The Schedule

As the librarian, I see all 50 classes on an alternating schedule. Half of my classes come to the library for lessons in A WEEK, and the other half come in B WEEK. For a two-week period (A and B), I focus on somewhat traditional library lessons (although my principal will tell you that I'm rarely "traditional"!). The following two-week period (A and B), I focus on PlaykerSpace. Every class attends library or PlaykerSpace every other week. Because our students are not independent library users, we set up PlaykerSpace stations that will be supervised by classroom teachers, instructional assistants, and me. Each class is scheduled for thirty minutes, with the last five minutes reserved for checking out library books. After instruction (often including a short story), students actually spend about 15 minutes at a station making, building, and creating. This is the perfect amount of time for students ages 3, 4, and 5 to focus on one activity. Below, you'll see an example of how this schedule works.

Because we have made PlaykerSpace part of our fixed library schedule (which is appropriate for our age group), we don't have the problem many MakerSpaces have of figuring out how to get staff and students to want to use the space. Ours are just scheduled into their normal library times. However, it is still important for me to design activities in which teachers can immediately see the value if we want their continued support and collaboration for our PlaykerSpace. We are kicking around the idea of creating a STEAM TEAM to help broaden the idea base for our PlaykerSpace and to ensure curricular connections continue in the classroom as well.