Lewis and Clark Learns

 Tour our MakerSpace and Production Studio.  I truly hope it is helpful to you.  Please contact me if you have any questions!  

Today we started out with a building challenge where the kids could select their choice of materials. This is helpful to have going as the kids arrive at different times.    We then spent the next hour and a half working with a few different robots...we all loved Cubelets and our new BlueBots!  Sphero and Ollie were great fun also.  Mrs. Haynes and I have loved working with a smaller group of kids than usual.  We are noticing how differently kids approach the very same challenge and how they go about their work! Following those different stations, we all paired up and worked with Dash and all of the different attachments.  We were telling stories, launching catapults, writing songs with the Xylo app, and using legos to create cute Dash characters.   To end the day, we spent time on the kids' personal projects.  Time flies even though we have 3 hours.  We don't even stop to take any breaks!  Tomorrow we will be designing and ...

Today was the first session of a summer camp that Mrs. Haynes and I are running for Lewis & Clark Makers!  Each day this week from 9:00am-Noon kiddos in grades 2-5 are participating in a wide variety of experiences encouraging iteration, perseverance, thinking, creating, problem-solving and so many more life skills. We charged $125.00 for the week of camp and ALL funds will go right back into the MakerSpace via supplies and new materials. Our focus today was Lego Mania.  Kids worked with Lego WeDo and Lego Mindstorm (an 8 year old stated that the age requirement on Lego Mindstorm is wrong because you are supposed to be 10 to use them...he was currently on step 51 of 106 steps), Lego Movie Maker, Lego art, and wind powered Lego contraptions.  We are also building in time each day to work on a personal choice project.   Tomorrow's theme is Rockin' Robots.  We will be coding, problem-solving, and creating with our various robots...Dot, Dash, Sphero, Cu...

Last weekend we surprised my almost 16 year old daughter with an early birthday trip to Chicago for BookCon.  Believe me, she was very surprised because something this big does not usually happen in our family.  She really wanted to attend since it was a bit closer to us this year...evidently the event is usually held in New York.  My daughter is a ravenous reader and obviously I love literature so it was a great trip for our family (my son is a reader but the boys in our family spent their day at Wrigley Field). As a librarian in a 1-1 district, I am often asked, "Do kids still read books?"  Yes, yes they do!  Last Saturday I stood in MANY lines  and all around me were kids and young adults talking books, sharing favorite authors, telling their friends about a new series they should check out, and discussing the last great book they had read.  Kids would cheer when their favorite author showed up to sign their books, they flocked to panel d...

For the last few days my fourth and fifth graders have been sharing their Genius Hour projects.  We did not create formal presentations this year, instead we shared in a much more informal setting.  My kids truly worked toward their passions while working independently or collaboratively with others.   An Emoji Pillow Lettering and Caligraphy Sewing Tinkering Sewing Cheerleader Bows Photography and Scrapbooking Robotics

The 2016 MASL (Missouri Association of School Librarians) Conference was one of the very best I have been to in a long time.  The featured speakers were great...especially Jennifer LaGarde (aka Library Girl).  Of course I follow her on Twitter and read her blog regularly, but I had never heard her speak before.  In short, she was PHENOMENAL!  I still find myself thinking about her talk! Fellow Liberty teacher-librarian Teresa Barnett and I presented a workshop entitled, Blending Your MakerSpace & Library Standards For Student Success .   Check it out if you are implementing a MakerSpace in your library or school. I also met author Tim Green and won an autographed copy of his book.  Obviously, I had to get a pic with him:). Plus, I was thrilled to hear David Shannon's presentation on his life as an author.  What an amazing storyteller he is!   Conferences are a great place to gather new ideas for programming and get a fresh new look ...

Earlier this Spring, my 2nd graders added a little creative flair to our robotics unit...we decked Dash out in the latest fashions!  The kids put their designs on paper, created patterns out of newspaper, and then worked on their final projects.   What a fun way to end our robotics  study.