My students need Legos, Tinker Toys, Snap Circuit kits, and K'Nex manipulatives to complete quests in makerspaces by putting their imagination and creativity to work!
The media center is being transformed to a hub of creativity and collaboration. Students are encouraged to bring their imaginations to life, but lack the materials to create their dreams past paper and pencil. I would love for my K-5 students to have materials for educational play in our makerspace.
My school is a rural school in a high poverty area.
Many students rely on school breakfast and lunch to meet their nutritional needs for the day. Our students' families rarely have the financial means to purchase the foundational educational toys for students to play with at home. I frequently find that my boys and girls have no experience with Legos, Tinker Toys, and the like, therefore having little prior knowledge about engineering, construction, and problem solving. Our diverse student population needs Legos, Tinker Toys, Snap Circuit kits, and K'Nex to engage in collaborative quests to solve problems in makerspaces in the media center.
My Project
Makerspaces are a new phenomenon with a tried-and-true concept in education, play. Using the life skills learning through collaborative and educational play, students will become critical thinkers solving complex problems. In makerspaces, students are given a lot of materials and a little bit of structure to solve a given problem, make their imagination come to life, and to work collaboratively. I have the space, and my students have the wonderfully creative imaginations with innovative ideas; we just need the materials; Legos, Tinker Toys, Snap Circuit kits, and K'Nex. Students will learn about electrical circuits, the foundational skills of engineering properly designed structures, forces and motion, simple machines, gravity, community, and truly stretching their minds using the Makey Makey kit in which they invent new pieces of technology. These materials span the grades from Kindergarten to 5th grade.
The donations to this project will purchase manipulatives and kits to be used in makerspaces in the media center of our rural, high-poverty school.
Students will creatively solve problems and work together to make their dreams come to fruition. I can't wait to see the students' eyes light up when they see the new materials that will come to our media center. Many of them have never experienced fun like this before! Imagine Christmas morning for 300 students; that's my desire for my students.
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As a teacher-founded nonprofit, we're trusted by thousands of teachers and supporters across the country. This classroom request for funding was created by Mrs. Ray and reviewed by the DonorsChoose team.
