How to Organize Your littleBits Back in the summer of 2014 when our makerspace was really starting to take shape, I won a littleBits ProLibrary in their Summer of STEAM contest. The library came with the now optional wall storage but I knew that I didn’t have a wall space where I wanted to put … Read more
If you’ve been following Renovated Learning for awhile, you might remember the Catapult Challenge my Stewart Makers Club did last year with Colleen Graves’ students at Lamar Middle School. My students had SO MUCH FUN with that challenge, although I always felt like Catapult Challenge was a bit of a misnomer, since our students’ creations … Read more
Make & Takes Build Excitement & Engagement A few weeks ago, I was meeting with a group of girls to plan activities we want to do with our STEMgirls club that we’re starting. They had tons of great ideas and suggestions: “We want to learn how to sew and make beds for an animal shelter” … Read more
Stewart Middle Magnet is a STEM magnet school. Part of the curriculum comes from Project Lead the Way, including classes in engineering, robotics and aerospace. The Design Process is an important part of that curriculum. It also ties in beautifully with what we do in our makerspace. So it made sense for me to partner … Read more
The Exploratorium & The Tinkering MOOC The Exploratorium is an amazing hands-on science museum in San Francisco. They created a makerspace for their patrons called The Tinkering Studio. I participated in their Tinkering MOOC this past summer and it was a fantastic experience. They published their book, The Art of Tinkering, back in early 2014. … Read more
Learning How to Knit I’ve been a knitter since my best friend in college first gave me a set of needles and taught me the basic stitches. This was back in 2002. When I first started out, I needed a lot of help and guidance. I would check out books on knitting from the public library. … Read more
When I first started up my makerspace at Stewart, I knew that getting students in there after school would be the ideal time to really dive deep into projects and develop a community of makers. During those first six months, my school didn’t have afterschool clubs but was piloting during school clubs with 6th graders, … Read more
What are the best Makerspace books to read? I’ve got a new post up over on AASL Knowledge Quest where I talk about the 5 makerspace books that had the biggest impact on me during my first year of starting a makerspace at my school. Check out the excerpt below: I want to take a … Read more
Yes, I realize that the official Global Cardboard Challenge happened back in October, but cardboard is timeless 🙂 I did actually hold the Cardboard Challenge in our makerspace with my students in October, but between FAME and AASL, I hadn’t gotten around to blogging about it. So here you go. About the Cardboard Challenge If … Read more
“What is a ‘maker’? Quite simply, makers make things. Some makers build robots, some sew clothes, some prepare food, some design tools, some construct houses. ‘Maker’ isn’t a title conveyed after passing some test or degree program; rather, it is a self-identification. It’s also not, by any stretch of the imagination, a new concept.” In … Read more