My Kindergarten classroom Maker space is comprised of two separate areas.
One 'area' is a closed cabinet that holds all of my supplies. A big rule in early childhood education is that if a kid can see it, s/he has permission to get it and play with it. While this is mostly true for stuff in my classroom, students know when it's work time and when it's free choice time (no one is pulling out the legos during reading groups). However, with consumable supplies, Kindergartners are voracious. They will go through a ream of paper and 5 rolls of tape in half an hour if allowed free reign over a supply cabinet. Teaching them to conserve limited resources is an important life skill, so I only put out what they are allowed to use up that day.
The other 'area' is the building toys shelf. We have LOTS of different building sets: Duplos, Space Links, Crazy Forts, Magna-tiles, a plastic marble run, a big box of corks, Wedge-its, pattern blocks, and a new ramps and balls set that is a huge hit. We have also borrowed Keva Planks from our school site Maker room which were very popular. We also have a playdough table where they make all sorts of cool creations and a writing center where the students do paper-crafting, drawing, and use scissors, stencils and lots of writing implements. Tinkering during daily Choice Time is the start of engineering, and learning that whatever we make in class is temporary can be liberating for my little perfectionists.
We spend a lot of the year developing the skills of risk-taking and practicing things that we aren't good at yet. Tinkering with a variety of supplies, establishing the ideas of perseverance and risk-taking along with cooperation and building on strengths are what I believe to be Kindergarten's place in the Maker movement.
One 'area' is a closed cabinet that holds all of my supplies. A big rule in early childhood education is that if a kid can see it, s/he has permission to get it and play with it. While this is mostly true for stuff in my classroom, students know when it's work time and when it's free choice time (no one is pulling out the legos during reading groups). However, with consumable supplies, Kindergartners are voracious. They will go through a ream of paper and 5 rolls of tape in half an hour if allowed free reign over a supply cabinet. Teaching them to conserve limited resources is an important life skill, so I only put out what they are allowed to use up that day.
The other 'area' is the building toys shelf. We have LOTS of different building sets: Duplos, Space Links, Crazy Forts, Magna-tiles, a plastic marble run, a big box of corks, Wedge-its, pattern blocks, and a new ramps and balls set that is a huge hit. We have also borrowed Keva Planks from our school site Maker room which were very popular. We also have a playdough table where they make all sorts of cool creations and a writing center where the students do paper-crafting, drawing, and use scissors, stencils and lots of writing implements. Tinkering during daily Choice Time is the start of engineering, and learning that whatever we make in class is temporary can be liberating for my little perfectionists.
We spend a lot of the year developing the skills of risk-taking and practicing things that we aren't good at yet. Tinkering with a variety of supplies, establishing the ideas of perseverance and risk-taking along with cooperation and building on strengths are what I believe to be Kindergarten's place in the Maker movement.