGET AUDIENCE: Grade 2 – 8 teachers
COST: Members: $5; Non-members: $20
 
Tuesday, July 9, 1pm – 4pm,
RAFT Symposium: Art, Craft & Science: Similarities and Distinctions
Enjoy a lively session with the Denver Museum of Nature & Science educators as together we: Examine artistic development from infancy to adult, Identify science process skills that are best nurtured in early childhood, Explore how art and science can be appropriately integrated in a complementary way and Have fun looking at Museum collections, creating hands-on science crafts, and making literacy connections.
TARGET AUDIENCE: Grade pk – 1 teachers
COST: Members: $5; Non-members: $20
 
Wednesday, July 10, 9am – 12pm,
RAFT Symposium: Next Generation Science Standards
Finally released in final form this April, the Next Generation Science Standards are a comprehensive source for engaging students K-12 in the sciences and exploring the practices and processes that scientists use in their careers. Come dive into the standards and take a journey through the paradigm shift that is being presented with these new standards. Leave with ideas and understanding of how NGSS can be integrated into your classroom next year helping students to make connections across the curriculum!
TARGET AUDIENCE: Grade pk – 8 teachers
COST: Members: $5; Non-members: $20
 
Wednesday, July 10, 9am – 12pm,
RAFT Symposium: Patterns of Life’s “Ideas”
Join Anatomist Jon Zahourek, founder of the Formative Haptics Center, for an exploration of how evolutionary pressures and opportunities have led to the bioengineering of our arms and legs. All of us vertebrates, from fishes to mammals, share a simple, recognizable anatomical pattern that explains a lot about who we are and the science of how we live our lives. Participants will develop these ideas in simple children’s clay through the process of combining the building of two-dimensional and three-dimensional approaches to learning. Jon has trademarked this technique as 2D3D(TM). Take this experience back to the classroom and help students awaken to the profound implication of the bigger picture of life on earth.
TARGET AUDIENCE: Grade 2 – 8 teachers
COST: Members: $5; Non-members: $20
 
Wednesday, July 10, 9am – 12pm,
RAFT Symposium: A Circle & Four Directions
How can an art project lead to an understanding of how all things human are related to all things Earth? Join naturalist and Earth scientist, Martin Ogle, for a fascinating look at how the exploration ? and creation! ? of symbols that describe our cultural relationships to Earth can lead to interdisciplinary education. Find connection points with teaching any subject or skill, and activities to help make those connections stick.
TARGET AUDIENCE: Grade pk – 8 teachers
COST: Members: $5; Non-members: $20
 
Wednesday, July 10, 1pm – 4pm,
RAFT Symposium: Inspiring the Genius Within Through Hands-on Project-Based Learning
The need for hands-on skills and knowledge in Technology and Engineering is greater now than ever before. Discover how one Technology Education/Industrial Arts teacher works collaboratively with all content areas to reinforce state standards in Math, Language, Science, Physical Education, Visual Arts, Information Technology and Social Studies to help create a well rounded Genius (aka: the student) through hands-on, project based learning activities completed in a Research and Design Woods Technology Lab. Discover strategies for collaborating across content areas, dive into project examples, understand the Technology and Engineering Design Cycle and fill your toolbox with helpful resources to implement hands-on, project based learning with ease.
TARGET AUDIENCE: Grade 6 – 8 teachers
COST: Members: $5; Non-members: $20
 
Wednesday, July 10, 1pm – 4pm,
RAFT Symposium: Advice from Nature: Character Education
We will explore strategies and activities for students to develop positive values through the study of nature. The integrated lessons foster development of respectful and responsible decision-making, through science, visual art, literacy, and humanities activities. Appropriate for K-12 teachers; adaptable for preK. In these sessions, we will use RAFT resources to make journals and totems. We will take an urban field trip to find inspiration from Nature.
TARGET AUDIENCE: Grade pk – 8 teachers
COST: Members: $5; Non-members: $20
 
Wednesday, July 10, 1pm – 4pm,
RAFT Symposium: Hands-on Math
Join us as we explore ways to bring real-world application to life in the math classroom. Many times in the upper grades, math turns into formulas and arithmetic. Students begin to question, why do I need to know how to do this. Come experience ways to engage students in math that will hook them in and make the application of math a fun and interesting process that makes use of formulas and functions rather than just memorizing them.
TARGET AUDIENCE: Grade pk – 5 teachers
COST: Members: $5; Non-members: $20
 
Thursday, July 11, 9am – 12pm,
RAFT Symposium: Earth Systems Science
Earth Science rocks! Geared toward upper elementary and middle school teachers, this workshop led by DMNS educators will explore plate tectonics through Oreo cookies, rock and mineral classification using office supplies and basins and watersheds through crumpled paper and water, in addition to other techniques around earth science education that you can use in your classroom.
TARGET AUDIENCE: Grade 2 – 8 teachers
COST: Members: $5; Non-members: $20
 
