Maker Carts in Action

Check out these pictures of our Maker carts in use all over the building!  The kids are so excited to have them!

Who's the Teacher here?

To put this post in context, these are second graders.  SEVEN YEAR OLDS!!  Most of them have Legos at home, but the WeDo Robotics Kits are new to them.  In the class of 20 kids, I had one who used Legos for the first time (and subsequently went home and asked her mom to get her some for her birthday this year), one who had built plenty of times, but had never followed the pictoral directions for building something specific, and many who were skilled at Legos but were learning how to use the coding tools on the WeDo software to control them.  This video really captures how my role has changed with the addition of the Makerspace - I am not the only teacher in the room.  As a matter of fact, most days I am the facilitator, and they are learning from each other.  What a great experience for the student-learner and the student-teacher!!

Overheard. . .

To set the scene for you. . .

This was in a 3rd grade class, primarily 8 year olds at this time of year, in the second week of school.  They had an hour a week of library/tech time last year, but that did not include makerspace time every week.  We are starting a design project based on the Dyson Idea Box curriculum (teachers, if you don't know about it, you need to look into it!!) which asks them to think about an everyday project and how they're going to improve it or expand on its current design.

Third grade boy to his partner, about a woodworking project they want to undertake for this project -

Student: "Ok, before we do anything, we need to measure really carefully, because it has to be exactly the same on both sides in order for it to work well"
Me: Do you know what that's called?  We call that symmetry, when something is exactly the same on both sides"
Student:  "Really?  Ohh, that's awesome!"

Third grade girl brainstorming for project ideas - 

"I just can't think of anything, it's way too hard, I don't know any products that I could work on"
-15 minutes of group brainstorming later - 
"Mrs. Harrop, I can't decide.  I love all five of my ideas so much, I want to make them all.  Can I just do more than one?  I have too many to pick from."

Third grade boy explaining to me how he plans to design his project - 

"I was thinking about this thing my mom has at home, and if I study that and figure out how it works, I can use that to help me figure out to make mine work."

Every day we're seeing that IT'S WORKING!! All the time, money, effort, stress, that went into designing and creating the makerspace is paying off in so many ways!  Can't wait to see what the year brings!

All Star Makers

Last year at the end of the school year, we challenged our students to continue to "make" over the summer, whether by designing, creating, building, whatever!  We have had projects coming in over the last 3 weeks, from students ages 4K - 4th grade, and we've had so much fun seeing what they did!

Check out the slideshow of projects below!

 

Year 2: Starting off Strong

It's been an interesting 3 weeks in the Makerspace for year 2, because we are really seeing the difference from the beginning of year 1.  Some of the differences have been negative, but the overwhelming majority have been positive.

The biggest negative difference we've seen is that we can tell the kids didn't spend as much time on the computers last year as they had in previous years, when they were with me in the computer lab for 30 minutes a week.  They are missing some of the basics, most obviously with the kids who were in kindergarten and first grade last year.  This is easily remedied, as we are just changing our weekly structure to be sure that our K, 1, 2 classes have a little time on the computers every week, and we are teaching and reteaching the essentials.  I am optimistic that in year 3 we will see this has leveled out again.

But on the positive side, we are thrilled to see a difference in the way kids are thinking!!  Last year, there was a sense of haste to every project.  The kids tended to choose easy and familiar materials, opt for low-tech designs, and be in a hurry to finish first.  This year, I am seeing so much more planning, attention to details, and integration of high and low tech components together.  They are dreaming big, and motivated to learn how to do what they're picturing for their designs.  There's also a creativity that they didn't naturally demonstrate last year.  I think they are more comfortable with the materials, and so they are willing to take risks and think outside the box.

This is all exactly what we were hoping for with the creation of the Makerspace.  We could not be more thrilled with how the year has started!

My first week teaching in a Maker Space!  I am beyond excited to learn how to use this space to develop my students' creativity, collaboration skills, communication skills, and design skills.  There are so many new learning tools to use this year: Osmos, Go Pro Cameras, 3D pens, sewing machines, Makey Makey kits, and so much more.  I know I will learn a lot with the students this year.  This is my second grade classes making circuits with Snap Circuit kits and using Lego We Do kits.  They also spent one week exploring Little Bit circuits.  I learned that some of them have Snap Circuits at home but not Little Bits,  Next year, I would like to spend more time on the Little Bits and see what the students can create!

Through Their Eyes

As a back to school activity, I had the 3rd and 4th grade classes brainstorm a list of words to describe the Makerspace.  I combined the lists and put them into Wordle.net to generate a word cloud.  What I got back speaks volumes.  For those not familiar with word clouds, they are visual representations of a text selection.  Unless specifically excluded, all words that show up in the entered text appear somewhere in the design, with words that were entered more frequently showing up larger in the design.  So for these word clouds, the biggest words in each design are words that showed up the most when they were brainstorming - words like FUN, TEAMWORK, LEARNING, TECH, CHALLENGE, BUILD.  It says a lot about how they perceive what we're doing in here, and it validates that they're getting the very things out of it that we'd hoped.

Check out this video of their word clouds!

Introducing Mrs. Benedict

Hello!  My name is Kimberly Benedict, and I am the new library/ media specialist at Summit this year.  I started my career as an educator in 1999.  I was a classroom teacher and media specialist for the School District of Greenfield for most of my career.  I am beyond excited to be part of the Summit team and work with the students during their library/ technology time in the media center and Maker Space.  I look forward to seeing all the wonderfully creative projects the students design and create this year come to life.  My goal is to encourage the students at Summit to be life long learners, readers, thinkers, and creators.  I know it is going to be a great year of researching, learning, dreaming, and building together!