Helpful Resources.
This site provides videos and projects to help inspire kids to be Makers. It also has links to Maker Faire.
Tinkering.Exploratorium.edu
This site provides project ideas and highights tinkerers.
This site gives ideas and has a shop that sells the book The Art of Tinkering and building materials. It also has a great book hack challenge.
MaKey MaKey is an invention kit that allows you to turn everyday objects into touchpads and combine them with the internet.
Maker Projects
A book to inspire!
The Most Magnificent Thing by Ashley Spires is a great book to inspire students and others to become makers and start the thinking about the maker process.
Book Trailer:
The most magnificent thing about this author is that she has also started a book hacking movement! She encourages her reader’s to take the book and make it something useful. In this video she hacks her book to make a purse. Many others have risen to the challenge, even the Property Brothers. You can check out their hack here.
The Most Magnificent Thing official website.
A place to get started.
A book makeover!
One of the key ideas in the Maker Movement is making something new out of old things. This Maker Project does just that. In the book Battle Bunny by John Scieszka and Mac Barnett, the authors take an original book and change the story. Text and pictures are altered to create an entirely new story about a bunny who receives special powers on his birthday and tries to take over the world. Students could be challenged in a similar way to take an existing book and transform it to something completely new.
Teacher Librarians can support this project by collecting weeded books from the library.
Book Trailer:
The illustrator Matthew Myers talks about his process in this video.
An Arcade to Aspire to!
Many credit the Maker Movement's inspiration to Caine's Arcade. An arcade made completely out of cardboard by a 9 year old boy.
Students at Cherryvilly Elementary School in Cherryville, BC decided to put their math and science skills to the test by creating their own cardboard arcade. You can see their project video here.
“The Maker ethos values learning through direct experience and the intellectual and social benefits that accrue from creating something shareable. Not only are there a plethora of high-tech materials available for childhood knowledge construction, but the growing popularity of making things has led to many ‘low tech’ innovations to spice up hands-on learning” (Martinez & Stager, 2013, p. 29 ).
Robotics 101!
Students who are interested in robotics might enjoy making these BristleBots. You need a toothbrush, a vibrating motor, and a battery. Once the Bots are complete students can have fun constructing mazes and tracks for them to run on.
For more detailed instructions and tips see ScienceBuddies.org.