I love summer! Family trips, staying in my pajamas most of the day, enjoying my kiddos, organizing the junk drawer... I enjoy planning for the new school year and getting organized too. This morning, I worked on updating my website so the info. is current. These little things, help the beginning of the year go smoothly. With three teenagers at home, I need to be organized and efficient. Getting these little things done, means as it gets closer to school starting, I can be buying school shoes for my kiddos and not worrying about my class. A little here and there works for me.
Maker Studio Website click here
My Maker Studio middle school elective is a class I created so the course description and objectives change a bit each year.
Here are the objectives for the 2016-2017 school year:
Upon completion of this course, the student will:
- Complete a Google CS-First programming module
- Complete projects using MIT’s SCRATCH programming
- Engage in design challenges using everyday items
- Create an engineering and design plan when doing engineering challenges. This plan with include defining the criteria and constraints of the challenge, planning, sketching, building, and improving the design.
- Code a raspberry pi microcomputer
I have already ordered the CS-First Art module from Google. It is free and they ship the materials to your school. I did the game design module last year and it was great. I have a few students taking my Maker Studio elective again so I decided to try a different module. I love how it teaches Scratch. Some students just get Scratch intuitively. I am not one of those and some of my students aren't either. The ones who get it easily, still learn tips. It is meant to be an after school club, but I use it in my 6-8 grade Maker Studio elective.
Here is the link to Google's CS-First page.