#elemaker The Making of a Makerspace

For the past year I have been percolating how to get a Makerspace in my elementary school.  I am now READY to take on the challenge!

For the past 6 (well.. maybe it is 7) I have been a Team Manager and Co-Team Manager for several Destination ImagiNation teams.  Destination ImagiNation gives students a chance to create and solve a challenge.  The best part as a team manager is I can't interfere and the students have to come up with their own solutions.  What I have discovered; however, is that not all students have the opportunity to be on a team (now granted.. we are going to have 6 teams next year!)

I want to reach more students.. and next year my principal is giving me the space (AND more importantly the TIME!)

My parents posted this quote today on the Buffalo Bookstore page today, and I knew it was time for me to get my ideas on "paper"

In reading the Twitter feeds, Facebook posts and in conversations I find it interesting how varied the ideas on what makes a makerspace.  But the great thing about makerspace is that it really can be ANYTHING!  I work with so many kids that when they see a piece of construction paper they often wait for instructions on what to do with it.  They don't always have a chance to "think outside the box"  Makerspace can be building with electronics, but it can also just be seeing an item and thinking how you can use it differently.  Isn't that we want our students to do? To figure out how to see things in a different light?

Here are my beginning thoughts:

-I want everyone to be able to go through the Makerspace and have a chance to be a creator.

-Although I want all students to have a chance to create I also know how students in the elementary world need a little more structure (not step by step of course with expectations of what the end product should look like, but some guidance)

-I would love teacher buy in

Here is my "plan"- PLEASE remember that this is in the works.. and it is going to take some work.  I want to share my ideas so this way I can get ideas as well.

Best part of this "plan" so far- My principal is not only on board.. but she came up with this idea because she knows that kids need it!

-Since we have 6 weeks- The first week of the six weeks would be welcoming ALL the students into the room. The first week students would hear a book, then see the materials and have a graphic organizer to PLAN what they are going to do. 

ie- Read Where the Wild Things Are- students will then have the opportunity to plan either their own monster or a boat that has to do a certain task.  If those don't fall into what they would work on then they will be able to work on something that entertains them.  I want to do this type of structure because I want to make sure that all students can start seeing objects/items/materials in different ways.
-Weeks 2-6 each grade level will rotate through during a specific part of their day.  Week 2 will be 5th,  Week 3 will be 4th, Week 4 will be 3rd, Week 5 will be 2nd and Week 6 will be 1st and kinder.  Each class will have a certain day (ie 5A- Monday of the 2nd week, 5B-Tuesday of the 2nd week and so on) and to cut down on size A-M the first 30 minutes and N-Z the second 30 minutes during their slot.  The first six weeks everyone will rotate through, but after that it will be based on perfect attendance.

Now you might be saying.. 30 minutes! That is not enough time to create anything! BUT If you think about it.. this is a guaranteed 30 minutes each six weeks.  The makerspace room will be open at other times that will include before and after school. I am hoping to even have some teacher buy in so they can work on their projects at other times as well.  The first week of the six weeks as they all rotate through will be the time for me to get them started, the next time they come it will be for them to create.

Did I mention that I am a planner?

I am looking forward to Podstock next week as it is over Maker where I hope to gain even more ideas! I am very excited to start on this journey.  I also have lots of thinking, learning and collaborating that I want to do.  My #summerofcreating is now going to turn into helping students have a #yearofcreating I can't wait!

BrainPOP Pointers- Make-A-Map

If you follow me on Twitter or Instagram (@akbusybee) you might know that I am a tad bit obsessed with BrainPOP

There are SO many great features in BrainPOP that is more than the movie! I am going to be sharing some of my favorites throughout the summer on my blog!

If you have never heard of BrainPOP before-
"BrainPOP creates animated curriculum- based content that supports educators and engages students-in school, at home and on mobile devices. Our resources include movies, quizzes, games, mobile apps, experiments, activity pages, and much more covering hundreds of topics within Math, Science, Social Studies, English, Technology, Arts & Music, and Health. All content is aligned to and searchable by state standards including Common Core." https://www.brainpop.com/about/tour

One of my new favorite features is Make-A-Map
For the screenshots I using a Free Movie and have not signed in.. HOWEVER.. signing in allows you to do so much more (such as save your work and students can share it with their teacher or work on it at a later time)

With each BrainPOP movie there are tons of extras that are below the movie.  Click on the Make-A-Map Feature

Once you have clicked on the Make-A-Map it pulls up the Concept Mapping Tool (did I mention that right now I am working on a Chromebook)

In this work space you have the movie, keyword, images and the ability to add extra nodes.

