Dr. Amanda Foster

Your child clicks run, the program crashes, and they turn to you with that look. The temptation is real: just point at the missing semicolon and move on. I have been there with my own kids, and I have watched teachers do the same thing in classrooms. The truth is, every time we solve the … Read more

Anyone who has tried presenting a science demo to a room of five-year-olds knows the look. The one where eyes drift, wiggles take over, and suddenly half the audience is more interested in the carpet than the volcano erupting on your table. Figuring out how to keep young kids engaged during a science demonstration is … Read more

I still remember the day my three-year-old dropped an entire cup of cereal from the high chair and looked at me like he had just performed magic. He had. Every parent of a preschooler watches their child become a tiny scientist, and one of the first big ideas they discover is gravity. If you want … Read more

Picture a glass of ice water sitting on the kitchen counter on a warm afternoon. Within minutes, your child watches ice turn to liquid, water droplets form on the outside of the glass, and steam curl from a nearby mug of tea. That everyday moment is a full chemistry lesson waiting to happen. Learning how … Read more

I still remember the afternoon my daughter asked me why the sky was blue. I had a dozen things on my mind and almost brushed past it. Then I watched her face and realized the question mattered more than my to-do list. That single pause changed how I parent her curiosity. Learning how to nurture … Read more

Teaching a first coding lesson to kids with Scratch is one of the easiest ways to introduce programming to children. I have run dozens of these lessons in classrooms, libraries, and after-school programs, and Scratch consistently produces the fastest “aha” moments for beginners. In this guide, I will walk you through exactly how to teach … Read more

Teaching kids to code is easier when you start with the right foundation. In this guide, I’ll walk you through how to introduce block-based coding before text-based coding, why this order works, and how to know when a learner is ready to graduate to Python or JavaScript. I’ve worked with classrooms and homeschool families for … Read more

When I first showed my niece how to make a small wheeled robot spin in a circle using drag-and-drop blocks, she laughed so hard she dropped the tablet. That single moment captures why teaching a child to program their first robot works so well: the code does something real, right in front of them. In … Read more

Teaching kids to code is one thing. Teaching them the two ideas that make every program work, loops and conditionals, is where most educators hit a wall. I have spent years working with students, teachers, and parents who all struggle with the same problem: how do you explain abstract programming concepts to an 8-year-old without … Read more

Setting up educational robots in your classroom is one of the fastest ways to get students excited about coding, problem-solving, and hands-on STEM learning. Two of the most popular robots in K-8 classrooms are the Makeblock mBot and the Wonder Workshop Dash. Both are used in over 40,000 schools worldwide, and both are designed to … Read more