Monday Morning Makers

This year at Pinewood, we have jumped on the Makerspace bandwagon. We have decided that allowing our students a time and space to explore, build, imagine, and create is very important. Rather than explain what a Makerspace is, I have included this video which I think does a fine job of explaining.

So now that you know what a Makerspace is in general, let me tell you the story of Pinewood's Makerspace. For a couple of years, the concept of Makerspaces has been catching on in schools. Last year, I went to a couple different conferences for Media Specialists and Technology teachers. At these conferences I learned more about the Makerspace movement, and met a wonderful Media Specialist from Rush Creek Elementary in the Osseo district. This wonderful Media Specialist invited me out to see her school's Monday Morning Maker events. These events are what Pinewood modeled their Makerspace events after. One Monday morning a month, students were able to sign up to come to the Media Center before school to explore various stations that involved making. She had a station for using the 3D printer, knitting, coding robots, LittleBits circuits, markerbots, Osobots, origami, and more. The students came in got to work and using their own imagination and determination along with some help from their friends made things. It was wonderful seeing the students shine.

Pinewood recently had their first Monday Morning Makers event. It was a great success and the students and teachers truly enjoyed it. On September 19th, 25 students and a couple teachers and parents gathered in the Media Center to explore. We had many of the same stations as listed above, but we also had Legos and puzzles. The hit for the favorite item was tied between our Sphero robots and our Lego Story Starter kit with origami and knitting following closely behind. Boys and girls worked kindly together to explore, build, imagine, and create.

We would like to thank our Pinewood PTO for supplying us with our Spheros, Lego Story Starter Kits, and Lego WeDo Kits. We would like to thank our Donors Choose donors for our origami, knitting, SnapCircuits, and Makey Makey supplies. 

You can learn more about our Monday Morning Maker events and sign your child up here: https://sites.google.com/a/monticello.k12.mn.us/pinewood-media-center/monday-morning-makers

If you would like to support our Monday Morning Maker events, you can donate at https://www.donorschoose.org/project/learning-is-electric/2212029/

Or, we would love to take any gently used puzzles or craft items off your hands. To donate these particular items, please contact me at lisa.newhouse@monticello.k12.mn.us

Legos in the Library

Over the weekend, I attended the 2015 Information and Technology Educators of Minnesota Conference. I came back with many ideas for how to make our Library Media Center into a fun innovative learning space. One of the ideas I loved the most was the idea of Legos in the library. Legos are one of my favorite toys. I love to build with them. I really believe they can inspire students and help to build their creativity and imagination. I learned that Lego even has an education branch with lesson plans and curriculum using Legos to support the Science and Technology standards and the English Language Arts standards. I suppose I should have realized this since we hear about Lego robotics competitions all the time, but it just never clicked for me.

As a School Library Media Specialist, one of my most important roles is to collaborate with teachers to support reading and writing skills. I am very excited to have learned about Lego's Story Starter Kits! These kits contain over 1000 pieces selected and sorted in a large bin to support the creation of a story with Legos. There is also optional software that allows students to create books with their creations, or even stop animate their stories. The kits come with a curriculum pack and lesson plans to support the English Language Arts standards and reinforce skills like beginning, middle, and end. I am so excited to use these kits with my students. I can just see this opening up a whole new world of learning for my third and fourth grade students, especially the boys.
If you would like to learn more about the Lego Story Starter Kits, visit https://shop.education.lego.com/legoed/en-US/catalog/product.jsp?productId=prod120008*

*I am not an associate of Lego and am not paid to endorse their products. I just think this is super cool!*