New Things, Passion Projects, and a Big Thank You!

Recently, we've introduced our newest center  in the Sappingtion Library Makerspace, a Lego building table. It has been a huge hit with all of the grade levels. They are particularly excited to try building on the side and back build plates. Many of the students have never had the opportunity to create with Legos in such an interesting way.

Discovering that Legos don't have to be built from the gound up has inspired some of our friends to build ramps on the side of the table for their Lego vehicle creations to cruise down. It was so great to see the students figure out how to bring their idea to life, and even better was to see how excited they were when after several trials it really worked! We expect our Lego building table will continue to inspire many amazing ideas and awesome creations. It will be fun to see what our friends build throughout the year.

some of our second grade friends preparing to build

Miss Handrahan's friends are busy creating with Legos

Earlier in the year, everyone filled out a heart worksheet about things that they are passionate about, or would really like to learn more about. We brought these worksheets out to give our friends a starting point in choosing a topic or question to research over the next several weeks. Their research will help them narrow thier focus to a particular question they want to explore about their topic. All of their hard work will ultimately result in a project that they will share with the rest of their class.

Passion Project and heart worksheets

This sort of approach is sometimes to referred to as passion driven or maker driven learning, or connected learning. In our library makerspace, we are using the Genius Hour approach. Genius hour is a movement that allows students to explore their own passions and encourages creativity in the classroom.  It provides students a choice in what they learn during a set period of time during school. It encourages student autonomy, and creates lifelong learners. These are skills that will take them far in our fast paced world!

We would also like to give our sincerest thanks to all of the parents, teachers, and staff that have donated tools, old electronics, cardboard tubes, fabric, paper, and so much more to our makerspace. The Sappington Library Makerspace would not be such an engaging place to learn and grow without these donations. Our makerspace is proof that one person's junk is another person's treasure so please keep the "junk" coming! THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU!!!

This is just a small portion of the amazing things that have been generously donated to our space!