Tuesday, February 3, 2015

Makerspace Mayhem Pt 2: The Update

Having been sick and also dealing with a rigorous course load has kept me from feeling very productive lately. I'm trying to give myself credit, as my husband often encourages me to do, but it is a little tricky at times. Why shouldn't I be able to do 8 million things at once?

There's a graphic novel order in the works, as our book orders are due sometime soon. I keep nitpicking at it, removing and adding things as I see fit (or as I see them on others' orders). There are a few I'm SUPER excited about mainly because I am trying to expand our manga collection. A pocket of fourth-grade girls LOVE manga (and shoujo but they don't know what that is yet!) and I'm trying to appeal to them. I'll post more about that on my other blog, but for now...on to the beast I am trying slay.

MAKERSPACE.

I've made a general document with rules and all that and am making little tweaks on it. Just adding things about when to pick kids up, what adults will be there, etc. Then its on to planning what we will actually be doing--eek!

I thought it would be fun to have a movie themed Makerspace Monday. Mainly because, duh, I absolutely love film and everything to do with it. Also, this lends itself quite well to a bunch of creative projects that kids can do. We do not have a green screen, but that is something I'm going to look for in the future. I think we will start with stop motion animation, just using the iPads. I will bring an old camera that I have but I'm not sure if it'll be good to record video on.


Goals for this first makerspace:
1. Let the kids have (lightly supervised) fun
2. Let them figure out if they enjoy filmmaking
3. Test and see the need/want for this kind of program

With all good intentions, I meant to do it last month but decided that was too much. Since I've pushed it back, I think I am in a much less frantic frame of mind about it. Of course I want it to be a success, but I also cannot beat myself up if it isn't.

Here's to our first Makerspace Monday! Be on the lookout for the next update on February 24.