Makerspace- Student Led PD

Makerspace! Student Led PD! Two of my favorite things! Where do I start? :)

First let's start with, why maker space? Makerspace gives the students a safe place to fail.  Often times students feel the pressure of having to be perfect, but there is beauty in failure! Failure means you are taking risks  and putting yourself out there.

Failures can be an amazing learning opportunities on what worked, what didn't, and how to move forward. Let's take Thomas Edison, the man who I imagine had the ultimate makerspace. It took him over 10,000 tries to refine the modern day light bulb! Imagine if he had thrown a hissy fit when he didn't get it right the first or even 10th time. Where would we be today? Would anyone else have had the grit and determination to push through to invent something that we rely on everyday? His attitude towards failure was that it was just a stepping stone towards success.

Failures can also accidentally lead to some of the most simple but innovative inventions that we have ever known. Take for example the Post-It. The inventor, Spencer Silver, was attempting to make a super strong adhesive but was unsuccessful. He was about ready to give up when he realized he made an adhesive that stuck to objects but could easily be pulled off and that's how we got the post-it!

Sure failure is hard to take sometimes, but if you have the grit and determination to keep pushing forward the chances of success are inevitable! There is no shame in failure. It only comes when you give up too easily.  Makerspace allows students to learn this vital lesson on the truth about failures. Students are allowed to fail without fear of ridicule.  They learn to simply tell themselves, "This didn't work, what can I do next time?" There is no stress, anxiety, or pressure to feel like they have to be perfect the first time. They are allowed to breathe and work it out.

As we were planning our Makerspace PD we already knew we wanted our students to led it. We did a student led PD with coding in the fall and it was a huge success and we knew that a student led makerspace PD would be just as successful!

I have had many people ask me how we organize a student led PD and it isn't as difficult as one might think. Check out our how- to instructions

When the students come to practice for the first time we simply give them the materials and tell them to basically figure it out. For some of our students they love it and get started right away. For other students it is a little bit more scary. We support them and encourage them not to give up, but we never tell them how to do it. We want the students to struggle because through struggles there is learning. Through their learning they are better presenters. They know what worked, what didn't work, and how to be explain it in their own words.

Below is the sheet our student presenters use as a reminder on what to do when they are presenting. When we pick our student presenters, we pick students from various grades, ability level, and with different backgrounds. We have students as young as 6 present to our teachers. It is amazing to see these students in action!

The students are in charge from the beginning of the PD to the end. My principal and I are just there to facilitate the PD and help the students if needed.

Gears Activity

Ollie Maze

Ozobot

Tumble Trax

Marble Run

Keva Planks

Makey Makey

Tinker Table

I Can Build

Our student led PDs have been a wonderful opportunity for teachers and students to interact in new form of learning during a professional development session. The students love being a teacher and the teachers love learning from the students!

If you have any questions please ask below. I would love to help you as you begin to set up your own student led PD. You definitely won't regret it! :)

My New Office!

When I moved into this office I decided I wanted to decorate it in SUPERHEROES! Since I was a little girl I have always loved superheroes. I remember as a young child dressing up as Wonder Woman. I would grab a stick, a card board box for a shield,  cuffs I made from paper, and tape and would play for hours outside.  I wanted to bring my love for superheroes into my new office.

First, I have a picture my husband's baby brother painted when he was in the 7th grade. This picture is special to me because he died tragically in a motorcycle accident just over a year ago at the young age of 20. As you can see he was a very talented artist. He was pretty much talented in everything he did. This picture is a great reminder of him and makes me smile on daily when I see it.

In this picture you can also see the Lego wall and my awesome new red bean bag chairs.   I wanted to create an area that students can play and just hang out when they are doing a really great job in class.

Here is my awesome new desk! The office I am in now was the nurse's office. We decided to switch our offices simply because mine had a bathroom and she needed it more than me when kids are sick, need to change, etc. When she moved she left her desk and I wasn't about to complain. It is so adorable!

