Origami Interactive Poetry Activities Your Students Will Love | Independent Reading Ideas | United States | Read It Write It Learn It Do you want to make poetry so fun and engaging that your students will ask for more? Here are some simple activities to get you started. 1. There are so many reasons blackout poetry is great: kids love it, it's creative, and it forces you to clean the falling-apart books from your classroom library without the guilt of tossing them in the trash. What is blackout poetry? Sample Instructions: Blackout Poetry Examples: 2. College basketball's March Madness is the perfect time to pit poet against poet for some exciting classroom debates, but any time of year teachers can create a similar feel by putting poets head to head and comparing their power. Kids love competition. How do you implement a poet vs poet match up in your classroom? If you are at all familiar with the basketball brackets of March Madness, poetry brackets work the same way (and you can find and download blank brackets by doing a simple Google search). 3. 4. Check out my step by step guide to creating your own escape room here.
Create, Collaborate, Innovate | Collaborating and Making in the Library Learning Commons Science Activities to Try Next Year Are you looking for compelling science activities to try in your library? If so, take a look at the resources and tips below for inspiration! Science in the Library AnnMarie Hurtado, the Youth Services Librarian for Central Library in Pasadena, CA, shares amazing lessons on her “Science in the Library” blog. Hurtado offers PowerPoint slideshows, videos, and reflections so you can start implementing exciting learning experiences in your library. Hurtado’s Tips for Success Prepare: Go through a trial run with your lessons before introducing them to the learning community. More Resources Science Toolbox: With only a few inexpensive materials, you can facilitate compelling projects in your library. Do you have a favorite science resource that you use in your library? Be on the look out for “36 Workshops to Get Kids Writing” this November! Author: Maureen Schlosser Like this: Like Loading... Categories: Blog Topics, STEM/STEAM, Student Engagement/ Teaching Models
114 Tips to Create a STEAM Makerspace in Schools Do you ever wonder what you should include in a STEAM Makerspace in schools? Maybe you’ve received some grant funding, or maybe you have a great PTA who is willing to help you create a starter STEAM lab. Or, you might just have some extra supplies and want to know what you need to get a STEAM-focused makerspace up and running. You’re not alone! One of the most anticipated sessions at our upcoming Arts Integration and STEAM Online Conference is all about what you’ll need for a STEAM Makerspace in Schools. To help you out, we’ve gone ahead and created a free downloadable for you that contains 114 tips, ideas, resources and even lesson ideas for creating your very own STEAM Makerspace in Schools. Certainly, you could extend this list even further with more tools, technology, and resources. Getting Started These are the least expensive items you’ll need, and the ones that will get students creating the fastest. Digging Deeper These are items you’ll need to purchase. Web Resources Email Susan
28 Awesome STEM Challenges for the Elementary Classroom Ever wonder what STEM challenges to serve up to your students? Here is an amazing list of clever, unique and simple set up STEM lesson plans from other teachers. You’re going to love what your students come up with and the number of standards you can meet with these. There is a range of grade level ideas K-5 in this list. source: allabout3rdgrade.com Think you could solve this Water Puddle Evaporation puzzle? source: creativefamilyfun.net Drink up your experiment after you figure out How Hot is Hot? source: homeschoolcreations.net What tools would work best to Create an Umbrella? source: littlebinsforlittlehands.com This Dr. source: theeducatorsspinonit.com I love this Plastic Egg Tower that uses leftover easter eggs and playdough. Clever STEM Activities for Kids source: scienceafterschool.blogspot.com Upper grade level students solve Real World Problems with Stem Activities like oil spills. source: stemactivitiesforkids.com source: leftbraincraftbrain.com Quick STEM Challenges More Science for Kids
6 Amazing Things About TAB Classrooms Sometimes good ideas precede general acceptance. There’s no pedagogy in art education this is more true for than TAB. When Katherine Douglas, Pauline Joseph, and John Crowe pioneered this teaching method in the 1970s they weren’t trying to revolutionize the way art is taught, but the work they were doing was so powerful more and more teachers followed their example. Today, TAB, which stands for Teaching for Artistic Behavior, has never been more popular. Presentations about the approach fill up fast, social media sites dedicated to the practice have memberships in the thousands, and gurus like Ian Sands are invited to be keynote speakers at conferences. TAB has reason to be so popular. The days of one-size-fits-all projects are gone. 1. Students are responsible for their own supplies in TAB classrooms. 2. Have you seen that movie? 3. In TAB classrooms, everyone finishes at different times, without issue. 4. 5. 3D can tame distracted behavior. 6. Thinking of trying TAB?
