For a long time, I've been 3D printer-adjacent; I've been fortunate to work alongside instructional technology and STEAM personnel on campuses, so I knew what 3D printers could do and encouraged students to use 3D printing as independent project formats, but I hadn't managed the machines or designs myself. I started at a new campus this year, and I knew I didn't want the brand new 3D printer to be sitting in a closet, so I went to some hands-on training, built a lesson, and jumped in with both feet. I hope this post can offer some tips and learning to others out there in similar situations! The Lesson
I worked with 15 different 8th grade ELA classes in the library - about half were advanced, and half were "on level." There were about 20 - 30 students per class, and I have nine tables with 4 chairs each in the teaching/presentation area of my library. I started with a read-aloud that was only loosely connected to monsters (I'll take any excuse to share a fun picture book): Alex Willan's Unicorns Are the Worst. The text talks about some characteristics of unicorns, as well as goblins and dragons, so we would be focusing on designing our own original monsters.
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As the former librarian at an elementary STEAM campus, I was always looking for useful read-aloud books to highlight books that illustrate creativity productivity. Whether it's the idea generation or research stage, building and refining prototypes, collaborating and exchanging feedback, or persisting in the face of struggles, there are a lot of skills involved with STEAM education and makerspaces. Here are a few titles that might be useful for classrooms, campuses, and families who want to explore maker concepts. Boxitects by Kim Smith Everyone who's ever known the joy of a group project can connect to this story, especially if you're a big ideas person who likes to be in charge. When you already have a vision about what something will look like, it can be hard to acknowledge other good ideas, much less incorporate them into your own work. This story respects and names this reality so that when team conflicts arise, participants can refer back to the story discussion for solutions and strategies. Pine and Boof Blast Off by Ross Burach A celebration of imagination and making that is sure to appeal to young students - and more than a few older ones, too. If you like Pine and Boof, there are more books in this series. And if you teach K-4 kids and haven't done any read-alouds by Ross Burach, run to your nearest library for guaranteed laughs. Be a Maker by Katey Howes The whole book is an invitation to engage in the creative process. It might be particularly helpful to read before brainstorming possible projects or building ideas. Made by Maxine by Ruth Spiro Maxine is shown trying invent something that will allow her pet goldfish to participate in the pet parade. Her persistence and clever re-purposing of recycled objects offer plenty of inspiration for additional projects. I've worked in a STEAM-centered elementary school library and a traditional middle school campus library, and I often see questions from librarians about which materials to buy to support makerspace initiatives, so this post is my response to that question. Scheduling Time With a flexible elementary schedule, I was able to schedule weekly class visits for library read-alouds and check-out, and reserve either full or half-days for flex maker visits each week. These could be based on teacher sign-ups, where they bring the whole class, or it could involve a few students from multiple classes visiting without their teachers. On a fixed schedule, there would be more time for each class to explore the maker stations, but without time between classes, it's more difficult to change out the stations and materials if very young and older elementary classes are back to back. My favorite thing in elementary school was student-led maker workshops, where older students led select activities, and a whole class of younger students visited with the classroom teacher, who broke the students into small groups based on interest to visit those maker stations. It was a great experience for a very large school, because it helped students get to know each other, it built confidence and leadership capacity in older students, and it exposed younger students to a variety of different types of activities, so that when they encountered them as library stations, they were better able to use those materials. However, this was complicated to schedule, as it involved pulling the older students and the younger students at times when their classes were available, and emailing reminders to multiple people, and setting up lots of different materials in advance. In middle school, stations do not have to change drastically, because 6th graders can access the same equipment 8th graders can access (unlike in elementary school, where some supplies need to be changed out for 1st graders vs. 4th graders, for example). So maker stations can be out for library classes (it works really well leading up to a vacation break when students and teachers are exhausted and overwhelmed with demands), or part of a library club activity, reading challenge celebration, or before or after school in the library. What to Include in Maker Stations
Logistically, I prefer to have too many stations per class, because I would always rather have extra room to spread people out than have too many people at a station, which means some people are waiting to use materials and have time to get off-task. I want everyone to be creating and busy, so having many options spread out across the space is helpful. It is okay to repeat stations around the room, but if I plan to rotate groups left to right, I make sure I don't have the same materials at stations right next to each other so students get to try different things. Generally, middle school students can be free to visit any station and move from place to place as needed, with three guidelines: 1) All materials at the station stay there, on the table at that station 2) Only 4 people per station at a time 3) If you move to a different station, clean up everything before you move I also walk whole classes through all of the station options (while they are seated away from the materials) before they choose where to start. This school year, I moved to a middle school library position, in a school with over 1100 students. I had to start over collecting materials and building capacity for makerspace stations, but since older students typically have better fine motor skills and are generally more independent, I've been able to get it up and running faster than I initially could in an elementary school.. Take a look at my earlier post about using Perler beads for an overview about what to buy and why to use these in the library. This time, I didn't have as many parent volunteers wanting to hang around to help iron the projects, and I wasn't quite ready to turn it over to student volunteers, so I did the ironing myself. I wanted to add a few notes of advice to anybody out there who wants to add this to your library space. It might seem like a lot of detail, but if it saves you some trial and error, that's excellent. I introduced Perler beads as a maker option in the library this year, and I wanted to share some advice I wish I'd known before I started. Perler beads, or fuse beads, are very small cylinders that can be arranged on plastic peg boards. You can use an iron or heat press on the design to melt the beads together, and then you have a 3D design that can serve as a nameplate, bookmark, earrings, key chain, or decoration. I've seen this in secondary libraries (and I got a useful start from Kelsey Bogan's high school library blog tips), and I wanted to bring it to my elementary library, too. I wanted to have this as an ongoing station that's available all the time, but I see 800 students, ages 4 - 12 each week -- I would almost certainly have beads everywhere--so I needed more of a guided system. If you want to try them in your library or classroom, here's how I got started: Scheduling the Makerspace Time I started with an after-school craft club, made up of about thirty 3rd, 4th, and 5th graders, who stayed for about 45 minutes after school. We did origami, rubber band bracelets, washi tape cards, and Perler beads. It was good to test drive the projects with a motivated group of students before I rolled it out to library classes. For our makerspace workshop days, full classes came in, and students could choose from a variety of table station activities, including Perler beads. Since we have such a large school, we needed a lot of materials prepped and available for back-to-back classes. Some crafts were ready when students left the library, but Perler bead designs have to be ironed (and cooled). I couldn't do that while I was also supervising classes, but having volunteers on hand to iron them right away would have been really helpful. As the designs stack up, all those peg boards are used up, and space becomes limited to safely store the (relatively fragile) un-ironed projects. I used sticky notes for student names and stashed them underneath the peg boards so that when I ironed them later, I knew which design belonged to which student. |
Jamie Wright
I've had the privilege of working with hundreds of students and families in IA, CT, NC, MO, TX, and Canada. I love being a teacher-librarian! Categories
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