Lighthouse Students showed off their work and maker skills on Sunday at the East Bay Mini Maker Faire! We showcased robot animals, LED pictures, scribble machines, and cardboard hands with the local Oakland Community. It was great for students to share what they had learned and to connect with the local maker community. We can’t…
Our kindergarteners are some of our biggest makers at Lighthouse. They make year-round, usually with sewing and woodworking (using handsaws, clamps, drills, and hammers). Now, they are in their second week of testing out a programming unit, and so far it looks like it’s going pretty well. You may recall my Turtle Art posts from several months back. This new…
I’ve been working on an updated project guide for Turtle Art (coming soon), and it’s inspired me to do a follow-up to my previous Turtle Art post, and talk a little about why we like Turtle Art to begin with. We use Turtle Art not only as an introduction to programming, but also as a tool for…
“What happens when you click ‘forward?’” we asked, referring to an icon on the students’ computer screens. Several kids—mostly those who had seen “Turtle Art” before—raised their hands and said it “makes the turtle go up.” This was the introduction to a programming unit our 5th graders will be working on for several weeks. In “Turtle Art,”…
This one comes to you a little late, but that just goes to show how busy we stay at the Creativity Lab. I got a better chance to tinker with Arduino and MaKey Makey at our (go figure) “Learn to Make: Arduino & MaKey MaKey” workshop. For those of you who are really familiar with…
Over the past two days, I had the pleasure of meeting an inspiring group of educators and financial service providers. Yep – you read right, financial service providers; I was attending the ING Advisor Insight meeting in Las Vegas. The educators in the group were fellow award winners and members of ING’s Educator Advisory Board…