Students (or teachers- you could do this as a group) begin playing the movie.  When they have found a piece that they want to add to the concept map they click on the camera button to snap a picture.

What the what! That piece is now on my Concept Map.. and even better.. by pushing the play button it takes you back to that part of the movie!

As you can see this is a fantastic tool, but an even better tool when a student can save it and work on it later and continue to add to it.

Ideas for the classroom:

- Summarizing information over a topic that has been discussed in class

- Researching a topic deeper

- Taking notes

As soon as I saw this tool I also thought about those special education students and the ELL students who we are always trying to reach.  What a great way for a student to easily show what they are learning and also quickly and easily go back to review what they have done.

The videos replay in the work space, but so do the keywords!

Other great features:

- Connect the findings and add information in between

- change the color of the different nodes (how great would this for students to color code the word depending on what you are doing)

As I noted I am not currently signed in and using the free feature.  Signing in allows SO much more!

-You can Add Movies!  Often times when we are researching although we are looking at one topic, there are connections that can be made.  By clicking on the add movie piece it brings up other movies that would be associated with current movie.

-You can save your work

-You can turn in your work!

Find out more information here

Are you a BrainPOP or BrainPOPJr user?  What are your favorite tools?

I will be sharing another one of my features next week!

Baked Parmesan Squash

I have actually really enjoyed stepping out of my comfort zone and trying some recipes.  This is one from Pinterest. I said it was a win.. my husband thought it needed more salt..but I was happy with it!

I found this recipe at Plainchicken.com

Now.. it called for 4 squash and that is too much for just 2 of us.

Ingredients:

-2 squash

-1/2 tablespoon olive oil

-1/4 teaspoon of pepper and salt (I kept this the same)

-1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese

Directions:

-Preheat oven to 450 degrees

-cut squash into slices

-Mix squash, olive oil, salt and pepper in a bowl

-spread out on pan and top with the Parmesan cheese 

-Bake 20-25 minutes until lightly brown on top

I was very pleased with how it turned out and will be trying it again.  What is your favorite squash recipe?

Bandana Dress

Today is day 18 of my own #summerofcreating challenges. Not only that..but my amazing friend Todd Nesloney asked me to do a challenge for his awesome #EduLS series I had to challenge others to share their creating. You can check it out here!

Yesterday for my day 17 I made a bandana dress...so today I wanted to share how I made it.

I have really tried to make my #summerofcreating items be things that I could use or gift to a friend.. so this dress is my second prototype for some cutie twins that I will be making Julu 4th ones for! The first one I made.. I tried to just use one bandana.. it would be a Pinterest fail in size!

Materials:
-2 bandanas
-sewing machine (but.. this could easily be done with just a needle and thread
-ribbon (for my July 4th ones... I will be adding a white bandana to the bottom for some ruffle

Directions:
-fold over one edge of each bandana about 1 or 2 inches (depends on the thickness of your ribbon) and sew across. This will be where you thread your ribbon.
-pin your two bandanas together with the seam from the ribbon edge facing out (this way once you have sewn together you can flip it inside out and all seams are on the inside)
-sew up the two sides of the pinned bandanas leaving about a 2 to 3 inch space between the ribbon edge and the edge of the side seam (this will be for the arm holes)
-once sides are sewn flip bandanas out. Cut 2 pieces of ribbon and thread through the top. The ribbons can now be tied into bows.
-you can also use the ribbon to edge the bottom of the dress.

There are lots of Pinterest ideas out there.. and I already have plans to extend on this one! Super easy and super cute.. and the price is fantastic as well!

Fiesta Chicken

When I shared about my #summerofcreating with my Academic Liason  (Vanesa Asbun) she shared one her go to recipes. I knew that I wanted to try it.

Ingredients for the Fiesta Chicken:
-2 boneless chicken breasts
-a can of corn
-a can of black beans
-a can of rotel
-package of chicken taco seasoning

Directions:
-heat oven to 350
-coat the chicken breast with the chicken taco seasoning
-combine cans of beans, corn and rotel in a 9x13 casserole pan (I mixed them up a bit)
-put the coated chicken breast in the casserole pan
-bake at 350 for an hour to an hour and thirty minutes- use a thermometer to make sure it is done (I had mine bake for an hour and thirty minutes.. and it was a little dry..nothing life changing but I could have removed it earlier)

There are lots of ways you can eat this. I chose this evening to have it as chicken soft tacos. I made the pico de gallo myself too- you can find the recipe for that here On that recipe I added a bit more lime juice and only used one jalapeño. Not going to lie.. pretty yummy meal ;)

Library Lessons

This week I spent my time playing librarian for summer school.  I have had way too much fun in the library!

