MakerSpace- The Final Frontier

Like my little play-on-words? Our librarian, Mrs. Kapp, was awesome enough to write grants to earn money for our school's library. Her brain child is to turn our school library into a MakerSpace. You might be asking yourself, "What is a MakerSpace?"
Well, I'll tell you- it's a place... where you make things.

Basically, it's a place of exploration, education, and creation. Mrs. Kapp's MakerSpace is full of technology, art supplies, Legos, and, of course, books. Since I "helped" her with one of her grants, my class gets special privileges!

Mrs. Kapp and I teamed up during our space unit and created some hands-on activities that include all the principles the MakerSpace holds dear. Here's what we came up with:

1. Create the Mars Rover using Legos.
Students used a picture of the Mars Rover as inspiration.

2. Glow-in-the-Dark Constellations
Mrs. Kapp, with the help of our borrowed 3-D printer, created 3-D images of various constellations. Students painted them with glow-in-the-dark paint. Once they dry, students will take them home!

3. Constellation Fact Cards
Students used the library's iPads to research and create fact cards about their favorite constellations

4. Create your own telescope (We got the idea from THIS website)
Students decorate paper towel and toilet paper rolls to turn them into mini telescopes. Then they use the constellation cards from Kids Activities Blog to view the "stars".

5. Straw Paper Rockets
We did this activity during our summer reading program as well. Students love making, and competing with, paper rockets!

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Some finished products:
(It's the end of the day. And we had a field trip today. We were all a little worn out.)

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Our rocket competition we held when we got back to the room

Contestant 1

Contestant 2

She was the winner!

Contestant 3

Contestant 4

Thank you, Mrs. Kapp for all you do!