Fast forward to today, where I'm obsessed with The Lego Movie, bought my husband a mini version of Han Solo's aircraft for his birthday, and we STILL go to Toys R Us. The conversations have shifted from "If I was little, I'd love this" to "when our kids are big enough for dolls, they are NOT getting Monster High dolls. Ew."
At our school, we are trying to create a makerspace inside our Lower School Learning Commons, or as I'll refer to it from now on as LSLC. If you're unfamiliar with the term "makerspace", I'd recommend doing a quick Google search or checking out the article Manufacturing Makerspaces from American Libraries Magazine. The article delves into the ideas of makerspaces, how they can function, and all kinds of cool gadgets and gizmos for your sweet, sweet makerspace setup.
Our space here is a little limited and we are trying to make sure the things we start to include in the LSLC are moveable. This way, we can adjust the space to cater to the students' needs, as well as needs for faculty and staff.
Our head librarian sent me a link to an AWESOME blog written by Diana Rendina. She seems like a super creative lady, so props to her for being able to think of and complete something this awesome in her library. In this particular blog entry, she glues a bunch of Lego boards to her wall to create a makerspace.
I LOVE THIS IDEA.
Benny agrees with me.
What stood out to me about this blog article was when she said:
I would love to see every school build a LEGO wall – they’re so much fun. My students love it, and it’s a great opportunity for them to exercise creativity, spatial thinking, fine motor skills, math, etc. Plus, it’s just fun and stress relieving.
Toys have a purpose. They teach children to be creative and use their imagination, enhance their fine motor skills, use math or engineering, help them learn how to work together and compromise. Wow! It's incredible, these tricky adults sneaking educational stuff into toys. How clever.
I think it's wonderful that a toy as simple as Lego can help children develop in so many different ways. Playing is an essential and important part of childhood, and for the past several years, I've seen many parents over schedule their kids to the point where they don't want to play simply because they are so gosh-darned tired.
This would be a great step for our LSLC to go as far as a makerspace, with a few caveats. My reasons being are:
1. It's affordable. 3-D printers, while all the rage and super cool, are not practical yet. If we go with our alternative plan of taking this table with various Lego plates similar to these, we could probably create a Lego table for about $20. That doesn't include the glue/caulk, but that would not be that big of an investment.
2. It's great for all ages! Who doesn't like playing with colorful bricks and letting your imagination go wild? (Hint: I still really do, thankyouverymuch). Duplo bricks fit perfectly on plates that are made for standard bricks. Families could come and enjoy it after school, too.
3. Our idea for Lego tables would help keep our space multi-purpose. As much as I love the idea for a Lego wall, our space gets used frequently by tons of different groups. It would be great to be able to store our Lego supplies in our work room so that no little yellow dudes get left behind or thrown into an air vent, never to be seen again.
Hopefully you will be seeing pictures of a fabulously crafted freestanding Lego station, where kids are creating cities, monsters, spaceships, or even recreating scenes from Ninjago. This would definitely be one more step in a positive direction for not only the physical space of our library and the LSLC but also our library program.
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