Thursday, July 11, 9am – 12pm,
RAFT Symposium: Web 2.0 Tools
Come explore some of the amazing and FREE tools available that help students create, communicate and share their learning for wider audiences than their classmates and teacher. These tools all have their quirks and strategies for working with groups of kids of all ages. Come explore which tools will best meet your needs and engage your students in reaching wider audiences to demonstrate learning.
TARGET AUDIENCE: Grade pk – 8 teachers
COST: Members: $5; Non-members: $20
 
Thursday, July 11, 9am – 12pm,
RAFT Symposium: Advice from Nature: Character Education
We will explore strategies and activities for students to develop positive values through the study of nature. The integrated lessons foster development of respectful and responsible decision-making, through science, visual art, literacy, and humanities activities. Appropriate for K-12 teachers; adaptable for preK. In these sessions, we will use RAFT resources to make journals and totems. We will take an urban field trip to find inspiration from Nature.
TARGET AUDIENCE: Grade pk – 8 teachers
COST: Members: $5; Non-members: $20
 
Thursday, July 11, 1pm – 4pm,
RAFT Symposium: The Shocking Truth About Batteries
Join retired NASA Aerospace Engineer Tom Graves as he takes you on a journey with batteries. Build up your background knowledge about how batteries work while also constructing your own penny battery! Participants will get to explore connectivity further with conductive playdoh and creating circuits of their own. This is sure to be a shockingly good time ?
TARGET AUDIENCE: Grade 2 – 8 teachers
COST: Members: $5; Non-members: $20
 
Thursday, July 11, 1pm – 4pm,
RAFT Symposium: Making Learning Visible
As educators we can gain extraordinary insight into what children know and can do through careful observation. Documentation of what we observe can help us present evidence of developmental growth, show accountability and standards alignment, and help children, teachers and families reflect on and celebrate learning. In this workshop, we’ll become a community of practice as we observe and reflect on children’s real time actions, and try out a variety of practical documentation tools and techniques to help you make learning visible.
TARGET AUDIENCE: Grade pk – 5 teachers
COST: Members: $5; Non-members: $20
 
Thursday, July 11, 1pm – 4pm,
RAFT Symposium: Cultural Mathematic Connections
Why do we use a base 10 number system? Who are the master’s and minds behind mathematical systems we use everyday. In what ways have math practices been the same for centuries and in what ways are people using math to make new discoveries everyday. Come explore the answers to these questions and fun activities and ideas that can inspire conversations with your students. Cultures across time and place will be discussed and math will be explored through many lenses. You may just find that you love math more than you thought possible!
TARGET AUDIENCE: Grade pk – 5 teachers
COST: Members: $5; Non-members: $20
 
Friday, July 12, 9am – 12pm,
RAFT Symposium: Modular Robotics
Do you have an interest in robotics but don’t have the source for materials and ideas? Come explore with Cubelets. There are a tool that allows students to easily construct and create robotics. Christie is working on developing a loaner kit program for Cubelets and wants to work with educators to brainstorm lessons and ideas that are ready to go for classrooms, clubs and groups of kids. Learn how to use cubelets and make some robots of your own. Working with other educators, help brainstorm and create lessons and ideas for teachers to use in the classroom. If you are open to the idea, Christie will schedule a time with you to come to your classroom to test out what is created in this workshop.
TARGET AUDIENCE: Grade pk – 5 teachers
COST: Members: $5; Non-members: $20
 
Friday, July 12, 9am – 12pm,
RAFT Symposium: Intro to Arduino Part I (SparkFUN)
Learn the five basic concepts necessary to program tiny computers in this workshop. Use these same five concepts in different combinations to make customized robots which you can insert in just about anything. Participants will learn how to use the ProtoSnap learning tool to bypass the breadboarding stage of prototyping and dive straight into programming. No programming knowledge required, but it is beneficial. This is the first half of a two day workshop.
TARGET AUDIENCE: Grade pk – 5 teachers
COST: Members: $5; Non-members: $20
 
Friday, July 12, 9am – 12pm,
RAFT Symposium: The Art of Survival
Utilizing what we know from evolutionary science. Explore the ways that color, camouflage and beak type influence the survival of birds and animals. After exploring some fun activities that can get students engaged in the activity, try your hand at the art of collography. Collography is a print making technique that utilizes patterns from man-made stamps of common everyday materials. Using stamps made in the session everyone will create a creature that is camouflaged to survive in a certain environment.
TARGET AUDIENCE: Grade pk – 8 teachers
COST: Members: $5; Non-members: $20
 
Friday, July 12, 1pm – 4pm,
RAFT Symposium: MaKeyMaKey (SparkFUN)
Dedicated to making electronics accessible to everyone, SparkFUN’s education department engages you with the basics needed to understand circuits, computer programing and hardware. Come explore with the experts. Using the MaKey MaKey you can make anything into a key (get it?) just by connecting a few alligator clips. The MaKey MaKey is an invention kit that tricks your computer into thinking that almost anything is a keyboard. This allows you to hook up all kinds of fun things as an input. For example, play Mario with a Play-Doh keyboard, or piano with fruit!
TARGET AUDIENCE: Grade 2 – 8 teachers
COST: Members: $5; Non-members: $20
 
