Today’s episode is a fun one. I went back through my Instagram DMs at Naomi Meredith underscore and pulled out all of your questions about Makerspace. A little feature is that you can use the search bar in the message and I just typed in Makerspace and pulled up those conversations that I have had with some of you.

I’m not going to mention your names, but listen carefully because maybe it’s the question that you have asked me or maybe it is a question that you were hoping to ask me and you were so happy somebody else did because I am going to answer them in today’s episode. If you want more about Makerspace, I actually have put together a whole playlist that are all of the Makerspace episodes that I have up until this date. You can grab the playlist in the show notes for this episode or you can get all of my playlists for absolutely free.

You can grab this at NaomiMeredith.com slash podcast playlist. I’m going to be reading these questions in no particular order. It was just how I pulled them and put them in my Google Doc for this episode, so let’s get into it.

When the kids design and make something, do you have any suggestions on who gets to take the creation home or do you have them all make it? I have 22 to 25 students in my classes, so I’ve been having them work in pairs to save on materials. Yes, I almost always have kids work in pairs or groups of two or three. Four can be a lot, so then I’ll just do two and two, but almost always I have kids work in groups when they are creating a Makerspace project.

There are a few reasons for this, one being the materials. If every single kid is creating their own project, you’re going to run out of materials really, really, really quickly and they don’t need to be creating their own. Side note for my new after-school programs that I am hosting at various schools I’m traveling around, the kids are actually creating their own projects, but they’re paying for the after-school club and part of the cost of the club is material, so that is a whole different thing.

But in a classroom setting, the goal is to have kids collaborate, work together, and problem solve, so I almost always have them work in groups. Sometimes at the beginning of the year with the little kids, I will have them create their own only because those projects are really short, they can be done in one day, they aren’t a lot of materials, like maybe it’s one piece of cardboard. Super easy for me to get more cardboard.

Have you seen my garage of flattened Amazon boxes? So sometimes I will actually have the little, little kids create their own because they’re just going to take it home that day, but for the most part they do create their own project. Now, managing materials, I have them typically used by makerspace menu, so almost every single item they have access to has a price, they have a budget they have to work with, I have actual Monopoly play money, they have to pay for their supplies, and this really helps them think about what are they using in their project, are they using too much? Well, they can’t because they have to buy it, so that helps a ton with the actual projects. Also, think about the size, I talk about this a lot, their projects are usually really small, they can fit in a gallon Ziploc bag, who says their projects have to be huge? They don’t, they take longer to build, so I make sure their projects are smaller.

When it comes to taking their projects home, I love, love, love using Seesaw K-5. Now, I like Seesaw in particular, again, not sponsored, I’ve used it forever since I’ve taught as a classroom teacher, but I love Seesaw because the kids can take videos and pictures of their work and explain what is happening, and they can take multiple of these, and this is really good for parents to see. Some, if not most kids are okay with just the photo or video of their work, so they don’t really feel like they need to take it home.

Some kids are cool with, hey, you just take the project home, no big deal. Some kids are in a partnership with someone they live next door, so they make a deal, I have the project for one week, you get it the next week, and if it is a whole big issue, then we do rock, paper, scissors, and that’s just the way it goes. Here and there, you actually might have groups who nobody wants to take at home, so what I tell those groups is, okay, if you don’t want to take it home, deconstruct your project, anything that can be reused, go put it away.

Some of the projects you can’t take home. There are some projects I do with water, it’s soggy, you can’t take it home, and that solves a lot of problems. So that, yes, all of these people, by the way, that messaged me, I did answer them, but these are the longer responses that you get to hear my beautiful voice.

Also, it’s on YouTube, so if you want to hear and see me talk about it, go and check it out. Hey, Naomi, I was a primary and elementary art teacher for the last two years, and I was asked to take up the responsibility of the STEAM and maker space. It was definitely challenging at the same time, exciting to head into unknown space.

The words that you mentioned, that you were the only one in the school who was zero clue what the curriculum resonated with me. Your content and podcasts have been a glue to make my resolve of giving my best at this role. I have all the K-5 STEM year-long plan bundle, and the things I need to start are the maker space bundle.

I was wondering if I needed anything else besides these. Well, thank you so much for your kind words. That is very, very nice.

Yes, I was the only STEM teacher in my building, so I taught third grade for six years. Then I walked into a new-to-me district, new-to-me position, new-to-me school with zero curriculum, and a pat on the back, good luck, which I’m cool with that, but it’s a lot. It’s a lot on your own, so I did develop my whole curriculum K-5, still developing and teaching curriculum.

I’m actually working on a lot of maker space. I’m going to talk about that in a second, but I am so glad that everything has been really helpful, so thank you so much. That’s so nice of you.

I do have a maker space bundle, so the K-5 STEM year-long plan are the lessons that I taught with students K-5, and they are very much project-based learning lessons. Many are maker space lessons, but not all of them are. The maker space bundle specifically has some other just one-off maker space lessons that you can do with any kids at any time.

It also includes the maker space menu that I just talked about. It’s editable, so it has all the items, the prices I suggest, and the method behind the madness. I also have my maker space label, so everything can match.

