Makerspace Steering Committee

Last summer, the library applied for a grant for a makerspace with our local education foundation. We were awarded the grant, and now have all the items we asked for and are ready to start creating our Curtis Makerspace. Several 6th graders have been asking when we were going to get started with it, so they have been made the "Makerspace Steering Committee" and they met for the first time last Friday. 

This is what the space looked like before we moved the items into it. It was the copy room for several years, and has been a storage space this year. You can see the wonderful peach tint to the walls. ;) It is definitely not an inviting work space right now.

After talking with Nate, Julian and Jett about some ideas for the walls, including a whiteboard wall, a magnetic wall, and a green wall for video opportunities, they were turned loose to brainstorm other components they would like to see in the makerspace.

We are saving all kinds of items for our makerspace, like cardboard boxes and broken electronic equipment. 

It was great to see their thoughts as they brainstormed. We decided to put it on chart paper so everyone could see it and add ideas.

And thanks to some handy 6th graders, our makerspace cart was put together! It was wonderful to see them reading the instructions & working together to assemble the cart.

 The next step is to have a work day to paint the room and get everything organized. The plan is to do that the weekend we get out for Spring Break. 

Friday was a day that the library was functioning just the way I wanted it to. There were classes coming in for checkout, teachers were in there adding Skype to their computers so that they can begin connecting with others, the Digital Bookworms came in to have lunch with me and to help with the WRAD Blogging Challenge post, and the Makerspace Steering Committee was meeting in their future space. It was loud and a little messy, admittedly a little chaotic, but students were making decisions and, as my Twitter friend Shannon Miller has modeled so well, letting their voices be heard. It was a good day! 

If you have a makerspace at your school, please share what types of items are included.