Makerspace: A Creative Answer for your Classroom

This year I added a makerspace area to my classroom to encourage creativity and design.  This station was a favorite in my classroom! Here are some ideas from my makerspace this year!

 



Create a station in your classroom!

*Provide guidelines and directions to get everyone started

*Provide research materials

*Add a writing component to your station

*Make it cross-curricular

Here's what I have at my station:

Makerspace Signs

 

 

 

I always have some type of writing that is expected at the station.  Here's the page we started with:

 

Makerspace Writing Page

 

 

Our first makerspace experience was with recycled crafts.  I checked out several books from the library to give them some ideas to help them brainstorm.  I added whatever craft supplies I could find in my cabinet and we used recycled paper from our recycling basket.   We also found a few great websites with some fun ideas.

 

FaveCrafts

 

FreeKidsCrafts

 

ActivityVillage

 

 

Another great idea that my class loved was Origami.  I checked out several books from the library again to get them started. We also found some really great sites too.

 

Origami-Instructions

 

Origami-Fun

 

Origami Resource Center

 

 

Another fun idea is doodle art!  We love the doodle art alley website.  They have a lot of free printables.   The kids colored a doodle example from the website and we discussed how they added doodles to a regular picture to make it look more interesting.  Then, the kids created their own doodle pictures.

Check out this amazing website:

 

Doodle Art Alley

 

Here are a couple examples from my class:

 

 

We also made a stop motion video of them coloring their doodles.  Here's a short example!

 

 

 

I also had the students research a topic of their choice at the makerspace and then create a poster and video to display their facts.  To see a complete blog post about this idea, click HERE.

Here are a couple examples of the videos the students created.

 

 

 

Next, I created a design station for my makerspace.  The kids had to choose a design card from the bag that told them what they had to create. They used graph paper to create their design.  I again had them write about their design.

 

Design Cards

 

 

 

 

Probably one of our favorite things to create is Flextangles.  I found this idea on this website:

 

BabbleDabbleDo

 

 

This site has a lot of great crafty ideas! We will definitely be going back to this site to find some more things to create.

 

After making the Flextangles, the kids created videos with music to show their designs.

 

 

 

LEGO StoryStarters are super fun and really get the kids thinking creatively. Visit their site to learn more about it!

 

LEGO StoryStarters

 

When I have the Legos at our makerspace, I have the students create a scene with the Legos.  Then, they use the planning page to plan out a story that they want to create. Here's the planning page they use.

 

StoryStarters Planning Page

 

There is also a great app that allows the kids to take a picture of their Lego scene and add special effects, text boxes, and word bubbles.  It's a lot of fun! 

 

Lego Story Visualizer

 

 

Here's an example of what one of my students quickly put together using the StoryStarter kit and the app.

 

 

Sphero is a super fun ball that you can use to make ANY activity super fun.  Here's a link to their site so you can learn more!

 

Sphero

 

 

Little Bits are also a great addition to the makerspace.  Here's a link to their site too!

 

Little Bits

 

 

Here are some great coding apps that would be awesome at the makerspace! Check them out!

 

Bee-Bot

 

 

Light-Bot

 

 

Cargo Bot

 

 

 

Check out this Symbaloo for some more links to coding ideas!

 

Coding Symbaloo

 

 

 

Here's my complete presentation on makerspaces!

 

Makerspaces

 

 

Drama

Last week we jumped into learning about drama.  The kids were super excited about this!  I introduced the basics using this anchor chart:

As always, the kids took notes to add to their reader's notebooks.  Here's the page we used:

 

Drama Notes

 

The next day, we took some time to review our notes with a partner.  Then, we completed this cut and paste page for a review.

 

Drama Cut and Paste

 

 

 

The best part of the week was actually performing a play!  We found some great plays on Pinterest.  We decided to perform How I Became a Pirate.  The kids practiced for several days and also made their own props.  This was a big hit! 

You can find some free plays to download here:

 

How I Became a Pirate

 

The Very Cranky Bear

 

Little Red Hen

 

I wanted to make sure everyone took this project seriously and got involved, so I made a rubric for them so they would understand the expectations.

 

Reader's Theater Rubric

 

 

It was a fun week!

Persuasive Text

This week we reviewed author's purpose a little bit and dug a little deeper into persuasive text.

I introduced the lesson using an anchor chart similar to this one that I found on Pinterest:

I always have my students add some form of the anchor to their reader's notebooks so they can refer back to it during the unit.  We made this anchor chart into a flip book and added our notes.

Persuasive Text Flipbook

 

 

Then, I read aloud The Great Kapok Tree by Lynne Cherry. This is a great book to show how the characters are persuading the man in the story.  We discussed why they were persuading him and how they were persuading him.  We also discussed how the book persuaded US as readers to think about taking care of the rainforest.  (It was just Earth Day, so this was a great time to read this book!)