I had an old round table that wobbled and some chairs that I am pretty sure were original to the building (1950s era). I still wanted a table, but I felt like a rectangular table fit in this space better and I could easily move it around when I have a class in here. I also decided to buy these cool blue chairs to add a pop of color. I really like how it turned out. Also, isn't that the coolest Superman poster? My husband bought it from an artist who sells a limited number of a certain poster. Once he sells out he never sells them again. So it is definitely special! Shout out to my husband for letting me hang it in my office!

Here is a closer look :)

My awesome new cubby shelf! This is where I keep all of my supplies for lessons and professional developments. The giant board above allows me to hang some of the awesome pictures and cards I receive from the students.

On these shelves I display my diplomas, books, and games for students to play. Underneath the table are filing cabinets.

I am a firm believer that every space in the school should be kid friendly ...even the principal/assistant principal's office. How can you make your office more student friendly? Comment with your thoughts and ideas below!

Escape Room

Recently I did a Escape Room with 4th grade on the Intermediate campus and I had so much fun! Since it is close to the end of the year the budgets are running low so I had to keep it as cheap as possible. The decorations I used are ones that I repurposed from a professional development earlier this year. The box and lock I used are from home.

Lesson:
I downloaded a free perimeter and area lesson from The Escape Classroom. The lesson was a little hard for our 4th graders so I tweaked it to make it work. The lesson came with a free introduction video, how-to instructions, a power point, and all of the handouts. We had 30 minutes for each class so I did have to scale down the lesson than what was originally intended. Which is perfectly ok! You have to know your audience and their needs. A lesson that someone else created may not fit exactly what you need, but that doesn't mean you can't still do it. Just modify it to make it work for your students.

I wish I had taken more pictures. I was having so much fun I didn't take as many as I would have liked. Here are a few that I did get!

Working hard as a team!

They Escaped!

Working hard to break that code!

I had a blast working with these amazing 4th graders! I am currently tweaking this Escape Room for the 2nd graders on my campus!

This lesson looks very involved but it did not take a lot of planning on my part. I already had the decorations and I was able to take a lesson that was already completed and simply tweak it to meet the needs of my students. Thank you for stopping by! 

Amazing Race!

Administrators are you still teaching? I know I am and I am having a blast! It has been too long since I have posted so I am going to update you on some of the things we have been doing!

Dr. Jones and Adam Dovico from the Ron Clark Academy posted Mall Math on their Instagram page @rockmathed. If you do not follow them you need to right now! As a fellow math teacher I love the excitement for math  they are creating for their students and other teachers. Last semester they did an activity where they took all of their students to a local mall and did Mall Math. The students had to create various real world challenges and it was a hit. You can even download the activity here.

I loved the idea so much and I knew I could easily adapt this activity for my 3rd graders but there was just one problem. We are 3 hours from the nearest mall. I knew I could just recreate it in a classroom and but I wanted the students to be able to go to different places around the school to complete each challenge, just like the RCA students went to different places around the mall. That's when I came up with doing this same activity, but set it up like The Amazing Race!

I met with one of our 3rd grade teachers and we went over each of the Mall Math challenges and tweaked it to fit our 3rd graders's needs. It really didn't take that much time to do so. We then placed each challenge on a Amazing Race Challenge cards and also created road blocks.

Examples of the cards! 

The Receipt Challenge

We had the challenges placed outside  the office, library, cafeteria, gym, and computer labs. Each card told them what their challenge was and two stations had  a road block. It was a huge hit and the students were able to review some essential numeracy skills. Below are some of the pictures from the Amazing Race!

Telling students about the challenge!

The GIFTS of ADHD students.

Yep! That's right. This post is about the GIFTS of your ADHD students. I am going to keep this post really simple today. Please watch the video below.

What are the gifts of your ADHD students?

