“Aren’t we just cutting up boxes so students can build them back into boxes?” I was working with a 3rd grade teacher on a lesson for the NGSS performance expectation: 3-ESS3-1. Make a claim about the merit of a design solution that reduces the impacts of a weather-related hazard. Students were building models of weather-resistant…
This project was inspired by the hit video Caine’s Arcade, and concluded our summer making program.
Our summer makers use what they had learned from building cars to build robots!
Maker Faire came and went. It took months of planning—an entire year, for those of us who began thinking about it at the close of last year’s faire (which does not include me)—scheduling, rescheduling, last minute panics, and many headaches. But it came together really nicely in the end. How would you describe Maker Faire?…
We are all focused on getting ready for Maker Faire right now, which has kept me busy and gotten me behind on this post. Next week I’ll begin posting previews of students’ projects for Maker Faire, but, while it’s still fresh, I thought I’d share a making project that our middle school students just finished in their making elective, since…
For one of their first projects of the trimester, our seventh and eighth grade makers have been journaling—not writing in journals (though, they’ll be doing that, too), but making journals of their own. The making began by unmaking. Like biologists with their frogs, students dissected books to explore their inner workings. (We have some potential…