Making for the #SummerLS

So I am doing the Summer Learning Series and have been studying making by reading Invent to Learn. In doing so one of the challenges asked me to look into making, reflect on what I have learned, and actually try my hand at making.  I am still in the process of reading Invent to Learn, and am participating in the #ITLchat for the next two Mondays at 8:30 CST, but I have a few thoughts here to reflect on while still in the process and something I have made (or fixed).

Let's start first with my own making inspiration. I first started with a problem ... my 16 month old son discovered it was fun to play with our clothes steamer and began dragging it around. I thought it was harmless until he tipped it over repeatedly and the top broke. The real problem wasn't that it broke, but that it created a top with sharp edges he wanted to scratch the walls to our new apartment with.  We just moved halfway across the country to Texas and the first thing he wanted to to do was destroy I guess.

Well, I put it away and he forgot about it. So did I, until I started reflecting on how I was going to complete this maker challenge that I was falling behind on. It had been a busy time moving and we still had an entire room in our new apartment to set up. Anyway, I was working on cleaning up that room to start setting up the file cabinet when it hit me. I need to fix this problem by making. 

My first thought was to use duct tape, but we had none I could find. I did find a container of Krazy Glue and was going to use that, but it was too old and had dried up. Two tries and two failures. However, we did have plenty of one supply ... PACKING TAPE! So I used that to tape it back together. It really doesn't need to hold much weight as long as I don't let my son get a hold of it.

I taped it together and gave it a trial run. It worked nicely and I have solved a problem by making! It was a simple problem, but I implemented the maker mindset!

Now time to move on and reflect on my learning so far from reading Invent to Learn, #ITLchat, a webinar I watched today by Erin Klein on Setting Up a Brain-Friendly Beautiful Classroom, and exploring the Instructables website. From these I realized one thing I can do as a maker this year. My students need to learn about electrical circuits for one of their science standards, and there are some great resources on the Instructables website about making lighting. Well Erin mentioned how lighting and student involvement should be part of classroom design. So I can have my students design some lighting structures to use in the classroom. That sets up a challenge for students, will meet science standards, and improve my classroom design. Not to mention all of the teachable moments that will arise out of the challenge.