October 4, 2019 by plemmonsa

Movie Makerspace: Exploring Green Screen & Stop Motion

September has come to an end and our 1st month of makerspace is complete. We hold an open makerspace every Tuesday and Thursday. Students choose to come to makerspace as an alternative to their recess time. We weave makerspace projects into the curriculum throughout the year, but this Tuesday/Thursday time is more open-ended. Our makerspace is also a collaboration with Gretchen Thomas and her students at the University of Georgia. This class evolved organically out of some very small collaborations a few years ago. Now, 8 UGA students visit our library every Tuesday & Thursday from 10:45-12:15. Students sign up with their teacher via a Google Doc after watching an introductory video to the month’s topic. Each teacher is allotted a certain number of spots. If they don’t use all their spots, another teacher can claim them. We have a staggered schedule: 3rd grade 10:45-11:15, 4th grade 11:00-11:30, 1st grade 11:20-11:50, and 5th grade 11:45-12:15.

For September & the first week of October, we focused on making movies. For week 1, students rotated to three stations to tinker. They used Stop Motion Studio on the iPad along with our library Legos to tinker with stop motion animation. They used Do Ink green screen app on the iPads to experiment with green screen. This included using green gloves, green string, green plates, and the green cushions in our library to create small green screens and green screen effects. At the final station, students explored iMovie trailers for making regular movies as well as editing movies made in other apps.

During the 2nd week, we asked students to commit to what type of movie they wanted to make. This could be done alone or in a group. Before students jumped right into filming, we wanted them to storyboard or create a quick script. Most students chose stop motion with just a few choosing green screen.

For the stop motion students, we took a quick look at a new book from Capstone Publishers called Create Crazy Stop Motion Videos by Thomas Kingsley Troupe. I was fortunate to pick this book up at the SLJ Leadership Summit. I love how this book goes step by step through the movie making process: casting, script writing, storyboarding, prep, filming, editing, and final touches. This is a Capstone 4D book which means it also has videos that accompany certain pages. Since it was most students’ first time making a stop motion, we tried to get a few ideas from the book and give it a go. In the future, I would love to come back to this book and really spend more time with each step.

For 2 weeks, students worked on their movies. We put their names on the backs of the iPads with tape so that they could continue their project each time. We also stored any lego creations they made on our makerspace shelving. The UGA students sat with groups or individuals and helped with tips on storytelling, keeping the iPad and background stable, and helped keep our legos as organized as possible.

As usual, students were super excited to come to makerspace and they developed many skill sets while having fun. I loved the storytelling that students put together in such a short amount of time and it made me really think about using legos even more in conjunction with writing. We have a long way to go before creating stellar stop motion videos, but it was fun to see what students learned from one another through trial and error, chatting with UGA students, looking at stop motion videos online, and looking at our new book from Capstone. My hope is that students can take the skills they learned in this project and apply it to future projects in class. We saw so many students get excited about their movie creations which could easily spill over into curriculum areas.

Students who wanted to share their movie worked with me to upload videos to Youtube. Please enjoy these first attempts at stop motion videos. If you have any of your own tips to share, leave them in a comment. We hope to do more stop motion videos as part of curriculum projects in grade levels.

April 10, 2018 by plemmonsa

2018 Barrow Maker Fest

In addition to having regular makerspace sessions every Tuesday and Thursday in the spring, students also have the opportunity to work on an individual project to showcase at our annual maker fest. To participate, students fill out a Google form sharing their possible project topics and whether they will complete the project at home or in our makerspace during school hours. They also have the option of working alone or having a UGA mentor to help them.

I collaborate with Gretchen Thomas at UGA College of Education. I love seeing the relationships that my students develop with the UGA students, and they thrive knowing that they have a mentor to visit with and work with while they make their creations. In the spring, she divides part of her UGA students to support our Tuesday/Thursday makerspace sessions while the other part supports students working on individual projects. My maker students don’t always meet with the same UGA student, but they have someone every Tuesday/Thursday who can support their work.

When students begin preparing for Maker Fest, we meet with them individually to see what type of project they are thinking about.

This year, I offered several categories for them to think about:

robots
cardboard
makey makey
littlebits invention
duct tape creation
3d design
Scratch program
finger knitting
origami
strawbees structure
stop motion video
magic tricks
puppet/puppet show
magic tricks
something else! (This category meant students might explore our many craft books for ideas on projects to create)

Once students decided, we gathered the materials they needed and stored each project on the shelves in our makerspace storage room. This part is hard to manage and it feels a bit chaotic until we have the materials that each student needs. Each Tuesday/Thursday they come for a 30-minute work session, gather their materials from the shelves, and work with me or a UGA student. Some students complete their projects at home.

During the actual Barrow Maker Fest, we created a schedule so that every student who made something had two 30-minute windows to showcase their work. There was also a schedule for classes to sign up and come to view the projects. The entire UGA class came as well so that they could view the final projects as well as help students at tables.

