Makerspaces: Aotearoa New Zealand

Thursday, 2 March 2017

Makerspace Mondays: a public & school library partnership

Today we feature Holly Fuhrman, school librarian at Shiloh Middle School in Maryland, who talks with us about a very cool close partnership between Carroll County Public Schools and Carroll County Public Library. One project out of that partnership is a new Makerspace Monday program, which launched this year. ~Laura

Library as Incubator Project (LAIP): Can you give us a brief rundown of what a typical Makerspace Monday looks like? What would a new program attendee experience?

Holly Fuhrman (HF): When students arrive, we gather them together and give them a visual tour of the space and what activities are offered that day. We try to keep the station group numbers to three or four students at a time, so that every child gets the most out of each activity. Two public library employees are on hand to assist me and my media clerk for the duration of the event. The public library provides a couple of our station options, so often they give a “tutorial” or some type of instruction to help the kids get started. Between the four of us, we circulate to each station, we sit down with the kids and have them show us what they’re doing and discuss their thinking and design.

LAIP: This program is a partnership between Shiloh Middle School and Carroll County Public Library; can you give us an overview of how that partnership originated and how responsibilities for the program are split up/shared?

HF: Dorothy Stoltz, Programming and Outreach Services Manager at CCPL, recalls, “In 2005, administrative and front line staff from CCPS and CCPL met at library headquarters to listen to Howard County library and school staff describe their newly created Education A++ school/library partnership. Although Carroll libraries and schools collaborated since the 1960s in many ways, for example, with summer reading programs, it was deemed time to formalize the collaboration calling it The Learning Advantage Partnership or LAP. At the heart of the LAP is the energy, dedication, and inspirational work between library branch and each school. The outstanding activities and impressive creativity at the local level is the driving force behind the collaboration.”

LAIP: How do you think the program has benefitted from having a school/public library partnership? What are some of the challenges you’ve encountered in having multiple institutions involved?

HF: Having a partnership with the Carroll County Public Library has been a tremendous benefit to all of the schools in Carroll County. From the Makerspace perspective, they have tools and programs that we just don’t have the funds to provide at our individual schools. The CCPL offers a variety of programs at the branches on weekends and in the evenings, but some of our students don’t have a way to get there or activities and sports make it hard for them to attend. By partnering with the public library, they can bring those tools here for students to experience without ever leaving school. And certainly, if the kids are engaged in and motivated by what they do here at school, they are more likely to register for and attend those programs at the public library. It’s a win-win for us and for them.

I personally have not found the partnership to be challenging at all. In Carroll County, we have partnered with the Carroll County Public Library on several endeavors in the past ten years. Battle of the Books began six years ago and we have also partnered with them on the S.C.O.R.E. Challenge in recent years in the North Carroll region. The support and publicity we have gotten from the Carroll County Public Library for these events has been an integral part of their success.

LAIP: Any words of advice for public OR school librarians looking to start a similar program/partnership?

HF: Public librarians and school librarians truly are cut from the same mold. We love working with people. We enjoy learning by doing. We thrive on sharing ideas and collaborating. We want to expose our patrons to information and technology. Librarians are a group of people who are experts in so many different things. We are creative, innovative, and dedicated to making your library experience meaningful and exciting. The individuals I’ve had the pleasure to work with over the last fourteen years have encouraged and inspired me to take the leap and get involved in some really terrific initiatives.

Make the connection. You won’t regret it.

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Wednesday, 1 March 2017

The MakeShift Challenge: Stay Alive in a Bank Vault

By their very nature, vaults are completely sealed shut. Would you have enough oxygen to survive inside a bank vault for 2 days?

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Tips for Designing Kits Simple Enough for Kids to Assemble

Keep these tips in mind when you're designing your kit and your customers will thank you for it.

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Laser Cutting An Enclosure To Compare To 3D Printing and Milling

returning to this same prototype, but with a laser cutter this time!

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Book to Boogie: “Cindy Moo”

Book to Boogie is a monthly series that pairs picture books with dance and movement activities for preschool story time. The series is curated by Kerry Aradhya of Picture Books & Pirouettes and written by a different guest writer each month. We hope that children’s librarians, as well as classroom teachers and dance educators, will find these activities useful and fun!

by Jayne Gammons

“Hey Diddle Diddle, the cat and the fiddle. The cow jumped over the moon.”

A cow jumping over the moon? That’s impossible. Or is it? In Cindy Moo, written by Lori Mortensen and illustrated by Jeff Mack, Cindy Moo and her cow companions overhear a fantastic tale of a bovine bouncing over the moon. Inspired by the rhyme, a determined Cindy Moo sets out to prove that the lunar leap can be accomplished. Sure the other cows laugh at her, but Cindy keeps trying. Finally some wet weather and a trick of nature show Cindy a way to triumph.

Invite Cindy Moo into your movement-based story time so your listeners can stretch their thinking and their bodies! Begin by making sure that your listeners are familiar with the traditional nursery rhyme “Hey Diddle Diddle.” For fun, you can check out the many versions of the rhyme/song on YouTube. This video has the words and a pleasant version of the tune. And this video is vintage Sesame Street!

Next introduce Cindy Moo — the courageous cow that is going to get your listeners using the comprehension strategy known as questioning. Cindy Moo wouldn’t be where she is today (famous) if she hadn’t asked the question “WHY can’t a cow jump to the moon?” Let the questions begin before you even open the book. Just look at the cover. “WHY is the cow jumping? WHAT are the three cows on the back thinking as they look on?”

Next read the first pages. “WHY is the cow peeking out of the barn? WHAT is the girl reading?” Before too long, you’ll arrive at the main question, “WHY can’t a cow jump to the moon?” Give your listeners time to discuss the issues, just as the cows in the barn do in the book. To really stretch their thinking, insert a question that isn’t in the book. “If a cow wanted to jump over the moon, HOW could it be done?” You might get some pretty creative answers! Finish the story to find out how Cindy Moo finally makes it over the moon.

Now that the children have stretched their thinking, it’s time to get them “moo-ving” so they can stretch their bodies! There are some puddles in the book, so it would be great if you could have some, too. But…well, puddles are wet. So how about some hula hoops instead? Arrange the pretend puddles around an open space. Next put a white paper plate — a moon — inside each puddle. Finally you’ll want to download some hoedown music. (A quick search on the Internet will give you some free options.)

As you play the music, invite the “kiddie cattle” to prance around the space, taking care not to collide into other cows. Encourage them to leap with style over the moons in the puddles just like Cindy and her herd do after a big, barnyard rain. If you have some show cows, you might invite them to leap one at a time over a moon to display their unique styles. Yee haw!

Looking for more practice with leaps and jumps? There’s more barnyard fun in Can’t Sleep Without Sheep. For a peek at this story by Susanna Leonard Hill and Mike Wohnoutka, see the trailer here. Invite students to choose an animal to portray from the following: sheep, horse, chicken, pig, cow, penguin, hippo, buffalo, flamingo, armadillo, and beaver. Line up your cast of characters and recreate the story, stopping to assist with dialogue and movement. Get ready for the stampede!

Jayne Gammons is over the moon excited to share ideas from her primary classroom. She is a general education teacher, blogger, and workshop presenter. Look for more of her ideas for integrating the arts with books at her blog, ABCs of Reading: Integrating the ARTS with BOOKS to teach COMPREHENSION strategies. Or if you are interested in kindergarten and first-grade ideas, visit her primary blog, Smart Kids.