Learn Deep

Earlier this week I had the opportunity to meet with individuals from Learn Deep, a company working to bring innovative learning into schools of all levels throughout the greater Milwaukee area. We met, along with teachers from South Milwaukee High School and Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design, and a representative from the Betty Brinn Children's Museum at the e-Cycling center at Goodwill of Southeastern Wisconsin, in Greendale.  The purpose of this meeting was to start conversations about how school/museum/library makerspaces can partner with Goodwill e-cycling to re-purpose some of the parts that arrive at the recycling center into projects.

The goal is to easily get these parts into the hands of schools looking to start makerspaces or supply existing makerspaces.  This was a great reminder to me that there are lots of community partnerships that could be formed between schools and organizations looking to unload equipment they no longer use, but want to keep out of the landfills.  It is so important that those involved in makerspaces get involved in these conversations so that organizations know what we could use in our spaces.  Stay tuned as Learn Deep moves forward with this project.  It will be a great way to help all schools grow innovative learning for their students.

Coding Projects

An annual favorite of mine is the coding project unit that the fourth graders do.  They spend a few weeks learning Scratch, and then they design an activity that uses coding to control, move, animate, draw, or narrate something.  Their ideas are always so creative, and the results are very impressive.  This year's fourth grade group exceeded my expectations for what they planned and designed.  Enjoy looking at some of their projects:

Home-made Drum Set

Homemade Guitar

Digital Artwork

Lego Mindstorms Vehicle

Sphero Soccer programmed to cheer when the they make a goal

Interactive Games

Talking Zoo

Musical Marble Maze

Squishy Circuit Conductive Dough Game Controller

Battling Beasts with WeDo

Narrated T-Rex

Amazing what 9 Year Olds Can Do!

Recently the 3rd graders were working on choice projects based off of research using the Wonderopolis site.  I have decided that it is much more fun to teach research, note taking, citing sources, and effective searching when integrated with high interest topics and student choice both on topic and project type.  And this group in particular came up with some great projects!  Looking at them, it's hard to believe these are 9 year olds!

Here are just a few of their awesome projects:

Website Updated

Weve been fortunate to get all sorts of new goodies this year in the makerspace, thanks to generous grants from Donor's Choose, 3M, and our Summit School PTO.  As a result, our website, which is used for teaching, learning, planning, and project galleries, needed an upgrade.  And finally I can say that it is finished (till we get more new goodies and have to upgrade again!! - not a bad problem to have!)

Check it out!

Summit Makerspace

Building Challenges

Sometimes you just need to take a brain break.  That's what last week was for the 2nd, 3rd and 4th grade classes.  Kids participated in one of 6 different small group building challenges during their library/tech time.  It was a great opportunity, also, for conversations about group work dynamics, working through challenges, and focusing on the process, not the product.

More pictures of our fun are available on our Facebook Page

Maker Club

Our first ever 4th grade Maker Club is coming to a close.  I was so glad that my schedule allowed for this to happen this year, as it's something I've been wanting to do since we first created our makerspace.  The club met during lunch time, and while the kids ate, I taught a mini-lesson about a specific piece of equipment - this allowed the kids to have time with some of the things we don't always get to use during our library/tech classes.  Then they had the rest of our 45 minute time to either do something with the equipment we'd looked at that day, or work on a project of their choice.  They loved the MaKey MaKeys, the Chibilight circuit stickers, and the Dash and Dot robots in particular.

Bloxels

3Doodler Pens

Chibi Lights and Circuit Art

Dash and Dot Xylo

Dash and Dot

Next up is our 2nd grade robotics club, starting in February.

STEAM all over the school!

The last week before our holiday break was so fun for me. . . walking around the building I saw STEAM challenges and activities everywhere!  I love how now, in our third year with our makerspace, it's becoming integrated into the classroom!


5K - "Help the Gingerbread Man Cross the River" Bridge Building Challenge

 

5K -  Interactive Holiday Greetings: Scan the QR code to hear them perform holiday music while reading their published writing.

2nd grade - Interactive 3D Printed Shapes Museum: Scan the QR code to watch a Shadow Puppet video about the attributes of their chosen shapes

     

 1st Grade - iPad App inspired holiday published writing: "Tech the Halls"

2nd Grade - Santa's Helper Design Challenge: 

Fit Santa and a bag of toys in the sleigh using recycled materials

Toys and STEAM

Balancing Whales

Our first big design project with the third and fourth graders has wrapped up, and it was so much fun!  I was inspired for this project when I was cleaning out our basement this summer and I came across a toy I had been given years and years ago by a student called "balancing whales"



I realized how much science went into the design of that toy and wanted to try to come up with a way to integrate it into the classroom somehow.  Then I started thinking about some of the other toys I was picking up - ball poppers, tops, snap bracelets, light up toys. . . as I looked at each one, even the super cheap Happy Meal/carnival prize type toys, I saw so many uses of math and science in their design.  I decided that would be a fun springboard for a design project, and off we went.

First we did some review of the design process (after all it was the first month back at school!!)

What Makes a Top Spin?

Then we our research.  The kids studied and analyzed the toys, looked up various forces, simple machines, and other science concepts to see what made the toys work.  I loved seeing them really look at the toys differently than they normally would.  Many of them even brought in toys from home, as they started looking for the science there as well.

3D Printed Marble Hand Maze

After they'd looked at a few toys, they were ready to come up with a plan to create a toy inspired by one of the toys we looked at.  Their ideas were so creative and fun!   Many of them decided they wanted to use the 3D printer to help them generate parts that they didn't have.  Great to see us at that level of integration for that equipment as well!

After weeks of designing, testing, and improving, they shared their creations with the group and posted videos of themselves explaining them to their Seesaw accounts for their parents to enjoy as well.

The final step of this project was a self-evaluation.  I'm really working on including more of this into their work this year, so that they're thinking about what they want to accomplish in a project and how to assess whether or not they have achieved it.  The rubric I created was adapted from several examples I found on line, tailored to fit this particular project.

Enjoy some of the pictures of their fun and creative projects!

Sphero Driven Car

Catapult Skee-Ball

Puff Ball Launcher

3D Printed Hot Air Balloon

Bendy Dog

Kaleidoscope Sunglasses