Makerspace Wishlist

When you start a Makerspace, there are so many things to consider.  When I was starting mine I did a lot of reseach to see what kind of technology and supplies people have in theirs.  Now I call this a wishlist, because I do now have most of these things and also because you really do not need all of this to have a true Makerspace.  Making can happen with cardboard and tape, so do not feel obligated to go out and purchase everything.  Think about your budget, mission and space... Then get the basics and build up from there.  

This list was made by myself and some colleagues in the district.  I included prices.  Many of these items are available through their company websites or Amazon.  Please leave comments with other things I have not included.  I am always on the look out for new materials and tools to try and include in our Makerspace.  Happy making!

Electronics, Robotics, Programming

• Little Bits Deluxe Kit $199.99
• CanaKit Raspberry Pie Kit 2 $84.99
• Snap Circuits Student Electronics Training Program $149.95
• Makey Makey $49.99
• Squishy Circuits Kit $25
• Bee-Bot Hive $599.95
• Bee-Bot Mats $49.95
• Sphero 2.0 App Controlled Robotic Ball $129.99
• Ollie by Sphero $99.99

Engineering, Creation, DIY

• Osmo Gaming System for iPad $79.99
• Lego Story Starter Classroom Pack $699.95
• Lego Green 10x10 Building Plate (multiple to create a Lego Wall) $7.99 each
• Lego Education Brick Set 4579793 $54.95
• 3Doodler 2.0 $99.99
• 3Doodler Plastic Pack Essentials $9.99
• iSense 3D Scanner $499.99
• Chromakey Green Screen Kit 800w $119.99

Starting a Makerspace

I was invited to a Twitter chat on personalized learning one day.  As a newbie to Twitter I wasn't sure what that exactly meant, but I gave it a try.  Wow, was that an eye opening experience.  I got wind of this thing people were starting in classrooms and have been evolving called "Makerspace" and had to learn more.  After completing some research I knew this was something our team needed.  I started thinking of where in our room it would fit, how I could find affordable materials and created a pinterest board full of STEM type ideas.  I used eBay to buy a Tinker Toys and Lego blocks For a reasonable price.  Items like cardboard, yarn, craft stuff, etc. was saved up to have n the space.  Then  classroom materials were reorganized to open up a shelving unit.  Over spring break I rearranged the room to allow for a corner of the room to be our Makerspace.  

Once the students came back to school they are very intrigued by these changes.  We watched a Kid President video on being an inventor and they watched a little Haiku Deck slideshow on expectations.    We let them choose a partner and then put two pairs together, to make groups of four students.  

Now that they were introduced to the Makerspace and had a group, they were presented with their first challenge.  From other blog inspirations we got the idea to first have them make a name tag to be utilized in the Makerspace.  Plastic name holders, blank paper, coloring utensils and various strings were in the area and they were told the requirements.  They had to make a name tag with a plastic holder, and it had to be a necklace.  This was quite a challenge for them.  Tying knots, figuring out the right size and other road blocks came up.  However perseverance and problem solving had been such a big part of our team's culture from our weekly computer coding that most of them managed this challenge well.  

After they had name tags we went to our schedule.  To get them inspired we made a big  Their first time was free exploration.  They could choose one material they wanted to work with and build.

Scheduling was a bit of a step and I will discuss that in my next post. 

Below are pictures of the environment we have created.

This is the area.

This is our inspiration cloud.

Supplies are organized in these containers.

Digital Learning Day & Mercer Mayer

At my school we have different committees of teachers that focus in various things.  I am part of our technology committee.  We have been trying to develop our committee and focus on new ways to use technology to improve our school.  

Over the summer I attended a class.  The keynote speaker was a technology and teacher librarian.  She has done so many innovative things at her school.  One of which was getting her students connected to a Mercer Mayer via Skype.  I kept this in my head and knew it was something our committee had to at least try to make happen.  

