Friday, August 23, 2013

Give Yourself a #makerbreak


Today we prepared for our new library program, Maker Break. We introduced it in the back to school student weekly calendar, and put up signs physically and then virtually in our @bwslibrary twitter stream.
I also posted the following description on the Library page of the school's website:

Give Yourself a Maker Break
Libraries foster finding information and creating something new from that information. If we extend our thinking of libraries from housing books to making all types of information easily accessible, we see that we can use videos, works of art, and even tweets for information, evaluate that information, and build upon it. Satisfying intellectual curiosity and creativity doesn't always have to happen in the classroom. Often that spark happens elsewhere.

Introducing Maker Break, a table in the library where you can learn new small skills - in the time of a lunch period or half a free track. Relieve some stress, have fun with others, and create something new. Maybe you will be inspired to take these skills and expand them to something else. Maybe you will just feel good for having spent 20 minutes not thinking of school. Maybe you need an alternative to video games to clear your head. Whatever the reason, come to Maker Break for a little dose of fun, sometimes old-fashioned, sometimes high tech, sometimes crafty, sometimes literary. But always with potential for creativity and learning.

Want to know what is happening with Maker Break? follow @bwslibrary on twitter or bwslibrary on instagram, where we are hoping people will post photos or short videos of their work, #makerbreak.

Week #1 is Origami. We are putting out instructions for making some beginner to intermediate origami, including our school mascot, an eagle. We also have paper to fold, and instructions on how to share their creations with the school community. We are excited to have the kids write poetry some weeks, make stop motion with lego, and do other small, inexpensive, put fun "maker" activities, without the 3-D printer. We are trying to get our kids from just hanging out to messing around...maybe someday to geeking out. I'll keep you posted!

What maker activities are you doing at your library this year? Do you have any new programming? 

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