The school library that I am taking over this coming school year does not have a makerspace, so I am very interested in the upstart. I am a firm believer in encouraging creation and experimentation, especially in youth. Growing up, my mom and grandmother taught me how to use a sewing machine, and that allowed hours and hours of creation for me. One of the important benefits of these experiences is what the Makerspaces Playbook explains as a “growth mindset that leads them to expend the energy to learn”. Those childhood hours of learning how to design, create, problem-solve, and share my “products” (mostly Barbie and baby doll outfits) significantly contributed to my intrinsic belief that I could learn and do anything if I was willing to try. That’s powerful learning!
So, my mission for this blogshare opportunity was to find some insight about getting an elementary makerspace started. I found a helpful blog post by Brooke Brown that I would like to share here from her blog, called Teach Outside the Box. Her post, So You Want to Start a Makerspace? - Teach Outside the Box, gave me a lot of ideas. She begins with the WHY, which is very important because anyone that is new to this concept should understand the importance of makerspace efforts. This will be critical to advocating for implementing makerspaces, collecting materials and funds, and for educating the community on its value.
What’s more is that this post goes on to give practical insight into what the author calls the 5Ss of a successful makerspace: space, stuff, schedule, structure, and self-direction. Each section is explained from personal experience, and contains great photos to inspire ideas.
I hope this blogshare is helpful for anyone out there, like me - novice but interested!
So, my mission for this blogshare opportunity was to find some insight about getting an elementary makerspace started. I found a helpful blog post by Brooke Brown that I would like to share here from her blog, called Teach Outside the Box. Her post, So You Want to Start a Makerspace? - Teach Outside the Box, gave me a lot of ideas. She begins with the WHY, which is very important because anyone that is new to this concept should understand the importance of makerspace efforts. This will be critical to advocating for implementing makerspaces, collecting materials and funds, and for educating the community on its value.
What’s more is that this post goes on to give practical insight into what the author calls the 5Ss of a successful makerspace: space, stuff, schedule, structure, and self-direction. Each section is explained from personal experience, and contains great photos to inspire ideas.
I hope this blogshare is helpful for anyone out there, like me - novice but interested!
I had the opportunity to work with a very creative librarian who had some great makerspace ideas where I last taught. The students loved the activities and the creativeness that they could use which made going to the library all the more fun. The "Why?" is certainly important and this blog gives us more information to plead our case for materials. Now I better understand the importance of makerspaces for students and would like to start one if my future school does not already have one. I will have to save this resource for ideas to use in the future. Thank your for sharing.
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