Teaching
Mimi Herman’s residency was akin to having Mary Poppins come for a visit. To say that my students were bewitched and bedazzled by Mimi’s charismatic presence would be no exaggeration, yet more importantly and more lastingly, they were energized and empowered.
—Tom Keeler, Upper Elementary School Lead Teacher, Sterling Montessori Academy
STEAM Writing deepens whatever students are studying in science, to help find connections between science and English language arts and strengthen their writing skills across the curriculum. Choose from ecosystems, landforms, animal adaptations, the water cycle, chemistry, biology and physics—or invent your own workshop or residency with Mimi.
Transform yourself into an endangered animal, to examine your life in your habitat, understand why you need your adaptations and invent new ones. Then share your newfound wisdom - and your requests for others to respect your habitat - through your own poetry and visual art.
Which standards do you hate to teach? You know, the ones your students just don’t understand, no matter how many times you try to teach them? In this workshop, we’ll find fun, new and improved ways to play with your most frustrating standards. The activities you'll learn work equally well in person and in the virtual classroom.
Can you smell your grandmother’s chocolate chip cookies baking? Dive into a cool, blue swimming pool on a steamy August day? Read between the lines of literature? Mimi Herman leads students to writing and makes them think. Everyone’s a poet in this accessible, hands-on and delightful poetry experience.
Arrive at Ellis Island in 1901 with only a steamer trunk and your hopes, and discover how to live in a new country without leaving your own culture behind. As we immigrate, we will integrate, weaving writing and drama seamlessly with social studies to bring history to life and understand the complex process of becoming an American.
Read art to discover its secret language - and translate your discoveries into creative writing. Here’s your chance to become best friends with a piece of art. Listen to its secrets, draw or paint it and find the poems within.
From free verse to sonnets, from self-expression to science, social studies or literature – Mimi engages students in understanding themselves, the curriculum and the world through reading and writing poetry.
Got Intelligence? In this workshop, you’ll try on a variety of ways to be smart. We’ll build our brains from materials at hand and explore the Intelligences within us with a Multiple Intelligences Treasure Hunt.
This workshop is for everyone, from those who wake up with a poem on your lips to those who can't string two sentences together with a needle and thread. From Play-Doh to Plato, from Vick’s VapoRub to vectors, from soap bubbles to surface tension, you’ll integrate writing with your five senses throughout your life - and throughout the curriculum.
All educational programs are available as professional development workshops or weeklong residencies for students.
Other workshops include…
Learn to bake Mimi’s favorite family recipes. Key Lime Pie, Summer Berry Crisp, Grandmom Herman’s chocolate chip mundlebroit cookies, cranberry orange scones and your own homemade fortune cookies - create a delicious new treat every day.
Create Claymation videos at home using your own cell phone or tablet—or animate your Legos, action figures, staplers and scissors—anything that looks like fun to you. Tell a story, bring a poem to life, explore something that interests you—or just make magic! Clay recipes, build-your-own phone/tablet stand instructions, and a free animation app provided.
Find your inner artist in your own home! In this hands-on online workshop, you’ll use whatever you can find around the house (including family members) to create your vision of a famous painting. Chopped carrots, vacuum cleaners, toilet paper, little brothers, the family cat — all are fair game when you’re the artist.
Learn how to make your own books at home! In this hands-on online workshop you’ll use supplies you find around the house like paper, glue, cardboard (How about those Amazon boxes you keep getting?), and needle and thread to make beautiful books. Suitable for all ages from seven through adult, and a great workshop to do as a family!
Turn your experiences into roads, your friends into landforms, and challenges into interesting bodies of water to navigate! This workshop is fun and easy to do with family, friends, or on your own, using collage, your creativity and materials you’ll find around the house. Great for ages 8 through adult.
If you’d rather scrub the bathtub than write a poem, discover how writing poetry can be like building your own treehouse. We’ll construct magnetic poetry online, take an inspiring poetry nap, write an epistle (letter) poem to send to someone you love—and more. Great for all ages!
As creative people you hold within you the ability to change the world — from improving one person’s life to solving global problems. Your mission? Create, draw, diagram, label, write and share an invention a day—realistic or imaginary—to solve each problem and make the world a better place.
Hands-on professional development to help you reach your community and rediscover the joy in your work. Collaborate in activities and brainstorm across the arts and sciences to create online and take-away experiences that will ease the social and emotional stresses we’re all experiencing.