Week 4

What project could help me integrate my content with making?
As a Kindergarten teacher I teach all subjects. Taking this in mind I think the best way to integrate making into my content would be to use it as an enhancement on an already established lesson. 
I think it would be fun to somehow use making during our weather or human body unit. It would be something they are already learning about in their daily content but the making would be an opportunity to expand on their learning and expose them to another fun way to explore the material that is more hands on. 
At this time I am not sure what the making would look like to accompany my unit ideas, but I am definitely excited to explore more. 
In an article I read on renovateqdlearning.com they mentioned the option to have a passive maker program. I hadn't thought of that idea and how that might be a better option for teachers who may have a hard time regular incorporating making into the their daily curriculum. Materials can be brought out, with brief instructions and students can explore on their own. 
On the same webpage they had a link to examples of curriculum connections in Makerspace. My favorite one was about creating star charts with littleBits. Honestly I am not familiar with littleBits so I was curious to learn more from this article. students used littleBits to make a device that lit up when it was in a dark room and projected stars onto the ceiling. The end results these students make were so cool. 
As I learned more littleBits are a makerspace item that allows you to create complex circuits in a second. They snap together and when put together correctly can complete many tasks. 

 references
building-curriculum-connections-into-makerspaces
https://expectmiraculous.com/2014/09/24/creating-star-charts-with-littlebits/

Comments

  1. UnknownJune 12, 2018 at 10:39 AM

    I really liked reading your post and related to many of the things you said. As a fellow kindergarten teacher myself, I really liked how you talked about incorporating making into an already established lesson. Since kindergarten is such an exploratory grade for students I do think that making or "passive making," really fits into what we are doing in our classroom. I really enjoyed reading about passive making because it was something I had never heard before. One problem that I know I face is time and it would be hard to incorporate a big project into our daily schedule. If I did, I know that it would require us to work on it a little bit each day since our students can only stay focused for so long. I really enjoyed reading about the creating stars project with littleBits. That seems like a really fun activity for students.

    ReplyDelete
  2. UnknownJune 16, 2018 at 10:19 PM

    I like your idea of incorporating passive making into the day or week. I think that would be a bit easier to do in a self-contained classroom where you teach all of the subjects to one group of students. This made me think of something I've read only a little about called the Genius Hour (http://www.geniushour.com/) where teachers devote one hour a week, or a few minutes at the end of some lessons, for students to explore a topic they're passionate about and create something about it for their final project. I think incorporating making in the classroom, even a little bit every week, would be so beneficial to our students, especially when a lot of schools are cutting back on recess and play time.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Dr. FJune 20, 2018 at 4:50 PM

    I think kindergarteners are the best at making. They can do anything at that age. They have no limitations. Nice blog.

    ReplyDelete

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