I have wanted to start a Makerspace in our library for a long time! An article I read quoted the Institute for Museum and Library Services saying that 65% of scientists with advanced degrees stated that their interest in science started before middle school. Through the MakerSpace, students are exposed to various forms of technology as well as elements of exploration, experimentation, creation, and design. With the layout and storage situation in our library, I just haven't found a way to make it work yet. I decided to incorporate STEAM centers into our library lessons instead. We did a 6 week STEAM unit. I choose 4 centers for each grade level. In Weeks 1 and 2 I introduced what STEAM means (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, and Math), each center, and the expectations for behavior and participation. Side Note: Many of the ideas I found focused mainly on STEM centers. Our school doesn't have an art teacher and it was really important to me that our students have an opportunity to be creative so included 1 art center for each grade level. In Weeks 3-6 the students rotated through the centers doing 1 center each week. The kids loved this unit and have been asking when we can do centers again! It was so fun for me to watch them work together to creatively solve problems and complete tasks. When choosing the 4 centers for each grade level, I tried to take into consideration grade level standards to plan cross-curricular activities to build upon what they are learning in their classrooms. Some grade levels were easier than others. I will definitely be making a few changes to the centers next year. Here are a few of the centers for each grade level that we absolutely loved and will definitely be doing again next year! Kindergarten:I think we will be doing all 4 of Kindergarten's centers again next year! Storytime STEAM: Chicka Chicka Boom Boom - I found this idea on Pinterest and tweaked it a little. During the introduction week, we read the book Chicka Chicka Boom Boom and watched the sing along video on youtube. Materials: Cardboard Tubes Green Popsicle Sticks Magnetic Letters Instructions: Students will stand a cardboard tube on end. Then balance popsicle sticks and magnetic letters on top. They will try different numbers and arrangements of popsicle sticks to see how they can stack the most letters on top of their tree. The will say the name and sound of each letter as they add it to their tree. Building Challenge Cards: This center required the students to think critically, creatively, and cooperatively. They were given a variety of building materials and had to build one of the items in the flip book as a pair. CLICK HERE for updated Building Challenge Cards! IPad Center: I had several different apps the students used during this center. Duck Duck Moose has some great apps that the kids really enjoyed and were learning in the process. We used Word Wagon and Moose Math the most. Masking Tape Letter Painting: This was Kindergarten's art center. I taped out the first letter of each child's first name. They painted the piece of construction paper. The next week, we peeled off the masking tape to reveal their letter. This was VERY messy and some of the letters were difficult to tape out (ugh...so many S names!) but the kids really enjoyed it! 1st Grade:We will be doing all 4 of 1st Grade's centers again next year too! Make A Musical Instrument - IPad Center - 1st Grade used the Duck Duck Moose apps as well. They mostly used Moose Math and Duck Duck Moose Reading. Shake It Up Painting - 1st Grade's art center had the potential for a big mess but they did well, and I stayed very close to monitor. It was fun to watch them try to figure out how they needed to shake the jar to get the beans to paint different areas of the paper. LEGO Addition Cards - I put several different building materials on the table (We don't quite have enough legos to go around yet so I had to supplement with other building materials). The students used the various blocks to work simple addition problems and then build something of their choice with that number of blocks. CLICK HERE for updated Lego Addition Cards! 2nd Grade:LEGO Stop Motion - This was a crowd favorite! The students were given a bucket with various items to create a story using the Lego Stop Motion app on the Ipad. They had to work together as a group, building set items, writing the story, filming each segment, and moving the pieces. Colorful Snowflake - This was such a fun art project! Each student was given a coffee filter. The used washable markers to color a design on the coffee filter. After their design was complete, they used a spray bottle to lightly spray water on to the coffee filter. The word "magic" was often used as the watched the colors spread and their design change. They also made a pretty and colorful display for the library walls! LEGO Challenge Cards - For this center the students chose a partner within their group to work with. Each pair had a flip book of building challenges to complete. Click Here for the updated Lego Challenge Cards! 3rd Grade:Coding Center - 3rd Graders used Ipads to practice their coding. We used the apps Daisy the Dinosaur and The Foos. Famous Landmarks Building Challenge - The students worked in pairs with in their groups for this center. Each pair had different flip book with various famous landmarks from around their world. They had to work together to recreate those landmarks using different building blocks. CLICK HERE for updated Landmark Building Challenge Cards! LEGO Shadow Art - This year we only had 1 set of Legos to work with. Next year, I am hoping we will have more. I didn't have enough to use in this center as well as the Landmark Building Challenge center. We used other building blocks but they didn't quite work as well as the Legos would have. Each group build a structure of some kind out of the building blocks. On sunny days, they built it outside on the sidewalk in the sunshine. On cloudy days they created the shadows using a flashlight. After they built their structure, one person traced the shadow onto white copy paper and then they decorated it with markers, crayons, and paint as a group. 4th Grade:Little Bits - This was probably the favorite center in 4th Grade! One of their science standards focuses on electric circuits. This particular Little Bits circuit set allowed the students to snap together the circuits to create musical instruments. One group of students created a keyboard a learned to play Mary Had a Little Lamb! This was the only set we have this year. I already have more sets ordered for next year! Coding Center - The 4th Graders also used the Ipads for coding. I gave them a couple of more challenging apps to choose from. Coding Apps: The Foos, Hopscotch, Box Island 5th Grade -We will be doing all 4 of 5th Grade's centers too! Gravity Painting - One of 5th Grade's science standards focuses on gravity. I found the idea for gravity painting and choose it for their art center. We attached a large piece of white butcher paper to the side of a table. I placed a plastic table cloth underneath the paper to catch all of the drips. They worked as a group to design what their picture was going to be. I provided several colors of watered down paint with water droppers and spoons. The rule was they could only drip the paint from the droppers or spoons from above. No rubbing, splattering, ect. They had to think through what their design was to decide where to begin dripping the paint. At the end of the unit, each group was allowed to add items to their background to finish creating their scene. They used construction paper, makers, paint, and crayons to complete their designs. Of course I forgot to take pictures of the final product but here are a few of the painting process. Coding Center - 5th Grade students used Chromebooks for their coding centers using the following websites: Studio.code.org - they started with Course 2 and worked their way through as many as they could Scratch.mit.edu crunchzilla.com/code-monster tynker.com/hour-of-code I loved watching my students working together to create and solve problems while learning from each other and their failures. It was amazing to see their collaboration grow over the course of the 4 weeks and to hear how their conversations changed from "I can't." or "We did it wrong." to "What if we tried it this way?" and "If you do this part and I do that part we can get it." I think its safe to all of us are looking forward to continuing STEAM centers next year! ***UPDATE*** K-2 Centers Directions and Response Sheets can be found HERE! Links to Task Cards can be found in the post above!
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AuthorI am an elementary educator in Birmingham, AL. I have previously taught preschool, kindergarten, and first grade. I now have the BEST job as an elementary school librarian or "The Library Lady" as I'm called by the kindergartners! Archives
March 2017
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