Hack the Classroom

I still can't believe that I have completed one full week of teaching and learning with my students so far this year! As I looked around my classroom for hacks, I noticed a few that don't take long to put together but help immensely make my job as a teacher easier and more efficient. The first hack that I use is called the "Sub Tub", as pictured below.

The Sub Tub houses all of the materials, plans, and papers that my substitute will need while spending a day, half of a day, or and hour or two with my students while I am gone or at a meeting. I have received several compliments on the organization that it provided substitutes. It is also easier for me when writing my plans so I don't have to describe where in the room all of the materials are because they're just right there in the Sub Tub. It was a simple thing to put together, but helps incredibly when I have a substitute watching over my class. That is why I consider the Sub Tub a hack. Another hack that I just discovered this school year relates to a bulletin board. Now, I cannot take full credit for this hack as I gained the idea from one of my teammates. The hack involves using clear plastic sheet protectors to slides posters onto a focus wall bulletin board as opposed to stapling the actual posters themselves to the board. Here are some images that describe what I mean: 1. I cut off the edge with the hole punches on it (more for visual purposes) and stapled the clear plastic sheet protector to the bulletin board, making sure to not staple through both layers of the sleeve so that I could still slide something into it.

2. I can then slide a laminated piece of paper for the Focus Wall bulletin board into the sheet protector.

3. When the poster is inside of the plastic sheet protector, you can't even tell that it is inside of a sleeve as opposed to just stapled to the bulletin board itself.

This is a hack because the bulletin board is a Focus Wall for the ELA curriculum (Wonders) that we use in my district. There are eight posters that are changed weekly to match the concepts being taught. The Focus Wall displays all of these posters for student reference. If I had to take down and staple the posters each week, that would take a little bit of my time to do. It would also puncture holes in the posters. Using the clear plastic sheet protectors to slide the posters into each week saves me time as well as preserves the posters so that they can be used for several years. This will save me time, paper, and plastic so I don't have to make these copies again in the future and waste these precious resources.

Cardboard Creations

This is the second time that I have been introduced to "Caine's Arcade". I watched the Youtube video a few months back and thought that it was the cutest thing! If only I was that creative at his age. So many times you listen to student's describe their ideas that spud from their imaginations, but its not as often that those ideas come to life and grow into a success. It takes creative thinking and motivation to make an idea like Caine's Arcade come to life and strive. But it's not an easy road to reach the final product. When given the directive to create something out of cardboard, I again, had trouble thinking of ideas. So, again I sought out inspiration on Pinterest and Google. It was then that I found a creation out of cardboard that reminded me of one of my favorite "Price is Right" games - Plinko. It was then that I decided to attempt to create a mini Plinko board out of cardboard. Warning - This process was not as successful as my robotic hand and waterslide creations in the past. Luckily, I am in the process of unpacking and setting up my classroom, so cardboard box supplies were plentiful. I gathered the supplies by taking an average sized box for the base of the Plinko board, a smaller box that could be used for where the Plinko game piece lands at the bottom of the Plinko board, and paper towel tubes to use as the pegs. I also got out my hot glue gun to attach the pieces. Here is an image of my supplies before I began the process.

The first thing that I did was cut all of the "wings" off of the average sized box so that they wouldn't get in the way. I didn't have the best scissors for cutting cardboard so it was harder than it sounds. I also cut down the paper towel tubes into smaller pieces so that they were the size of pegs.

Next, I cut a small hole in the top of the average sized box which is where the Plinko player would drop the Plinko piece in. After that, I placed the paper towel pieces in the arrangement that I wanted the pegs for the Plinko game to be, inside of the average sized box.

Once arranged, I used the hot glue to secure each paper towel tube piece. I then placed the smaller box in the bottom of the average sized box to catch the Plinko game piece when dropped. I tried to find a way to separate the small box to give different point vaules to where the Plinko piece lands, but I did not have success. It is still a work in progress and has not been completely tested with an object to act as a "Plinko" piece, so I am not sure as to the extent of the success of my product. I plan to continue making improvements when I have more time to think and problem solve further. In the future, if I were to start from scratch, I think I need a larger box for the Plinko board, and cut down the edges so they aren't so wide. Here is an image of the final product thus far:

Making is Messy!

