Hello, remarkable educator,

Happy Friday! This week I decided to be intentional about joy — in my classroom, in my home, and in the way I think about teaching. Research says fun isn't frivolous. It's neurochemistry. And when I dug into what the science actually says about playfulness, humor, and learning, it changed how I planned my entire week.

This week I decided to bring back something I have often done over the years -- 5 Idea Friday! This 5 Idea Friday is packed — a massive new STEAM show I've been working on for weeks, a brand new podcast dropping tomorrow, and some research-backed ideas to bring more fun into your classroom and your home. Let's go.

Idea 1: 🎙 The STEAM Mindset Supershow — 12 Educators, 1 Big Question

​

This is one of the biggest shows I've ever produced for Cool Cat Teacher Talk. I brought together twelve educators to answer one question: what does it really take to build a STEAM mindset in every classroom?

This isn't about buying robots or coding kits. It's about how we think about teaching and learning. Here are some of the highlights:

Terra Tarango shared research showing that real scientists and engineers value critical thinking and curiosity far more than memorization — yet schools often prioritize the opposite. Flip the learning order: let students explore before they explain.

Dan Finkel (Math for Love) described how starting math with a playful question transforms learning from procedures into genuine mathematical play.

Dr. Michael Rousell showed how one surprising, descriptive comment to a struggling student can trigger a double burst of dopamine that literally rewires how they see themselves as a learner.

Dr. Lidia Gonzalez revealed how three letters — Y-E-T — can reshape a student's entire mathematical identity.

Plus Susan Riley, Liesl McConchie, Dr. Sam Nix, Stephanie Zeiger, Tim Needles, Sharon Howard, Patti Duncan, and Dr. Justin Reich.

Whether you're driving to school, walking during your planning period, or unwinding at the end of a long day, this hour is for you.

👉 Watch or listen here:coolcatteacher.com/steammindset​

I've attached the Google Notebook LM summary of the transcript below. I did have to pull it into Canva to tweak the text and correct it but it is a pretty slick tool!

Idea 2: 😂 The Bad Speech Contest — Learn by Doing It Wrong

Here's the research that changed my week: Avner Ziv's 1988 study showed that students taught with relevant humor scored significantly higher on exams. When students laugh while learning, cortisol drops, dopamine rises, and what Barbara Fredrickson calls the "broaden-and-build effect" kicks in — positive emotions literally expand what the brain can take in.

Fun isn't a break from learning. Fun IS the learning.

We're giving speeches on new technology in my ninth grade Intro to Computer Science class. We had several days of what to do. We watched videos of great speeches. We discussed them. But after seeing students present one on one to their peers, I felt like some of them missed something.

So instead of one more lecture on "what makes a good speech," I told my 9th graders to give the worst speech they possibly could. Teams packed in every bad habit — monotone voice, no eye contact, "um" every other word, reading word-for-word while turning their back to the audience.

Then comes what I call "The Flip." We go through each bad habit and I ask: "If THAT is what a bad speaker does, what should a great speaker do instead?" By the end, every student had a cheat sheet of great speaking skills that they figured out — not that I lectured them about.

This is Manu Kapur's "productive failure" research in action: when students explore what's wrong first, they understand what's right at a deeper level.

I'm sharing this with my newsletter readers first — before it goes on the blog. This was the BEST and the kids loved it. Here's what's even better -- today, I had the best first speech ever and I think so much of it was just getting the nerves out of the way with fun the day before we started!

• ​Bad Speech Contest - Lesson Instructions.docx - lesson plan
• ​The Bad Speech Contest - Instructions.pdf - one per team​​
• ​The_Flip_-_Bad_to_Great_Speech.pdf - use this after the activity is over
• ​Bad Speech Tally Sheet.pdf - one per student

Idea 3: 🎧 Brain-Friendly Ways to Teach Reading — New Podcast Saturday

Dropping tomorrow on the 10 Minute Teacher Podcast — Malia Hollowell joins me to talk about brain-friendly ways to teach reading. If you teach reading at any level, or if you just want to understand how the brain actually processes text and what that means for your instruction, this is one you won't want to miss.

Since it's not ready, maybe the idea is to subscribe to the podcast in your favorite podcatcher and start listening!

Subscribe on Apple Podcasts | Stitcher | Pandora | Spotify | YouTube | Audible​

Idea 4: 🪄 Start Your Own Fun Project — Fun That's Grounded in Research (with a prompt)

Here's what started all of this. I sat down with Claude (the AI) on Saturday and said: I want to have more fun at home and at school, but I want it grounded in research. We went back and forth for a while — I brought what I was teaching and what I needed at home, and Claude brought the research and helped me brainstorm after I read it.

