A couple of days ago, I had a conversation with Honor Taft to learn more about our new TinkerSpace. I wanted to know about how the idea got started and how it was to fit into the larger pre-K - 4 curricula of the Lower School.
Over the course of last year, Honor began thinking about the floor space the Lower School office occupied. It seemed to her excessive and she thought she and Nancy could be nearer to the front door of the school and occupy a more reasonable amount of room thus freeing up considerable space for a student learning area. What that area would become was still an open question. At the NAIS conference in late February, Honor realized the space could be used to pull related arts and classroom teachers together in a TinkerSpace. (A TinkerSpace is a MakerSpace with a different name to differentiate the type of age appropriate projects typically done.)
In the Lower School, grade levels 1-4 have capstone integrative learning projects that allow students to learn across disciplines and take a deep dive into a topic. Grade one has the bluebird study, grade 2 looks at butterflies, grade 3 examines the relationship between environment and culture by studying different Native American tribes and grade 4's Brainiac project asks students to identify a problem and create an invention that offers a solution. These types of projects pull together a variety of teachers and subject areas and require collaboration and communication among peers as students develop, create and revise projects. In short, they really lend themselves to a TinkerSpace learning environment.
Of course individual classroom teachers can bring a class into the TinkerSpace as needed. For instance, last week a Pre-K class was using the space as part of learning unit about shapes and sizes. Teachers Jamie and Amy gave students foundation instruction about length and thickness and then created an activity in the TinkerSpace that reinforced the lesson. The activity had students create figures from a variety of materials. Teachers' questions insured students understood the differences between long and short, thick and thin.
How to best integrate the TinkerSpace into the overall Lower School program was a question that Honor considered carefully. Understanding that the faculty were at varying levels of comfort and understanding about how a space might be used, she began with a couple of activities in the TinkerSpace for faculty in late August. The first activity, called the Beautiful Oops activity, had teams of teachers take "mistakes" and using creativity and a team approach, create something interesting, useful or aesthetically pleasing. (There's a book and lots of information about Beautiful Oops....just Google it...or check this site.)
Students had a chance to try The Beautiful Oops project after teachers gave it a try.
The second activity, The Marshmallow Challenge, put teams of teachers together to build towers that could hold marshmallows. (Again, Googling this project will give you plenty of information....or check this site.)
Lower School Teachers working on the Marshmallow Challenge in the new TinkerSpace
With a taste of how this new space might be used, faculty went away from their activities with ideas and not a little excitement about their new space. Over time, it will be used more and more as faculty see the potential for learning in a space that encourages creativity, design, innovative thinking and experiential learning.
Bonus Pics: A third grade class working on boat designs.
