Southeast Middle School | Monthly Maker Fair
Purpose: The library would like to host monthly Maker Fairs for students to have an opportunity to be creative, utilize new technology, and have fun!The purpose of this grant will be to fund a monthly grade level Maker Fair with our students. Our library strives to be a learning commons for the entire school, and the maker movement is a perfect way to reach out to students who are not comfortable readers (yet!) and show them that the library is for them too! Students who are allowed to be creative (or MAKE something) gain confidence! This is invaluable for their educational experience, as they will not shy away from a hard subject or be scared to try something new! Maker-spaces / Maker Fairs also encourage critical thinking, which is a skill that will serve students well in every classroom!
Impact: We were able to purchase our maker-space materials in April and start hosting "mini maker fairs" immediately! We used the fairs as reading incentives (when students passed an AR quiz they were given a maker space pass) and also invited teachers to bring classes to the library. We were also able to use the materials during our annual library week! Students were already requesting maker fairs for next school year so we are excited to be able to offer such a fun library experience!
The maker space materials allowed us to show students that a school library is so much more than books. We are truly striving to be a learning commons and these materials are helping us project ourselves as such. Students were rushing to the library on Monday morning the last few weeks of school to take quizzes to receive the quickly coveted maker space passes when they passed an AR quiz. We were also able to positively interact with students who are not regular library patrons when they came in with their classes to use the maker space materials. This allows us to have positive relationships with students who are not normally the "readers" we see on a regular basis. We did notice in just a few weeks we were seeing a few students coming in on their own time that normally did not, and we credit our new maker space materials for this!
These materials have not only had an impact with students, but teachers as well. We are able to offer maker fairs to teachers to use an an incentive within their classrooms (ex: if everyone turns in this assignment or scores a certain amount we will host that class for a maker fair.) This has already helping with teacher collaboration!