 

 

 

The next day, I read aloud The Principal's New Clothes by Stephanie Calmenson. 

This time the students had to write about how the characters persuaded others and give evidence from the text to support their thinking.  We used this page to write our thinking.
 

Analyzing Persuasive Text

 

 

 

A couple of other great books to use for persuasive text are...

 

The Pigs' Picnic

by Keiko Kasza

 

Absolutely Not

by Matthew McElligott

 

 

We then talked about nonfiction texts.  The book Should There Be Zoos? by Tony Stead is amazing! (but hard to find)

 

 

Before reading, the kids thought about how they felt about zoos and then voted yes or no on the topic. We created a graph to show our votes.  After reading, the class discussed their thoughts again and we thought about how the book persuaded some of them to change their original vote. 

 

The next day, the kids read the persuasive article Should We Pay for Plastic Bags? on their own. I downloaded that article HERE. 

 

They completed this writing page to list how the author persuaded the readers and then wrote evidence to support their thinking.

 

Should We Pay For Plastic Bags?

 

 

It was a fun week with lots of great discussion!

Theme

This week we have been discussing theme.  We started off with an introduction to theme using this anchor chart.  I found an example similar to this chart on Pinterest.

I always like to create a "mini" notes page that goes with our anchor charts so the kids can add them to their reader's notebooks.  That way they can use them at any time, even when the anchor chart has to go away because we ran out of wall space!

Theme Mini-Notes Page

 

 

 

 

 

We focused a lot on the three questions from the anchor chart.  This really helped us think about and determine the theme.

 

What did the characters learn?

How did the characters grow or change?

Why did the characters act this way?

 

We used these questions after reading a story to figure out the theme.  We used a flipbook to write our evidence based on the questions.  Then, we wrote our theme for the story.  We added our flipbooks to our reader's notebooks.

 

 

Theme Flipbook

 

 

 

Some great books to use to get started with theme are...

 

Wings

by Christopher Myers

 

 

Theme: Bullying, Be proud of who you are, Be loyal to your friends

 

 

Elmer

by David McKee

 

 

Theme: It's ok to be different, Be yourself

 

 

A Porcupine Named Fluffy

by Helen Lester

 

 

Themes: Be kind to others, Friendship, It's ok to be different

 

 

Research Ideas!

We have been reading a lot of nonfiction articles in class and perfecting our note-taking and paraphrasing skills!  This week we put those skills to the test by working in groups on a research project.  The students took notes on a research topic of their choice.  Then, they created a small poster page with their information. 

Their final project was to use an app of their choice to create a digital project of their information. To learn about some of the great apps we used, click HERE!  (Their favorite was Chatterpix!)

We were so excited to share out digital projects, so we made a QR code linked to the digital projects and added it to the research page.  Now everyone can scan and see the videos!

 

Here's the research page we used:

Research Pamphlet

 

 

 

To see some more research project ideas, click HERE!

 

Introduction to Poetry

We are beginning our unit on poetry in reading next week.  We are starting with an overview of the four types of poetry they are expected to know. 

I'm starting with this awesome flipchart that my husband made. It describes each type of poetry and gives an example of each.  (You need to have the ActivInspire software to view this.  It is a flipchart made for use with the Promethean board.)

Poetry Introduction Flipchart

 

P.S.:..Please follow my husband's blog.  He has lots of great ideas and information about using technology in education.  Click HERE to go to his site!

As always, I made a small page of notes for the kids to add to their reader's notebooks.  They will refer back to this to quiz a partner and use it to complete a characteristics of poetry sort later.

Types of Poetry Notes Page

 

We are also going to review some of the elements of poetry that I know they learned last year!

I created this notes page that will match our anchor chart.  They will add this to their reader's notebooks to refer back to as we work through questions during the unit.

Elements of Poetry Notes Page

We will complete a sort over the types of poems we discussed.  Here it is...

Poetry Sort

 

 

 

 If you want to see the complete unit I used for my 2nd grade class, click HERE for the lesson ideas.

The pages and poems that go with the unit are below.

Poetry Notes Pages

 

Unit Poems

 

 

 

 

Writing Strong Leads

My kids really struggled with writing strong leads for their personal narratives.  I found this awesome anchor chart on Pinterest to give them some more ideas of how to write an exciting lead.

I wanted the kids to have those ideas right in front of them as they were writing to remind them to really think about their leads.  I also try to make a smaller version of all of my anchor charts so the kids can add it to their interactive notebooks.  It is great to be able to refer back to the anchor chart at any time.

Here's the version I made to add to the writer's notebooks:

Strong Leads