Today was the first day of “Maker Studio” for my 3rd and 4th graders. Over the Christmas holidays my husband and I setup five different stations for them to experience, in an empty room in the church next to our school.

 

Before going over to our Maker Studio, I showed my class this 10 minute video on YouTube, “Basic Electricity for kids.”  This is an old film but does a great job explaining how circuits and motors work! I used a Quiet Tube link to the video when I shared it, so my students did not see any advertisements or related videos.

This is a 2.5 minute video my students created today in our “Green Screen” station of Maker Studio. We used the Green Screen app by Do Ink on our iPads to make it. My students were careful to take related photos for each part of the video with their iPad, so the backgrounds matched the narration.

My husband and I recorded two videos over the holidays documenting the process of planning and starting my classroom Maker Studio. We recorded this first video on December 22nd. I showed this video to my class before we went over to Maker Studio, so they had some ideas about what to expect and how we are setting up the space. This also helped us discuss our procedures and expectations.

We recorded a second video on December 31st. We still have many things to add, but I’m very excited our Maker Studio is taking shape and my students have started creating in it!

 

It’s such a great feeling when students make something and it works.  It’s so simple to connect some wires to a battery and light up a bulb, but kids get so excited when they are able to do this themselves! Their level of excitement and enthusiasm is amazing. We had zero discipline problems today in Maker Studio. All the students were active and engaged in learning. It is so important we provide our students with opportunities like this to “do science” and not just talk about it or read about it.

 

In addition to my 14 students, we had the 10 fourth and fifth graders from Ms. Bowler’s class across the hall with us. Ms. Bowler was my assistant last year, and it is wonderful to continue working with her, connecting and sharing ideas. We’re looking forward to returning to Maker Studio together soon.