Today, let's take a peek into the maker space at Killington Elementary and listen to Eileen Vaughn talk about her school's makerspace.
Excerpts from Interview with Eileen Vaughn
One of the favorite tools in the makerspace is the Cricut Maker. Eileen was inspired with the Cricut at the 2018 Create Make Learn Summer Institute and brought one back to her school. She started working with a teacher on a Flag project, and before you know it, the sixth grade students and their teacher became inspired and started to use the Cricut to create personalized items with the KES insignia (Killington Elementary School).The sixth grade created a school store where they created their own merchandise, including mugs, bookmarks, stickers, earrings, keychains, and more.
The Cricut Maker became such a heavily used tool, that the PTO ended up purchasing two more Cricut
Their teacher, Amy Simonds, saw this project as a real opportunity for students to develop both transferrable skills and content area skills, especially in mathematics. The students developed prototypes, determined material needed, made the merchandise, and determined the cost and price points.
It is amazing to watch the students use critical thinking and problem solving skills, communicate and collaborate with each other, and be self directed — definitely the types of skills that can best be taught with authentic, real world learning opportunities.
And it's not just the teachers who think makerspace is a fun way to learn. The students think so, too!
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| Student Quotes |
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