Last night, Sappington Elementary celebrated the 2015 Makers' Fair! It was such an incredible display of the passion driven learning taking place all over our school! As you may know, in addition to any projects the students may have done in their classrooms, our 3rd-5th grade friends were able to explore a topic of their choice in the Sappington Library Makerspace using the Genius Hour approach. The end results were displayed in the gym. If their final project was digital in its presentation (Google Slides, iMovie, Lego movie, or a Scratch program), visitors of the Makers' Fair were invited to the library to view them on one of our big sharing screens. They were so proud to share their projects!
Topics covered a range of categories from arts and crafts, sports, animals, occupations, photography, and 3-D printing. Our Sappington friends learned so many new things!
As busy as it has been in the Library Makerspace, we still find time for reading. The students look forward to checking out new books every week, and always manage to squeeze in a few minutes of quiet reading time when their class visits.
In other Makerspace news, our kindergarten-2nd grade friends have had the chance to explore one of our new items... MagnaTiles. They are awesome! The students have quickly learned that working as a team can yield larger, more detailed designs.
They have been able to efficiently build some superb structures by delegating jobs, and working together. They have been challenged to figure out what makes an ideal foundation for a tall and narrow structure versus a wide and short structure. They have also discovered through trial and error that two shapes combined can create an entirely new shape, for example, two triangles can become 1 square. Additionally, they have been able to put their knowledge of spatial concepts into practice in this hands-on activity. The MagnaTiles are quickly becoming a Makerspace favorite.
We look forward to the weeks ahead in the Makerspace as we explore even more new technology and ideas!
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