As the year started and went on we began planning events and activities for Digital Learning Day.  In early December we decided to give it a try and reached out to a Mercer Mayer.  Within days he got back to us and we set up a Skype session for our whole school to participate in on Digital Learning Day.  This past Wednesday was Digital a Learning Day and at 10:00 on the nose we sat in our lunch room and the greatest thing happened... We got to Skype with him.  He answered student's questions, read us a story and taught is how to draw Little Critters.  It was remarkable.  I am still amazed at how welcoming and warm he was with our school.

Following this we used Scribble Press to write wordless books, inspired by is first book.  We also watched a recording of how to draw the Little Critters and gave it our best shot.  The students tweeted him thanking and he tweeted back.  Digital Learning Day was successful.  We built relationships with well known authors, learned a bit about social media and got to connect with Mercer Mayer.

Holiday Decorations

Team Explore has holiday spirit.  We took some time to get our room ready for winter and the holidays.  We had some bulletin boards to switch up and needed some festive touches in our environment.

We have so many bulletin boards this year, which is great.  However we felt a bit stuck on what to put on all them.  We have the basics, math word wall, word wall, inquiry board, etc.  Then there were 2 with work from the beginning if the year still.  Yikes!  One is a reflection calendar, we will save that for a later date.  Then I thought the other could be a seasonal or themed one that was more 'just for fun' board.  Students decorated gingerbread cookies for a fun holiday bulletin board in our room.  They had such a great time getting to color with their peers.  It is always nice to have some down time to enjoy each other's company.

We also made our snowman addition projects.  Students picked two number cards at random.  The numbers were matched to their math group ensuring they were adding numbers that were right for them.  They had one number has white snowflakes, and then the other number was blue snowflakes.  They filled in a sheet to say how many of each were falling on the snowman and wrote a number sentence to match.  It was a great activity and painting with hands is always exciting!  We did get this idea from Pinterest.  We created our own templates and writing portion after researching some winter math crafts.  

Math Fact Turkeys

Last week had only 2 days of school, but I feel like I saw so much turkey stuff around school.  I wanted to create a math project that would be fun, Thanksgiving themed and differentiated.  After looking around online and talking with my teaching partner I decided turkeys were the way to go.  We currently have 4 math groups so we needed 4 ways to mix math and turkeys.  One group is working on adding 1 to a number, the next is doing strategies to add any 2 numbers, we have one group learning doubles plus one and then a group learning how to find addition facts with a certain sum.  We decided the first 3 groups would use 2 different colored feathers to represent the addends in the addition fact, and the third would write the sum on the turkey body and the addition facts that equal that number on all the feathers.

After deciding how we would go about doing this project is was time to ready all the materials and start our work.  We made a white card stock copy of the body for them to cut and color. We copied feather outlines on orange, yellow, red and purple to give options and keep it fall themed.  We really wanted to use construction paper, so being brave we tested it in the copier and it worked.  Amazing!  The next day we did the first half of the project.  Each group met 1 at a time with the teacher their group had been working with you see what they needed to do.  They spent their workshop time only making their turkey.  They colored a body and cut it out.  Then cut out feathers in 2 colors, unaware of what they would do with them.  Once everything was cut out they glued it to a large piece of black paper and went on to do typical math workshop activities.  On day 2 they got a part that we glued on to the bottom of the black paper.  This had a little problem saying how many of the 2 colored feathers the turkey had, and a place to write a matching addition sentence.

The students really enjoyed doing this. It was a great way to integrate art, math and holidays.  Keep a watch on the blog... Our snowman version will be posted soon too!

Here are examples of our work!

This shows a number plus 1.  They got 1 feather of a color they choose then cut out however many or the other color they wanted.

This shows the group that just added 2 numbers.  Unfortunately I did not get a photo of the doubles plus 1 group.  Theirs looked like this but they did a math fact such as 6+7 to practice finding a double and adding 1 more.

This is the group that wrote number sentences with the same sum.