Friday, July 12, 1pm – 4pm,
RAFT Symposium: Becoming Figures of the Past
The Colorado State Model Content Standards emphasize that students should understand how historical people and individuals influenced the past and shaped the history of local, state, and national events in our history. What better way for students to understand this influence than to become the individuals of historical significance from their community, state or national figures? Join April Legg of History Colorado and Michelle Delgado of Denver Public Schools for an interactive hands-on experience of becoming figures of our past.
TARGET AUDIENCE: Grade 2 – 5 teachers
COST: Members: $5; Non-members: $20
 
Friday, July 12, 1pm – 4pm,
RAFT Symposium: Bread, Slime Molds, and Cyborgs: What is Life?
What do bread, slime molds and cyborgs have in common? Explore what defines life through a series of hands on activities that will have you thinking a bit deeper about the meaning behind it all. Using RAFT materials, generate your own conception of what life is and what it is not.
TARGET AUDIENCE: Grade 2 – 8 teachers
COST: Members: $5; Non-members: $20
 
Saturday, July 13, 9am – 12pm,
RAFT Symposium: MaKeyMaKey (SparkFUN)
Dedicated to making electronics accessible to everyone, SparkFUN’s education department engages you with the basics needed to understand circuits, computer programing and hardware. Come explore with the experts. Using the MaKey MaKey you can make anything into a key (get it?) just by connecting a few alligator clips. The MaKey MaKey is an invention kit that tricks your computer into thinking that almost anything is a keyboard. This allows you to hook up all kinds of fun things as an input. For example, play Mario with a Play-Doh keyboard, or piano with fruit!
TARGET AUDIENCE: Grade 2 – 8 teachers
COST: Members: $5; Non-members: $20
 
Saturday, July 13, 9am – 12pm,
RAFT Symposium: Artists as Mathematicians, Mathematicians as Artists
The link between Math and Art has been explored since ancient Greece. Come explore resources and activities that can be used with kids to develop an understanding that artists are mathematicians and mathematicians are artists. Through proportion, color theory and optics, who knows, maybe you will even uncover your inner artist or mathematician!
TARGET AUDIENCE: Grade pk – 8 teachers
COST: Members: $5; Non-members: $20
 
Saturday, July 13, 1pm – 4pm,
RAFT Symposium: Embedding Tiny Computers in Just About Anything, Arduino Part II (SparkFUN)
Finally learn how to embed your tiny computer, sensors and outputs into just about anything. Make sure your sensors, outputs and battery are in a place where they are accessible. This portion of the workshop will be customized to each participant as we deal with each unique housing project. Pick stuff from around Raft or bring in your own object to embed with electronics. Suggestions include: Cheap toys, cardboard boxes, hats, Pringles cans, an Altoid mint tin or even a model airplane.
TARGET AUDIENCE: Grade 2 – 8 teachers
COST: Members: $5; Non-members: $20
 
Saturday, July 13, 1pm – 4pm,
RAFT Symposium: Make Your Project Move
Learn how to build giant robotic arms from recycled cardboard! These arms have a 6-foot reach, and the strength to pick up small stuffed animals! They are a great way to get students enthused about the basic principles in physics and applied electronics. Cardboard is a tremendous medium for building large robotics – its strong, and readily available. Make a mistake? No problem – we can patch it ! We will show how to build simple cardboard gear boxes that are controlled by stepper motors that form the basis of the robotic arm. You can scale such systems to make anything move that you could imagine to make! **taking Intro to Arduino with SparkFUN on Friday is recommended but not mandatory!**
TARGET AUDIENCE: Grade 2 – 8 teachers
COST: Members: $5; Non-members: $20
 
Saturday, July 13, 1pm – 4pm,
RAFT Symposium: Aluminum Can Jewelry Making
Create works of art that you can wear! Using aluminum cans, Lauren will show you how to turn the container you just drank from in to functional and creative jewelry. Explore composition, color and technique as you give this art form a try.
TARGET AUDIENCE: Grade 2 – 8 teachers
COST: Members: $5; Non-members: $20
 
Saturday, July 13, 9am – 12pm,
RAFT Symposium: Hands on the Helix:Unraveling the Structure of DNA
What is DNA? We have heard of it in crime lab tv dramas and maybe even in Jurassic Park. Now it is time to bring this microscopic structure into the tangible world! Explore the intricate molecule of DNA though hands on experiences that are bound to create everlasting memories.
TARGET AUDIENCE: Grade 2 – 8 teachers
COST: Members: $5; Non-members: $20
 
Wednesday, July 17, 9am – 4pm,
ECE Intensive: Hands-on Centers
Sorry for the delay…ECE Intensive: Hands-on Centers is a professional learning opportunity for those working with our youngest learners, birth through age 6. Caregivers as educators is our focus, so we will be exploring how ECE educators of any type can engage young learners in making connections and building foundations for future school learning. This first ECE intensive is kicking off with a focus on hands-on centers through a literature lens, a nonfiction lens and a cultural lens. Even though we will explore possibilities in these three fields, a connection of all the themes will be made as well as discussion and exploration of how to make connections with young learners.
TARGET AUDIENCE: Birth through age 6 caregivers and ece professionals
COST: Members: $10, Non-members: $40

Have our workshops selected?

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