Makerspace Day

Dear Members of the J. Turner Hood School Community,

This year was have continued forward with our “Makerspace Days.” In the past you have read some of my notes on the topic of Makerspaces and the associated benefits of employing the maker mentality when solving a problem.

I am respectfully requesting that you discuss today’s school wide maker activity with your child when they get home or over this upcoming extended weekend.

Today was an amazing day here at the Hood School where students and staff from across grades and classes were mixed up into different settings and presented a working challenge.  For me, I was able to observe some significant community building as well as some amazing problem solving in action.

Katie and Nick, two grade five students, shared their thoughts on the day with me. Nick noted that he thought today was a great day to learn about other kids and help them with projects. Katie stated that she thinks these are awesome days to have and that we should have them more often. She went further to note that  it is fun to be with younger students from different grades because they were able to hear different  ideas and they were able to help the younger students complete the task. Hailey a  second grader reported that she enjoyed the “bucket filling” game and she had fun completing the activity. She also liked learning from and getting help from the older kids. Lastly, she thought it was great to have her little brother in her classroom!

The staff reported that is was a well-organized, educationally beneficial event. Specifically, the cooperation between different age level students was cited. Furthermore, the problem solving, cooperative learning and engagement was cited as a major success. Mrs. Mayuski, a first grade teacher, cited the specific activity that was focused on kindness and its positive impact on the school culture, relationship building and leadership skills.

Today was our first school wide maker day of this school year. The day was sponsored by our internal Makerspace professional learning community. This amazing group of individuals was able to create a meaningful and engaging school wide activity and I am proud of their efforts.  Mrs. Cleary, Mrs. Mayuski, Ms. Morra, Mrs. Gorman and Ms. Slaven’s collaboration and ability to lead certainly shined today.

Please stop by the school to look at our students amazing creations and look at the Hood School twitter account for some more amazing photos.