NEW ORLEANS — Thinkerella, a local education company that provides interactive learning programs for children, is hiring teachers across the metro area to help facilitate its popular ThinkerKids after-school program.
The STEAM-focused (science, technology, engineering, art, math) initiative tackles often difficult topics like Newton’s Third Law of Motion by making them fun, exciting and easy to understand through a hands-on approach.
Each facilitator is paid $50 per one-hour session.
Thinkerella hires local teachers to facilitate its three programs available to all schools: Pre K – 1st grade, 2nd – 4th, and 5th – 7th. A ThinkerTeacher simply guides the children through each session’s activities acting as a facilitator for each one-hour session, usually once a week, for six or twelve weeks. All supplies, lesson plans, and any registration is taken care of by Thinkerella.
Between September 2014 and May 2016, more than three dozen schools in Greater New Orleans launched ThinkerKids after-school programs. This groundbreaking enrichment program helps children develop a love for learning through first-hand experience while also providing much-needed supplemental income for teachers, who earned more than $44,000 over the last two school years.
“Kids enjoy participating in the lessons, parents are thrilled to see their children develop a love for learning and teachers earn more money,” Cherie Melancon Franz, Thinkerella’s founder, said. “We aim to help kids better comprehend what they’re learning in school while also support teachers who already do so much.”
The ThinkerKids after-school program is available to all schools in six and 12-week options. Each session is one hour long, once a week and consists of three separate experiments. Curricula and lesson plans are written by certified teachers. Every session includes a lab coat and safety goggles for the child to wear at the workshops and to keep at the end of the semester.
Thinkerella also offers private workshops, birthday parties and scout sessions to kids 3-13 years old. It aims to inspire the next generation of makers, builders, shapers, doers and inventors.
Teachers interested in becoming a facilitator for the ThinkerKids after-school program can apply here.
