CREATE

The CREATE space is the heart of our maker education program here at The Brandeis School of San Francisco. Our goal is to give students a space to think and explore with their hands and hearts, constructing meaning and making connections as they build, problem solve, and overcome challenges. 

For our kindergartners, maker education is delivered to them in their classroom. The goal of kindergarten maker education is to learn what makers do and begin to understand the materials of making. We focus a lot on building imagination and fine motor skills.

First graders have maker education as one of their weekly "specials" in their pinwheel groupings. Our maker education focus in first grade is building. We learn to build and construct stable creations in a variety of mediums: paper, cardboard, fabric, and more.

In grades 2-4 maker education happens on a trimester basis. For one trimester maker education will take place 3 times a week in their pinwheel groupings. The other trimesters will be for art and library. These concentrated periods of learning allow us a deeper exploration of concepts and allow us to tackle more complex projects. The second grade maker education focus is on motion, third grade is color, light, and sound, and fourth grade is a synthesis and expansion of all lower school maker education learning.

In the middle school, maker education is  part of our electives program. In grades 5/6 all students have a maker education rotation. In middle school we introduce creative coding and 3D digital design to our students. In 7/8 students have semester-long maker education options to choose from. These change year-to-year and range from puppetry, architecture challenges, or building Rube Goldberg machines, to building and programming cardboard pinball machines.