Wonderland Book Tasting

I did a Wonderland Book Tasting with one of our first grade teachers. I originally got the idea from Hope King and you can find her original blog post here. She has such amazing ideas! I had to do some tweaking since I was doing this activity with 1st graders. I spent some time brainstorming different ways the 1st graders could communicate with each other on whether or not they liked the book. That's when I came up with the Love It and Leave It cards as shown below. The students read the book with their partner for about 3 minutes. Remember we are just getting a taste of the book.  During this time the students are reading the words, looking at the pictures, and deciding whether or not the book is something they are interested in. They then discuss with their partner whether they LOVE the book or would rather LEAVE the book. However, the students cannot just simply say they love the book or would leave it. They have to explain WHY. This can be difficult for 1st graders at first because they have a hard time expressing their thoughts and feelings. However, after just a couple of rounds the 1st graders were improving in this area greatly. Having students justifying their thinking is vital at this age. If we teach our students at an early age to do this it will help them to develop into independent thinkers.

Download these cards for free here.

Here are some pictures from our book tasting. We had such a blast! I started this activity with the intention of just doing it with one class. It was such a hit we ended up doing it with 14 different classrooms! I was so thrilled so many teachers wanted their students to participate.

So how exactly did we choose our books? For first and second grade we did it by authors and the teachers decided on the authors. Below are some of the authors the teachers picked for their book tasting.

1st grade:

2nd Grade:

At the end of the book tasting many of the students were asking when they could go to the library to check out these books. We had such a great time and I am grateful I was able to do this with so many students! If you are wondering where you can get the cool hats, I bought them from Amazon. They are little pricey for paper hats, but I had about 280 students come through this book tasting and the hats are still in great shape!

A book tasting can be done with any age and they are super easy and fun to do. Anyone can do one, including an administrator! :)

                                                                

Fight For Your Students

    I had a student that challenged me in every way possible. I saw greatness in him that he did not see. He was just waiting for me to give up on him and I refused. I fought for him because he wouldn't fight for himself. I pushed him to realize his full potential and he resisted me often, but I never gave up on him. At the time, I didn't know his parents were going through a divorce. His parents put on a pretty good show and he never shared with me what was going on. It wasn't until 2 years later that I found out. He wrote me a letter telling me that I was the only one that fought for him and it helped him get through his parents divorce. He also told me he was doing great in school and it was because I never let him quit. If I had known about his parents divorce, would I have gone easier on him? Absolutely not! I love all my students and my heart hurts for them when they go through difficult situations. However, we can meet students physical and emotional needs without making  excuses for them.  Excuses will only weaken your students, not make them stronger. 

   Why did I share this story with you? Its simple really. We must remember to never give up on our students even when they resist us every step of the way. Take your students where they are and work with them to discover their greatness. Stop wishing they will change and do something about it. Wishing only creates disappointment, because you aren't actually doing anything. Every one of our students deserves someone that will fight for them. I often hear the phrase, "The students should be more tired then the teacher at the end of the day". However shouldn't students and teacher both be exhausted? The students should be exhausted from thinking all day at a higher level then ever before. The teacher should be exhausted because they are constantly working to make sure that each and every one of their students are reaching their full potential in everything they do. It can be a straight up exhausting battle to get through to students the importance of  taking ownership for their own learning and to build up some grit. Grit is pushing through even when it seems impossible. For some students, this battle is a short one and they learn very quickly the importance of fighting through challenges. They know it will make them stronger and smarter.  For other students, it isn't just a battle but a war with some losses and some victories throughout the entire year. However, if the teacher is relentless and will continue to fight for these students, the teacher and student will come out victorious.

   Fighting for your students doesn't mean making excuses for them. Fighting for your students means setting high expectations for every single one of them and pushing them to work hard to meet those expectations. It isn't easy because you will meet resistance. We live in trophy giving, everyone is special without working for it, kind of world. The truth is we have to teach our students the value of hard work and GRIT so the real world is a little bit easier to handle when it is their turn to conquer it!

   Thank you to all of the teachers that fight for their students on a daily basis. Your hard work and dedication does not go unnoticed. You are making a difference!