In the end, 26 students showcased creations on a variety of topics which included:

a cardboard Earth robot
mason jar lights
a robotic arm
a cardboard pirate game with secret codes and a spyglass
a Python computer program similar to Google Translate which translated English to Pig Latin
a shadow puppet theater
a Littlebits throwing arm and car
Lego scenes and building station
3D slinkies, Rubik’s cube, and Minecraft swords made with 3D pens
3D action figure designed in Tinkercad
a cardboard robot suit
a cardboard tower
a car made from a mail tube
a stackable jewelry holder
magic tricks
Merge cubes
Osmo

They were so excited to share their work, have an authentic audience to entertain and ask questions, and see that their work inspired other makers. Several students who came said they wanted to make something next year.

You can see many of these projects along with projects from other K-12 schools in the Clarke County School District at our CCSD Maker Fest. It will be Saturday April 14 2-4PM at Clarke Central High School. It is free and open to the public. We hope to see you there.

August 8, 2017 by plemmonsa

Our Lego Wall: A New Way to Interact in the Library

Each year we add a little something new in our library. I’ve watched several libraries add a Lego wall to their libraries and wanted to do it for a long time. We have students who use Lego in our library and makerspace for stop motion videos and storytelling, so I’ve been curious about the possibilities of this collaborative building space and what projects or ideas it might spark for students.

Several librarians have posted helpful tips on how to create your own Lego wall. I looked very closely at Diana Rendina’s plans and considered building my own.

Then, I saw a post from Shannon Miller about a company called Brik. This company has Lego-compatible plates that have a reusable adhesive on the back so that you can move it from one location to another if needed. You could order packs of 6 plates which came with an assortment of briks as well. This was appealing to me because of how much time it would save me in constructing a wall. I wouldn’t need to mount plywood to the wall or worry with liquid nails.

Sherry Gick shared her own experience with Brik and said the adhesive seemed to be pretty reliable. I decided to give it a go. Before ordering, I posted a Twitter poll and also sent a Google form to my students to ask what color wall they preferred: white, black, or blue. The response was overwhelmingly blue.

Shipping was super fast, and within about an hour I had everything unboxed and on the wall. I used Lego pieces to make sure the plates lined up and stayed together. I also made sure to firmly press each plate so that it secured to the wall. I don’t really plan on moving the plates very much, so I would rather know they are staying on the wall.

After posting some pictures on social media, I started getting messages from families whose children were already excited about the wall. During open house, several students stopped by to check out the wall.

I’m sure we’ll learn a lot about how to best use the space and what rules need to be in place, but we are so excited to have this new space in our library for imagination, creativity, collaboration, and sharing.

January 20, 2017 by plemmonsa

Kindergarten Makerspace Exploration

lego

Every Tuesday and Thursday from 11-12:30, we have an open makerspace time for students to sign up to explore the world of making. This time supports students from many of our grades, but it doesn’t support all students. In addition to weaving makerspace into projects, I’ve been trying to host times for grades who can’t come at our normal makerspace hours to come and explore

Kindergarten is one of these grades. The Kindergarten teachers came to a maker professional learning session I did in the new year, and they really wanted to work out times for small groups of students to come to makerspace. We made a plan to have a couple of days each week where 3 students from each class came for a 30-minute maker time. That equals 12 students. For now, the students are different each time until we see the students who really get hooked into some of the maker tools. That means I have to offer the same experience multiple times so that all students get to try it.

The first day, we made kazoos out of rubber bands, popsicle sticks, and straws. This is an activity straight from Aaron & Colleen Graves’s Big Book of Makerspace Projects. It honestly wasn’t the best experience for this age or maybe just this group. The fine motor skills in the group had a hard time putting the pieces of the kazoo together, and tears flowed if the kazoos didn’t make a sound. Even with some growth mindset reminders and walking through how to back up and try again, there were still students who just gave up. The students also needed a lot more assistance with this project than what I wanted for makerspace. We still had fun and hosted a mini-parade around the library with kazoo. We also had a great conversation about what we might try if we made our own adjustments to the kazoos.

I decided to abandon that project with the next group and try something new.

Next, we tried stop motion videos and Lego construction. Magic started to happen with this experience. We started by looking at a 4th grade stop motion project from last year and seeing what we noticed.

I have a box of Lego mini-figure pieces, so I pulled that out and asked students to construct one mini-figure and put it on a base plate.

In a matter of moments, they not only created the mini-figures, but they also started adding accessories that really started to create a story right before our eyes.

Next, I asked students to take their mini-figure and place it at an iPad I had setup at tables around the library. Then they came back to me at the building table. I demonstrated the Stop Motion Studio app on the iPad and used a mini-figure to show how to keep the iPad and base plate still while making small movements with the mini-figure.