Catherine Price, author of The Power of Fun, found that True Fun requires three things at the same time — playfulness, connection, and flow. Not entertainment. Not distraction. Real fun happens when you're being playful WITH other people and you lose track of time. Dr. Stuart Brown at the National Institute for Play collected over 6,000 "play histories" and found that adults who maintain playfulness have better problem-solving skills, stronger relationships, and more resilience.

The Bad Speech Contest came out of that brainstorm. So did some ideas for home — which brings me to Idea 5.

Want to start your own Fun Project? Copy this prompt into your favorite AI tool:

Advertisers help support our newsletter

Idea 5: 🏠 The Zero Sink Challenge — How I Turned Home Chores into a Game (and You Can Use This in the Classroom Too)

OK, so the Fun Project wasn't just for school. I told Claude I wanted a clean kitchen sink every night before bed — but I don't love washing dishes and nagging my family wasn't working. So I asked: is there a fun way to motivate my family to keep a clean sink together?

First, some backstory. Back in December, I was losing my mind over my family leaving cabinet doors open. Instead of nagging (which wasn't working), we invented an imaginary butler named Mitchell. Mitchell is the one who leaves the cabinets open. Mitchell is the one who forgot to take out the trash. It started as a joke. I'd close all the cabinet doors in the kitchen and then go to bed sort of early as I often do. When I got up in the morning and we all met for breakfast, I would say that Mitchell was up in the night and left the cabinet doors open. It turned into a hilarious joke. But it stuck — and now Mitchell is a regular part of our family humor and not only are our cabinet doors closed - I decided to use him to help everyone put their dishes in the dishwasher.

Building on that spirit, we created the Zero Sink Challenge. Every night, the sink has to be empty and clean at bedtime. Each day in March has a circle on a tracking sheet on the fridge — check it off if the sink is clean, X it out if you're the one who left a dish. The person who breaks the streak has to buy Sunday lunch. At the bottom of the chart is the one liner we all laugh at.

It's a silly family joke, but it hits all three of Catherine Price's ingredients for True Fun — playfulness, connection, and flow. We're doing it together, we're laughing about it, and we're building a habit that actually makes our home nicer. Fredrickson's broaden-and-build theory says those small moments of positive emotion add up over time. Joy builds on itself.

And as of tonight, March 5, we have had an empty sink and loaded (and unloaded) dishwasher for 6 days straight! Now, that is a record. Thank you Mitchell!

Here's the thing: this works in the classroom too. Any routine you want students to build — turning in work on time, cleaning up their station, following a procedure — can become a playful challenge instead of a nag. Give it a tracker, give it stakes that make people laugh, and watch what happens when accountability becomes a game instead of a lecture. Sometimes it might take some work and sometimes kids think "fun" and think "misbehavior" but it can be done.

💛 Encouragement from Vicki

I want to tell you why this week's newsletter is so personal.

I'll be honest — February was hard. I'm still grieving my Dad. I miss him so much. And when I sat down last Saturday to look at my biggest mistakes of the month, the one that jumped out was this: I cried too much. I have had both letters of the flu and a disease that shall not be named on top of it. I'm so glad to be well. When I cry my immune system plummets and I get sick.

I realized that my Dad and Mom wouldn't like that. They'd want me to laugh.

So I decided to do something about it. I called it my Fun Project. And everything you just read — the Bad Speech Contest and the Zero Sink Challenge — came out of one Saturday morning where I sat down and said I'm going to be intentional about having more fun. (Mitchell was here before then but I went with it.)

Here's something else that happened this week. As I was producing the STEAM Supershow, I put 50 transcripts in a folder and used Claude Cowork to analyze common patterns. What emerged were two clear themes — the STEAM mindset (which became this week's show) and STEAM ideas (which will be Part 2 — stay tuned!).

And as I looked at the STEAM show and the Fun Project side by side, I kept seeing the same thread: the best learning happens when students are playing, wondering, and laughing. Dan Finkel's math play, the Bad Speech Contest — they're all the same principle. Start with curiosity. Make it joyful. Trust the learning to follow.

My Dad and Mom would want me laughing, helping kids, and encouraging all of you. Your people want you laughing too. So let's get back to it.

Teaching is hard. But it is worth it. And so are you.

Joyfully in your service,

Vicki