Makerspace Stations

Recently, grades 2 through 5 had the opportunity to explore makerspace stations.  The students worked in small groups to collaborate, problem-solve, and tinker to help promote 21st century learning skills. The students were so excited to be able to participate in stations and they were very engaged in their own learning.  Many students were very disappointed when the time was up.  The stations included:
1. Dash - a robot controlled by apps on the iPad.  Younger students explored with xylo, go, and path.  While the older students worked with blockly to program Dash.
2. Cubelets - cubelets are also little robots.  Each cube has a different job and when connected together the students are able to create different things, such as a flashlight.
3. OSMO - students worked with the tangram app to match the image that was displayed on the iPad.
4. Snapcircuit Jr. - students used the project book to create different circuit boards.
5. Littlebits - students used the Littlebits to explore with circuits and electricity.
6. LEGO Wall - students built and added onto the lego wall.

Adobe Voice App

This past week two of my kindergarten classes were learning about Oviparous Animals.  Together we worked to build a list of oviparous animals and then each student created a page for a class book.  We then worked with the app Adobe Voice to take a picture of their page and record their voice, so that their worked could be shared!  The students loved doing this and Adobe Voice was super EASY to use!!  Click here to watch and learn about Oviparous Animals!

Clayton Lego Wall

I am excited to announce that the Lego Wall is up and ready to be used by students.  In fact, there already have been students working on the Lego Wall.  In looks great tucked away in the corner and provides the students with a great place to imagine, build and create.

If you are interested in making your own LEGO wall it is pretty easy.  Here are the materials that I used: plywood to glue the baseplates on, Brick building base plates, and construction adhesive.  I first had a 42" x 42" piece of plywood cut and screwed to the wall.  I then used construction adhesive to glue the baseplates to the plywood.  I let the Lego wall sit for a day and it was ready to be used!

Here is the link to the baseplates that I ordered.  These have worked great and are compatible with all types of Legos!
http://www.amazon.com/Brick-Building-Base-Plates-SCS/dp/B00R3VU3NI/ref=sr_1_8?ie=UTF8&qid=1459795891&sr=8-8&keywords=Lego+baseplates

Spring Road has Author Visit

On Monday, March 14th, the Spring Road students were greeted by children's book author Katie Mcky.  One of her books is titled Pumpkin Town, in which she acted out for the students. Ms. Mcky spent the day at Spring Road teaching the students about writing.  She started our day with an all school performance in the gym and ended the day with another performance.  During the school day, Ms. Mcky had writing workshops in the library for students in grades 3, 4, and 5. Ms. Mcky set the stage for them with a camping theme and even had tents for the students to write in.  It was a great educational experience for the staff and students!

Clayton Winter Family Night

A little over a week ago I was involved in planning a family night for one of my elementary schools. Considering my interest to integrate the makerspace idea into my libraries, I decided to have a LEGO Robotics station.  I had ordered materials for my own library makerspace; however, knew that there wouldn't be enough, so I was put in contact with a local community organization that runs a LEGO club.  They were willing to let us borrow their equipment for the night.  The families LOVED working with the lego robotics and I was amazed at how much engagement I saw between the parents and the children.  At the end of the night, I was not sure who had more fun the children or the parents!  It was exciting to see the amount of problem-solving, higher-order thinking, and engagement from all involved.

Learning to Code!

The past couple of weeks, I have been working on coding with all of my classes!  That's right even my kindergarten friends have been learning to code!  The students have been dabbling in the computer science world and learning what computer programming is all about!  I have added some links to the Library Media resources page, so students always have access to what they have been working on during their information literacy and technology time.  The kindergarten and first grade students worked with Kodable to program their "fuzz" to make through mazes and collect coins, while my 2nd and 3rd grade friends worked on lightbot.  They had to code lightbot to find blue tiles and light them up.  My 4th and 5th grade friends worked with different choices on code.org to learn coding using blockly and some of my 5th grade friends worked on Scratch to create a holiday card.  The students were engaged, problem-solving, and using higher order thinking to get their codes correct!

Creation Corner Christmas Tree!

This week in the creation corner, 1st grade students were given 2 materials, cups and pom poms, and they needed to work together to create a Christmas Tree.  We read the story Dewey's Christmas at the Library where Dewey the library cat helped to decorate the library Christmas tree.  The students then worked together to build their Christmas tree.  There was a lot of teamwork going on, as well as strategizing on the best ways to make their Christmas tree stay standing!