this entire post is by Cathy Iverson @catherineivers1 , our amazing library tech!!
This is year one of our venture and it has been a huge success with our students, especially with the junior grades.
This idea was proposed by our Principal, Paul McGuire. I came on board in September after Paul suggested it to me. I did some reading about what exactly it was and started subscribing to some blogs on how to get one up and running. Paul had done a fair bit of research on the start-up process as well as what kinds of activities could be part of MakerSpace. He also joined an innovation committee with other interested educators, “Makers”, tinkerers etc. Late last fall Paul put forth a plan to collaborate with St-Luke Ottawa, where I am also a .5 library tech., to facilitate activities and offset the cost of some of the equipment/tools we wanted to purchase. Having me act as liaison between the two schools has worked well and I frequently bring equipment back and forth on Maker days.
the grade one class in the makerspace – they were very excited!
We had space in our LC and decided that no further physical space requirements were necessary for us to do this. Some schools and libraries have designated rooms/spaces and have set aside some of their budget to physically transform a space. We didn’t get too caught up in that, as there was no money to do so and we wanted to focus on the actual “Maker” part. Paul used our $$ wisely and purchased what he could and used what we had, such as science and math manipulatives, craft supplies, old furniture, existing technology, and other equipment. St-Luke has also purchased some of the same things and when necessary, I will consolidate these things in one school to do an activity.
one of our student teachers working with the grade 5/6 students in the makerspace
the rest of the post can be found here