Creating Makers

I already have a list of supplies I want to purchase for next fall.

Until today, I thought I was doing pretty well with the whole Makerspace thing. I have engineering supplies -- bins of cardboard and recycling (think water bottles, plastic packaging, styrofoam) that my kids can raid with ease. I have on-demand access to crafting supplies like yarn and beads. I have tools (real ones!), even a kid-sized tool bench where my students can happily pound nails in to create...whatever. I have laptops with access to Scratch and iPads with access to Scratch, Jr. I have Lego robotics. My kids could make, tinker, invent...or so I thought.

What I realized today, after reading just the first chapter of "Invent to Learn: Making, Tinkering, and Engineering in the Classroom" by Sylvia Libow Martinez and Gary Stager, is that I barely have my toe in the water of the Makers' Movement. See, I have all these materials, but I haven't encouraged my kids to put them together in any significant way -- yet. 

We have been dabbling in Making so far, but mostly, we have been modeling. "This is a thing I could build -- someday." "This is what my thing will look like -- someday."

What this book supplies are the ideas, materials and know-how to turn someday's inventions into today's. My kids no longer have to be limited to modeling their ideas. Next year (how I love summer -- that time when teachers can reflect and figure out how to make next year even better), next year, we will Make. 

Yes, with the capital "M."

*If you already have a robust Makerspace in your school or classroom, can you send me some ideas? I'd love the help!