Curriculum Reviews: CATCH, TinkRworks, and Afterschool Math Plus
This month we have reviewed another three curriculums, covering topics of STEM, Sports/Recreation and Math in afterschool.
Kids Club (OST)
By CATCH (Coordinated Approach to Child Health)
TAGS: Physical Education, elementary, middle school, health and fitness, activities, games, healthy eating,
The Kids Club from CATCH is a very accessible set of curricular resources for jumpstarting a impactful health and nutrition program for afterschool. Activities are easy to understand and relatively plug and play, allowing for greater access by program providers. The lack of student evaluation and curricular opportunities for student choice is a limitation of the curriculum; one that could easily be remedied by the program provider. Overall, this is a recommended curriculum.
TinkRworks
TAGS: STEAM, Project Based Learning, elementary school, middle school, high school, hands-on, project kits, coding, ready-to-teach
TinkRworks is a comprehensive STEAM curriculum that incorporates Project Based Learning to investigate STEAM topics in a way that is hands on and minds on. The level of preparation that this curriculum offers STEAM facilitators makes it an attractive curriculum for afterschool providers, though the upfront costs may make TinkRworks prohibitively expensive for some programs. Overall, this is a highly recommended curriculum.
Afterschool Math Plus Revised Edition
By Maryann Stimmer, LaMicah Lindsey, and Ben Dworken with Kari Kraus and Jen Kristen Taylor
TAGS: Math, STEM, art, community development, music, geometry, algebra, pattern recognition, scale, collecting and representing data, elementary school, middle school
Afterschool Math Plus is an engaging curriculum that centers math concepts in a highly accessible way. The high quality design of the teaching methods makes this an easy curriculum to recommend, though the fact that lessons are regularly over two hours in length may present challenges in implementation. This is a free program that could be easily adopted by programs. Overall, this is a recommended curriculum.
Be sure to check out our curriculum reviews from last quarter as well.
For questions, please reach out to Andrew Hitzhusean at hitzhusena@actnowillinois.org.
