Making Community, Part 2: Reflection

My third grade students finished their projects to design a new space for their community a couple of weeks ago and I have been reflecting on the process ever since. I asked students to do a self-evaluation, too, and their feedback has helped to fuel this reflection.

Some things that went well:

• The projects were connected to both the classroom curriculum and the literature I shared in our time together.
• Students were engaged with the project and enjoyed the process.
• Students felt empowered by the choice that they were allowed.

Some things to improve upon:

• Focus on the design process: In my last post, I talked a lot about studying the design process with fourth graders. I feel l didn't stress this enough in this third grade project. We brainstormed and designed, but I think it felt more haphazard to them.
• Rework feedback options. I need to find a way to really incorporate more constructive criticism into these design projects.
• Group work: some groups worked well together while others had more of a challenge. Perhaps group work itself is something I need to better teach and facilitate.
• Timing: this project took over four weeks. Meeting students once a week means I might need to focus on projects that can be completed more quickly unless they are done in conjunction with a classroom teacher.

Lost on a Playground in Maine

At Dyer, we are building a maker space. The fifth graders completed a PBL to design it, and last week we had our fourth graders come complete a challenge in the space. Scanning through the PBS Design Squad Educator's Guide, one challenge jumped out: The Speedy Shelter. Fourth grade students have read or are reading Donn Fendler's tale of being lost on Mt. Katahdin either in it's original form, or in the new graphic novel version by Fendler, Lynne Plourde, and Ben Bishop. As such, they have already been thinking about what they would do should they find themselves lost in the wilderness. Here was a chance for them to practice the skills we want them to learn in the Fab Lab in a way that connected to their study of literature.

Students create a strong joint to provide support to their shelter.

Principal Elizabeth Fowler pulled out the page from the Design Squad Educator's Guide on the Design Process and did a weekly shared reading with it as part of the project. Weekly Shared Reading is a new-to-me teaching technique and I have been really impressed. On the first day, students preview the text and share what they noticed. On the next day, the teacher reads the text aloud and the students make note of their questions. Day three we read the text again and asked students to visualize what they saw in their mind's eyes. On the fourth day, after re-reading the text, students dug deeper to try to determine the purpose of the text. And finally, on the fifth day, we read the text a final time and the students synthesized the big picture of what they had learned. This process models and breaks apart what good readers do. For more information on this technique, read Text Savvy by Sarah Daunis and Maria Cassiani Iams. Heinemann has even provided a free sample chapter.

Making Community: Part 1

Third graders at Kaler study our community of South Portland, and I thought this was a perfect way to introduce a maker project connected with literacy. We are two weeks into this project and it's going well so far.

Week 1: Brainstorming for South Portland

Read: The Curious Garden by Peter Brown

Guiding questions:

• What was the city like before?
• What was it like after?
• What happened to the people in the city?

Vocabulary to highlight:

• Dreary, using the illustrations -- which go from dreary to cheery -- to highlight the meaning.

Maker Story Times: Getting Started

When I was looking for a preschool for my daughter, I always looked at the student art. When I saw a row of projects that looked the exact same, I knew that wasn't where I wanted her to be. I wanted her to be where the children were encouraged to create their own messy, imperfect, beautiful work. Perhaps not surprisingly, she ended up at a Reggio Emilia school.

A Maker Story Time is built upon this idea. Essentially it's the same idea as the librarian mainstay of a story time and craft, but there is an explicit focus on choosing books and projects that allow student choice, experimentation, and creativity.

My plan for my first Maker Story Time was to work with third graders and to use Chris Van Dusen's If I Built a Car. I had a whole lesson planned around students using easy to find supplies to design their own cars. I gathered paper, markers, sticky notes, pipe cleaners, paper cups, and plates, and thought I was ready to go. But when I came into the library in the morning, the book was not on the shelf. I still wanted to work on the project, though, so instead of a book, I used the Kid President video about inventing.

Then I challenged the kids to design something new. An interesting thing happened. .The kids who typically were reticent, dove right in and started building.

In the collage, the top left is a moving traffic sign, in the center is adjustable glasses fram, and the right corner is a piece of playground equipment that allows for climbing as well as fort building. The bottom, larger pictuer shows the students at work.

This actually worked out well as an introduction to the idea of making. Now we are in the process of a longer more in-depth making experience, which I will share in future blog posts.

What's this all about?

Hi! My name is Meg and I am a K-5 school librarian. I work in two schools in South Portland, Maine. One school, Dyer Elementary, is in the process of building a maker space, and we are excited to get making. The other school, Kaler Elementary, does not have a maker space (yet!), but I am still hoping to get making with them. My ultimate plan for this year is to pull together a maker cart. In the meantime, though, I have already started working with kids to explore materials and to design and build their ideas. This blog will focus on some of the projects we are doing, and will show how I am using the fiction and nonfiction in my learning commons to inspire their creativity.