How to Start a Makerspace When You're Broke | Knowledge Quest Everyone’s Favorite Excuse I’ve had the honor and privilege of sharing with hundreds of librarians and educators about our makerspace. Unfortunately, I see many educators hold back on starting a makerspace because of funds. I’m always hearing excuses like: “I’d love to do (insert cool Maker activity) at my school, but we don’t have a budget for that.” What many people don’t realize is that the idea that you need a lot of money to start a Makerspace is a myth. Share Your Vision with ALL THE PEOPLE You want to start a makerspace. Recycled materials can make for awesome projects Seek out Donations Never discount the value of donated materials. Consider putting out a bin for donations of recycled materials. We first started our makerspace with bins of K’nex found in a storage room Work with What You’ve Got Since you’ve started sharing your vision, you might have found out that your school already has some maker supplies lying around. Our Epic LEGO Wall was funded through DonorsChoose Like this:
28 Days of Hands-On STEM Activities for Kids - Left Brain Craft Brain I can’t tell you how excited I am… February’s going to be BIG!! There are 28 days (plus an extra for leap year this year) pack-filled with hands-on STEM activities for kids. I’ve partnered with some of my favorite bloggers and here’s a little math to show you just how BIG this is… 60 activities + 29 bloggers = an AHmazing month of hands-on science, tech, engineering & math for your kiddos at home and in the classroom. We’ve broken it down into four different hot topics: STEM Goes Green, STEM Challenges, Coding for Kids and STEM On a Budget. Why Hands-On STEM? When kids get their hands on exciting projects, it can inspire them to learn. STEM Goes Green The first week of our Hands-On STEM series is all about the earth. February 1 February 2 February 3 February 4 February 5 February 6 February 7 Trash Tower Building Challenge || Our Daily Craft STEM Challenges Life is a challenge, so let’s prepare our kids for it. February 8 February 9 February 10 February 11 February 12 February 13 February 14 Coding.
Combining Holidays Around the World & STEM! Have you ever thought about combining your social studies topics with science or STEM projects? Well, that is what I have been trying to do this year, and in this post I am going to tell you about a few of the ideas I have for December! We won’t have time to do them all, but I wanted to just throw them out there so that if any of you want to try them, you’ll have time to make it happen. Sound interesting? Read on to find out more! It turns out that giving STEM projects “a theme” really isn’t that hard; it’s really a matter of thinking creatively as you plan them and giving them a different name than you might have otherwise. For example, if you have been following my blog this fall, you may remember that I did a STEM “Punkin’ Chunkin” project in October, in which the children made catapults out of craft sticks and masking tape, and then tried to hurl their “punkins,” which were really just orange pompoms as far as possible. After they were done, I made one of my own, below. Follow me!
Heart pillow (no-sew) Have a look at this easy way to make such a pillow from felt fabric or polar fleece (the cloth must threadless). You need felt fabric (polar fleece) in two different colors, scissors, and wadding (cotton) to stuff the pillow with, when it is ready. Put the fabrics one over the other. Start to tie every two stripes, which one over another. Tie all the stripes in this way. Do not forget to stuff the heart with wadding or cotton before you close the heart. At the end, you can reduce the length of the stripes to make your heart bushy. see also:
Defining Makerspaces: What the Research Says Recently, I had the unfortunate experience of dealing with criticism. I was told (not to my face) by a visitor to our school that our library makerspace is not a “real makerspace”. This same person stated that our woodshop is a “real makerspace” because it has power tools. Feeling personally insulted aside, what bothers me most about this statement is the concept that some makerspaces are more valid than others and that a makerspace is solely defined by the tools it contains. But is my space any less of a makerspace simply because it doesn’t have power tools? Defining Makerspaces All of this got me thinking about how we define “makerspace”. For the record, here’s my own definition of a school Makerspace: A makerspace is a place where students can gather to create, invent, tinker, explore and discover using a variety of tools and materials. A #makerspace is a place where kids gather to create, invent, tinker, explore & discover. What the Research Says About Makerspaces More on Makerspaces
5 Makerspace Books You Need to Read | Knowledge Quest There’s so many amazing books coming out now related to starting a school makerspace, and many of them are fantastic. But for this post, I want to take a look back and focus on the five books that had the biggest impact on me as I was planning and creating my makerspace at Stewart Middle Magnet School. This was back in late 2013/early 2014, when there wasn’t a ton of stuff out there that specifically focused on school makerspaces. Invent To Learn: Making, Tinkering, and Engineering in the Classroom Maybe this one is obvious, but it still has to be here. The Art of Tinkering This book comes from The Exploratorium, an amazing hands-on science museum in San Francisco. The Art of Tinkering looks at over 150 different artists and makers and how they weave science and technology into their work. The Third Teacher When I was getting started with Makerspaces, I kept hearing over and over again that I needed to read this book. At first, it took me a bit to get used to the design of the book.