Maker Happenings at the Kennedy-Longfellow

Maker Happenings at the Kennedy-Longfellow
Posted on 10/30/2014
MakersThe K-Lo community is moving full STEAM (science, technology, engineering, art, mathematics) ahead with interdisciplinary activities in their new Makerspace. These activities are designed to engage K-Lo students in hands-on experiences that foster problem-solving, collaboration, and critical thinking related to solving a developmentally and age appropriate challenges that also align to the standards.

This week four K-Lo faculty and the Lesley team took some of our Maker activities on the road and shared them at two conferences! Karla Anderson (4th grade), Amanda Kilton (JK-5 art), Kate Murphy (K), and Kathy Malone (JK-5 Instructional Technology) and the Lesley team engaged over 100 educators at the Massachusetts Computer Using Educators (MassCUE) Conference and the National Institute for Student-Centered Education (NISCE) Conference in four different Maker activities. Instead of a presentation-style lecture about these activities, we converted each conference room into a K-Lo-style Makerspace and gave the participants a hands-on experience in a nursery rhyme engineering challenge, a Google Earth and Scratch maze activity, a kinetic art sculpture project, and squishy circuits with littleBits and MaKey MaKey extensions. Lesson plans were prepared for each of these activities and shared on the Kennedy-Longfellow/Lesley University Partnership website

MakersThis week we are also launching Robotics in the primary grades in partnership with Tufts University’s Eliot Pearson Department of Child Study and Human Development. We are piloting the KIBO, a robot design with support from the National Science Foundation, with one kindergarten, first, and second grade class. Over the next seven weeks, students will learn about programming, sensors, and the engineering design process with ties to readers theatre in the kindergarten, and earth science in the first and second grades.  After this pilot, the Lesley team will support the other primary classrooms in learning about the KIBO and how it can be used to deepen understanding and engagement in other curricular activities. To see more about the KIBO, you can see the company discussion of this innovation, and stay tuned to hear more from K-Lo students about their own experiences with robotics!
Website by SchoolMessenger Presence. © 2024 SchoolMessenger Corporation. All rights reserved.