Mini Makerspace
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has been generously funding projects on Donors Choose that support family engagement. I recently watched a webinar on one teacher's idea for increasing family engagement. After watching this webinar I had an idea. The idea was to create a take and make mini makerspace by pairing picture books and maker materials together. I am creating family discussion questions and project challenges to accompany each book. Families will check out a book and makerspace kit for a week. This is designed to encourage families to read, talk and create together. My first Donor's Choose project was fully funded last month and the materials have arrived. I've put together the discussion guides and challenges for these books.
I have two additional projects on Donors Choose to expand this program: Supporting Bilingual Learners: Take and Make Makerspace and Design Thinking for Families. Our Latino Cohort leader is helping to translate the discussion guides into Spanish and I'm trying to get permission from the publisher to copy and translate the books into Spanish to ensure that our Spanish speaking families can benefit from this program. I am so excited to kick off the program at our Art Fair next week.