They have words and pictures, different colors that can match your classroom, easy to read. I’m editing and creating actually other sizes to that, so that’s really helpful as well. There are also some other helpful posters in there, like a hot glue gun poster, which some of you, and I know Kelly Hogan does this in Mathematically Enthused, actually frames the posters and put it at their station.

So the maker space bundle, again, has those getting started lessons and some other materials that will help you create that climate and culture in your classroom, but really complement the lessons in the K-5 STEM year-long plan. So curious, when you have a sub, do you alter your lessons, or do students still have full access to your supplies and materials? I said typically no. For the most part, when I have a sub, I almost always know I’m going to be gone, so I will plan ahead with a project where maybe they will finish a project before a sub comes in, or let’s say it’s midweek.

Now, I was very spoiled with my schedule. I had kids five days in a row, so I would maybe have the kids work two days, they have the sub, do some random project, and then they would get into the maker space project. I didn’t want to burden the sub and teach them, here’s how to do maker space money and manage everything and hot glue guns and tape and all of that.

No. So typically no, I didn’t actually do those types of projects. I would just do a one-off type of project.

Now, if it’s a digital project they’re already working on, let’s say 3D printing, usually I’m okay with the class working on that when I’m not there. Robots? Not so much. Hour of code? Sure.

With K-2, I almost always would leave a book and a small building challenge where these are the blocks you can build with and they have to be cleaned up and put away at the end. When in doubt, Lego bricks are always a great option. I actually would write that exact sentence on my sub plans.

So the short answer, no. Now, funny enough you asked about sub plans. I think I mentioned this in another episode, but I am actually going to be long-term subbing for one of my STEM teacher friends in the district I taught in.

So from mid-October to mid-February, I’m going to be teaching K-5 STEM at the school I did Lego Club at. I will actually be teaching my own curriculum and also coming up with new things. So I’m excited to talk about that experience with you, what it’s actually like being the STEM sub.

We collaborated me and that teacher. I’m like, hey, don’t worry about it. That’s a lot of lessons.

What do you want to teach? I’ll teach whatever. I’ll choose cool with that. So that’s going to be really fun to report out on and also give you some tips and tricks for when you are writing sub plans.

I do have an episode about sub plans, but what is it like being the sub? Okay. And the last question, do you have recommendations for doing STEAM on a cart? I will be doing K-5. So I’m assuming this teacher has started the cart already.

Some teachers actually taught STEM on a cart during COVID or some people that’s just the method they have because of space, or maybe you’re in a couple of different schools. I did see a really cool cart at Ikea that actually they modeled it as an art cart, but I’m also teaching STEM on a cart. So I have after school programs that have partnered with some schools in my community where I am actually teaching one day makerspace challenges and bringing everything in, in a cart.

So what I would say to get started, because I can do, I will do a full episode on this and this person, I even said that, but to really get started, I would organize all of your supplies where it’s easy to grab and go. So I actually just redesigned my home office where all of my cardboard is in a bucket with a lid. All of the buckets are the exact same and they can be stacked and be ready to go.

Now, if you’re going into kids’ classrooms, they probably have their own marker, scissors, glue, glue sticks, crayons. So you don’t have to worry about that. Actually during COVID, I had kids bring in their pencil boxes.

It was actually really nice because I didn’t run out of anything. What I like to do is I use those photo boxes that are colorful and rainbow, and I will actually put supplies in there. So I have all my crayons in multiple buckets, glue sticks.

A lot of them can fit in these little containers, by the way, glue sticks, rubber bands, those types of things. I put those in that little carrying case, and then I will take out the materials that I want them to use and put them in caddies. And I have some heavy duty caddies I bought off of Amazon that I can set in different table groups of very specific materials I want them to use.

And then the buckets with those materials I brought in, I will actually limit how much they can use of each one. So maybe I’ll use the Make Up My Space money depending, but if it’s a one day challenge, which a lot of you going into classrooms it is, I just put on a sticky note with a number, like you can have three pieces of cardboard, have three dots on it, and they can grab as needed. Hopefully those of you who are teaching mobily, you have some sort of home base.

Like if not, if you can’t do any of that, like nothing, then I would even ask the teachers classrooms you’re going to be in, hey, can I come in before school, plug in these robots, make sure they’re charged, maybe put a basket on them so they’re not distracting, so that they’re already there when you get to the classroom. So you might have to think ahead where things are stored or set things in locations around the school. So like for that day, you know, oh, these materials are there.

So those would be my biggest tips for Mobile’s Gen. I hope it was really helpful hearing the answers to some of the questions that you have asked me. If you like this type of episode, let me know, because you guys ask me a lot, I answer you, but it’s kind of nice to hear it all at once in one full episode.

And again, maybe you have the same questions as well. Anything you’re interested in, all things Makerspace, two things, you can check out that bundle I have in my TPT shop. It’s a whole Makerspace bundle with the tools for you to get started.

And my Makerspace podcast playlist, where I’ve organized all the episodes that I’ve ever recorded about Makerspace, all condensed in one playlist, so you don’t have to search for them. You can grab that playlist and more in the show notes for this episode, or grab it at NaomiMeredith.com slash podcast playlist. Thank you so much.

And I’ll see you in the next episode.