Finally, students went to their tables and gave it a try. It was magical to look around and see such engagement. Every student was focused. Every student was creating a story. Every student was eager to keep going even when I said time was up.

Now I’ll be honest that the quality of the stop motion created has a lot of room for improvement. The fine motor skills still got in our way, but I’m really thinking about how I can help students keep their plates and iPads still while only moving their figures. They really tried hard not to move things around, but they just couldn’t help it sometimes.

At the end, I asked them if they would continue working on this type of project and all students in 2 separate groups of 12 said yes. We talked about how you would need more time and how you would create more elements of a narrative story. The engagement was high, and it has my wheels turning about how this can be done with more students and how I can support the students in creating higher quality projects in the end. There is great potential for storytelling projects in the future. For a 30-minute session, it was a great start.

If you have stop motion tips for our earliest learners, please leave a comment.

January 17, 2014 by plemmonsa

Maker Maniacs Enrichment Cluster Update: 3D Printing and Robotics

We are a little over halfway done with our enrichment clusters this year. Every Friday, students across the school go to an interest-based cluster of their choosing for one hour. During this time, students explore a topic and develop products or services related to their topic. My cluster is called Makerspace Maniacs. So far this year, we have explored making with duct tape, building with cardboard, lego robotics, and 3D printing. After lots of explorations, students are making decisions about where they want to focus.

A small group of students is focused on lego robotics. Monica and Omarion are both committed to building a robot and programming it. They both have varying levels of expertise. Today, I asked another student, Ludwig, to come and work with them. Ludwig has a lot of experience with Lego Mindstorms. During clusters today, he worked with them to build a robot and program it. Although they didn’t get far with the programming, he was able to show the students some tips and tricks to get the robots to work the way they wanted to. I love using students as experts. They hold so much knowledge that we don’t even know about. Ludwig just happened to talk to me one day about Lego Mindstorms because he knew that I bought some. He used Lego WeDo and Lego Mindstorms in other settings and told me he was willing to help me any way he could with them. How exciting that a student offered his expertise without even being asked!

Other students in the cluster have decided to work on 3D printing. Over the past 2 weeks, they have used a new iPad app called Blokify. This app uses blocks to build a 3D object. It is very user-friendly to build a 3D object in very little time. Once built, the object can be ordered or emailed for 3D printing on your own device. Today, students really focused on coming up with an idea and using the blocks to build. While they were using the app, I started a Google Doc, which I will share with them, to collect what we love, wonder, and want to change about the app. One service they will offer as a part of the cluster is to share this info with Blokify.

Today, we were also tweeting with Blokify and students were able to respond to their tweets. Such fun!

Students prepared several files that they emailed to me. I have them ready to go for 3D printing next week. We’ll be printing a pirate ship, a Trojan pig, and a castle among other things. As we progress, these students will also think about how they see this app fitting into what they are already doing in class. We’ll come up with some lesson ideas for teachers to consider.

We only have a few weeks to go, but our speed is picking up and our focus is narrowed. I know incredible things are going to happen with these students.

November 22, 2013 by plemmonsa

Makerspace Maniacs Enrichment Cluster

For about 4 weeks, a group of 2nd-5th graders have been meeting with me on Fridays from 8:15-9:15AM. This time is called enrichment clusters at our school which basically means that kids select a group based on their interest and spend a period of time learning and creating around that topic. Our cluster is called Makerspace Maniacs. Our first sessions have been about exploring the world of making.

So far we have:

Watched Caine’s Arcade and explored the idea of making interactive creations with cardboard.

Watched Sylvia Super Awesome Maker Show and explored how we can take our creations and create instructional videos about them.

Watched Landfill Harmonic and explored how makers take other people’s trash or unwanted items and turn them into functional creations.

Watched how a 3D printer works and imagined what we would create on it.

Tinkered with Lego robotics and programming.
Explored making things out of duct tape.

Now, students are beginning to think about what they are interested in spending more time with. Right now, we have a lot of interest in robotics. Today, one student spent time exploring the directions to build a mindstorm NXT robot and began the building process. Another group of students looked at the Lego WeDo kit and followed instructions to build an alligator. Other students spent time, exploring how the various lego pieces fit together. Since their interests are so drawn to robotics, Christa Deissler from UGA will be helping me coordinate a guest speaker to talk to students and demonstrate programming of robots.

Seeing something tangible really inspires the students. Today a student figured out how to use the WeDo software to make the alligator open and close its mouth. When students saw this happen, they immediately wanted their creations to do something too. Once we get past the exploration stage, I think students are going to want to get into the workings of the programming software and figure things out.

In other news, our Donors Choose project to get a 3D printer is fully funded! This will give these students access to even more tools for making. Two other classes already have ideas for how the printer might be used in their own projects. Once it’s here, I’m sure that there will be lots of exploring, learning, and sharing between classes to figure out how this tool can support the learning in classrooms.