Welcome to our MakerSpace Class Portfolio! This page will act as your window into the many fantastic things happening in our classroom.

If you are looking for specific pictures of your child or evidence of their work, I encourage you to check out your child's digital portfolio on Seesaw. At the start of the school year, we do our best to connect every family to their child's Seesaw using your Skyward email. If you need a code sent home or emailed to you for your child, please email Ms. Tarr!

In our K-4 makerspace classrooms, we use station-based teaching. Within a single unit, students will rotate through 3-4 different stations, each with a very important learning goal focused on developing STEM thinking in our learners. Station-based teaching allows for students to spend most of their time engaged in play-based learning. Play-based learning is exactly what it sounds like: where we allow our students the time to play and explore in their own time, with their peers, free from explicit adult direction. Through play-based learning, students are given the space and time to explore STEM concepts such as coding, engineering, circuitry, etc. which promotes critical thinking, collaboration, creativity, and most importantly, confidence! These explorations build up background knowledge on how the world works, which helps to prepare students for the small-group instruction they get from Ms. Tarr in areas of computer science, engineering, and problem solving. 

Unit 1: I am a Maker

Standards Addressed: 

Devices 

K-2.CS.1 Select and operate appropriate software to perform a variety of tasks and recognize that users have different needs and preferences for the technology they use. 

Hardware and Software 

K-2.CS.02 Use appropriate terminology in identifying and describing the function of common physical components of computing systems (hardware). 

Unit 2: 

Algorithms, Coding, & Programs, Oh My!

Standards Addressed: 

Algorithms 

K-2.AP.08 Model daily processes by creating and following algorithms (sets of step-by-step instructions) to complete tasks. 

Variables 

K-2.AP.09 Model the way programs store and manipulate data by using numbers or other symbols to represent information. 

Control 

K-2.AP.10 Develop programs with sequences and simple loops, to express ideas or address a problem. 

Modularity 

K-2.AP.11 Decompose (break down) the steps needed to solve a problem into a precise sequence of instructions. 

Program Development 

K-2.AP.12 Develop plans that describe a program’s sequence of events, goals, and expected outcomes. 

K-2.AP.14 Debug (identify and fix) errors in an algorithm or program that includes sequences and simple loops. 

K-2.AP.15 Using correct terminology, describe steps taken and choices made during the iterative process of program development. 

Mini-Unit:

What is Binary Code?

At the kindergarten level, we expect our student to have the understanding that computers talk in "code" and that programs use numbers (or other symbols) to represent information. In order to model this, we create name necklaces using a simplified code of three numbers for every letter of the alphabet. While we don't use a traditional two number coding system of 0s and 1s at the kindergarten level, they begin hearing the term "binary code" and recognize it as the language computers speak. 

This project also helps our kindergartners with essential kindergarten skills such as fine motor and patterning! 

When your child comes home with their coding necklace, ask them to read it to you! 

Standards Addressed: 

Algorithms 

K-2.AP.08 Model daily processes by creating and following algorithms (sets of step-by-step instructions) to complete tasks. 

Variables 

K-2.AP.09 Model the way programs store and manipulate data by using numbers or other symbols to represent information. 

Unit 3:  

The Power of Circuits

With kindergarten students, we use something called Squishy Circuits to make circuitry accessible. Most circuit kits are inaccessible to our youngest learners because of the fine motor skills required to manipulate wires. Squishy Circuits bypasses this issue by using conductive and insulated play dough so that children can learn the basics of circuitry using age appropriate materials they can confidently manipulate on their own. Your child will also have time for open-ended play with several tools that utilize motors, allowing them the chance to explore the importance of electricity in engineering.

While this unit introduces students to common vocabulary we encounter in computer science, further exploring hardware components of computing systems, this is technically be an enrichment unit without formal computer science standards attached. Rather, we take the time to introduce the design process (ask, plan, create, improve), which is critical to problem solving and innovation. What I look for from each student is that they are able to demonstrate the skill of creating a plan, implementing that plan, problem solving using their knowledge of how circuits work, and making at least one improvement to their design.

The Design Process (K-2 Version) 

Unit 4:  

STEM Challenges

Kindergarten students spend the remainder of Quarter 2 participating in STEM challenges. A STEM challenge is where your child is presented with a specific problem to solve and given a set of constraints within which they are allowed to solve that given problem. STEM challenges are typically 1-2 day activities that place your child in a situation that requires them to use their best STEM Thinking. The goal of a STEM challenge is to promote the 4Cs of engineering design. 

Collaboration: The ability to work together to reach a common goal. I am looking for learners who can actively participate in a group, share, get along, and responsibly divide up roles when appropriate so that the task gets done in the given time. 

Critical Thinking: The ability to look at problems in a new way. I am looking for learners who can take everything they’ve learned both in my classroom and in outside settings, and apply that knowledge to novel situations. 

Communication: The ability to share thoughts, ideas, questions, and solutions. I am looking for learners who can clearly communicate their thoughts to others in ways that can be understood. This applies both within the group they are working with, and the ability to communicate their ideas to an audience (teacher, classroom, parents, etc.) 

Creativity: The ability to “think outside the box.” I am looking for learners who are able to think for themselves and come up with different, unique ideas to effectively solve a problem. 

The 4Cs are something you’ll hear me talk about a lot in makerspace and will see come up in report card narratives time and time again. The 4Cs are the essential makerspace skills that transfer to all aspects of a student’s life, therefore we place great emphasis on them. 

Unit 5:  

Civil Engineering

Kindergarten students explore civil engineering and construction by learning how to use a variety of age-appropriate tools and exploring structural engineering/architecture. Using a combination of small group instruction and play-based exploration, students experience: 

• • Wooden/plastic hammers & nails

  • Toy power drills & screws

  • Mini-screwdrivers 

  • Mini wrenches 

  • Legos

  • Keva Planks

  • Cardboard cutters

  • Electric cardboard cutters

By the end of the unit, students will use MakeDo* cardboard construction tools to create a cardboard garden to beautify our space. 

For this unit, students will be exploring the 4Cs of engineering once again (Collaboration, communicaiton, critical thinking, & creativity). These, along with grit, are the five skills I assess students on for this unit. 

*MakeDo is a company that specializes in child-friendly, affordable cardboard construction. If your child is interested and wants to continue exploring at home, you can find their products at their website www.make.do 

Unit 6:  

Civil Planning

Kindergarten students take the skills they learned in our civil engineering unit and expand on them as they design and plan for a real community space. Students are redesigning the empty garden space outside of the makerspace room where dead bushes were pulled up this summer and never replaced. While students have used the design process throughout the year to plan their engineering projects, this project provides students with one of their first opportuntiies to plan a larger scale, collaborative engineering project. Students plan for the space, create a blueprint to present, and construct a prototype of one feature of their garden. Their prototype is created out of cardboard, using the cardboard techniques and tools the students mastered in their civil engineering unit. Finished projects are then presented to Dr. Surian, who has committed to rennovating the garden space using designs from our kindergarten students! 

Your child is going to be assessed on their ability to demonstrate five essential engineering skills: collaboration, creativity, critical thinking, communication, and grit. I will be paying special attention to the indiviual learning goal your child set for themselves at the start of second semseter.