I wanted to share what I did with the kiddos.. because I think for a short 45 minute lesson they have had a good time (I know that I have!)

Kinder through second grade I read the story Good News Bad News by Jeff Mack.  This book is FANTASTIC! The students loved it and it was a great way to teach cause and effect.  During the lesson we talked about the characters, the setting, and what might happen next.

I showed students the Sock Puppets app

Students were then tasked with creating their own Good News Bad News using the Sock Puppet App. I was impressed in how creative the students got.

Not the best video production on my part, but the Good News Bad News was HILARIOUS!

Good News- we are in the studio today, Bad News- we don't know any jokes.  I still get a kick out of it!

For my third through fifth grade classes we worked on poetry.

I found this great post about Teaching Deeper Thinking with Poetry and she had a Freebie download at her Teacher Pay Teacher Store!  I loved the Victory poem that was in it.  For the first part of the lesson we analyzed the Victory poem and chatted about the different meanings behind it.  Students then were tasked with creating an I am Poem.  Super easy "I am" Poem website where you fill in the blanks.  I put this on the big screen and we did the first 6 lines.  After the poems were written students used the Chatterpix Kids app

Students took a selfie (which.. they seemed to love for some odd reason) and then read their poem.  Once finished they could add filters, stickers and text.  One thing that I do love about Chatterpix Kids- you can export to your camera roll (and then do some app smashing and add to another app like Thing Link)  I don't have any to share for this one, but I was very impressed in how open some of the kiddos were in creating their I am Poem.

Super fun times in the library.. I need to start planning for next week! (Oh, by the way.. my #summerofcreating is off to a great start!)

#summerofcreating Day 4!

I am loving my new camera...but I am not digging the strap. There are lots of tutorials out there for creating your own strap...but I decided to go simple. I found a tutorial here I found the materials at Micheals... but was pretty excited to find sad keychains that had the clasp and ring on it that I wanted. I looked at several different places for the infinity scarf. I ended up at the dollar spot of Target (was thankful I had Robin there helping me out!) Although the tutorial said one scarf.. I realized that was not going to be long enough. We combined 2 infinity scarves together. Downfall of that...now it is too long. After adding a few knots (and it still looks cute) it is the length that I like. Another plus.. now that the ring and clasp has been added to the camera I will be able to easily change out the straps. I see more camera straps in my future!

#summerofcreating Day 3 Chicken Spaghetti

Will this be a Pinterest fail.. or will it be good?

There are lots of recipes on Pinterest for Chicken Spaghetti, but I liked how this one looked

Recipe from website:

Chicken Spaghetti

2 cups cooked and shredded chicken

3 cups cooked spaghetti

4 oz. Velveeta (or more), melted

1 can cream of chicken soup

1 can green chilies (or a can of tomatoes with green chilies)

1/2 tsp. garlic powder

Mix all together, put in a greased 9x13 glass pan, add shredded cheddar cheese to the top and bake for 30 minutes at 350 degrees (or until bubbly on top)

Now, let me preface this (in case you already didn't know) I don't cook. I am super lucky and married a Classically Trained Executive Chef.  But to go along with the #summerofcreating I knew that I wanted to throw recipes in there!

As you can tell.. I didn't have spaghetti.  Also, I ended up using this whole box of Veggie penne and added some elbow macaroni.  I also used Ro-Tel. Oh, and the cheese is not velveeta..but cheese whiz 

Other than that, I followed the recipe (but I used Mexican cheese on top of the pasta at the end)

Other than that.. I followed the recipe!

End Product

So, I will have to put this one as a Pinterest WIN! Even better.. I changed it up a bit and it was still tasty (my friend came over as my guinea pig.. and I told her I would buy pizza if it didn't work) We both ate 2 servings!

Are you doing anything fun for the summer? Is there a Pinterest Win or Pinterest Fail that you have done?  I can't wait until #summerofcreating Day 4!

Summer of Creating

Yay! I have officially finished another school year (well... still working at school..but it is summer school..so let's go with I have finished school!) It was a year of ups and downs and craziness, but I some how survived!

With the summer months upon us I have decided that I am going to dedicate this summer to Summer of Creating! Each day this month I will be creating something. It might be a blog post, it might be taking pictures  (with my new camera!), it might be Pinterest projects  (and Pinterest fails), it might be cooking. In otherwords I am going to create something EVERY DAY this summer!

I can't wait to share here on my blog or through Twitter and Instagram. Be looking for #summerofcreating

What are your plans for this summer? How do you plan to document?