Every Thursday the EiE blog brings you tips and resources to help you teach elementary engineering.

Some educators think of extension lessons as a convenient and educational way to fill a few minutes when your students finish work ahead of schedule. But they're much more than that! Well-designed extension lessons

• make connections between the topic you're teaching and other subject areas,
• help students explore a topic more
  deeply, and
• provide extra support for students who need to strengthen their skills.

Did you know that Engineering is Elementary offers a large collection of extension lessons? We have hundreds of engaging short lessons, all designed by K-5 classroom teachers and expert curriculum developers so that they integrate perfectly in your engineering classroom.

Each Thursday on the EiE blog, we offer tips for teachers and answer your questions. 

Q. I'm a homeschool teacher and I can only afford the EiE Teacher Guide, not the Materials Kit. But I really want to teach EiE! Can I still use your curriculum?

A. Yes! EiE activities are designed to use easy-to-find, inexpensive materials. So it's easy (and inexpensive) to put together your own kit.

Every Thursday on the blog we bring you teaching tips or news about resources you can use in your classroom

Every Engineering is Elementary (EiE) unit starts with a storybook that sets the context for the hands-on engineering design challenge. You can show the pictures to your students the conventional way, by holding up the book for everyone to see . . . but you can also download storybook illustrations from our website and project them on a screen or SmartBoard. Beyond the convenience of this approach, storybook illustrations are a terrific teaching tool for English Language Arts, and especially for the English Language Learners in your class.

This engineering teacher tip is for educators who use Engineering Adventures, our curriculum for learners in grades 3-5 in out-of-school settings like afterschool and camp—specifically the unit Shake Things Up: Engineering Earthquake-Resistant Buildings. This unit introduces kids to the devastating earthquake that hit Haiti in 2010; the challenge is to engineer a model building that can withstand a quake.

Every Thursday on the EiE Blog, we share classroom-tested teaching tips or answer your questions.

Today's Engineering is Elementary teaching tip comes from Michelle Sedberry, a K-12 science specialist and EiE professional development provider from Lubbock, Texas. Lubbock has a high proportion of English Language Learners (ELL); Michelle developed this fun photo journaling activity with their needs in mind. It helps to connect English Language Arts and engineering.