Ever heard of the quantum learning phrase, "Failure leads to success?" Well I strongly believe in the statement, yet it is one of the hardest concepts to overcome when met with a challenge that seems "impossible". I've had plenty of successes in my life, but the road was bumpy, jagged, and unpaved in order to get to those successes. Something that comes to my mind immediately when I think of the concept of overcoming failures to lead to success are my experiences as a competitive gymnast. For 13 years, I was a competitive gymnast, making it through level 9 and competing at the varsity level for four years in high school, making it to state and being a top qualifier in sectionals and regionals. These all sound like successes, but there were many injuries and mental struggles along the way. There were two times in my gymnast career where I was about to throw all of my hard work away, but surprised myself by overcoming them and gaining more successes that I thought were unattainable. The first was when I broke my arm in 6th grade. This happened during a gymnastics practice actually. It was a pretty bad break where I was out for three months during competition season. Just taking a week off from gymnastics can affect you enough to loses hard earned skills, so three months felt like a lifetime. I was ready to throw in the towel and give up. However, my passion for the sport and my motivation to challenge myself kicked in when I was finally given the okay to return to the sport. It was not easy to return after that injury as I had lost a lot of my strength and flexibility in that arm, but I put my 100% effort in at practices and tried to go to the gym in my free time as well to catch up to my friends who were able to train for the three months that I was out. It took a couple months, but I was able to catch up and surpass my friends in time for the next competition season. The second time, I had just finished 8th grade and was entering my first year of high school. At this stage, I was so burnt out from gymnastics because of the fact that since the age of 7, I had participated in year round practices 5 days a week for 4 hours each, plus competitions on the weekends. I was breaking down physically and mentally. I made the decision that I was NOT going to do gymnastics anymore, not even in high school. I tried out for the dance team instead. I ended up not making the dance team, and was trying to figure out what I should do. Someone that I did gymnastics with in the past suggested that I try the sport of diving, so I did a summer diving camp and had a blast! I ended up joining the diving team for the fall season, gymnastics for the winter season, and track for the spring season. Even though I was ready to be done with gymnastics I figured I'd give it one more chance with the high school team, and I'm so glad that I did! The high school team was more about the team aspect rather than the intensity of my club team. The practices were only two hours each night and the season only lasted about three months rather than the whole year. I didn't feel as burnt out and since I had such an intensive background, I did really well in the high school competitions! In both of these situations, things were challenging, but I did not give up and ended up have positive outcomes because of it. This is the idea that students and anyone who participates in a makerspace activity need to have. Making is not an easy, simple process. It is meant to be challenging. But through perseverance, collaboration, and creativity, we can find success in anything that we do. Some experiences might find success sooner than others and that is okay. That is what is so fun and unique about makerspace!

Sliding Into the Journey Head First!

First of all, I have to admit that my idea for this project was inspired by Pinterest. Unfortunately my creative juices weren't flowing and there are time constraints on when this project is due, so I had to seek out my resources. As I searched ideas on Pinterest, I came across an idea that I thought would be perfect - creating a water slide out of paper towel/toilet paper tubes, straws, and aluminum foil. This idea stuck out to me because I have spent this summer nannying two girls who are super creative and love these tiny toys called Tsum Tsums. When I saw the slide idea, I thought that this could be a water slide for their Tsum Tsum toys. Unfortunately, I could not test out this product with the actual toy pieces as I created my prototype after the completion of my last day nannying the girls. Another reason why I chose this idea was because I had all of the supplies that I needed to create this product already at my house. All I needed were paper towel/toilet paper tubes (which I always save for craft purposes for my classroom anyways), tape, straws, and aluminum foil. While going through the process of creating this product, I followed the general idea that I saw in the image on Pinterest, but I made some alterations when it did not work in the way that I though it would as the process evolved. Below are pictures that give a snapshot of the stages that my product wen through to get to the final piece. First, I gathered some of the supplies that I needed.

Then, I created a ladder for the slide out of straws and tape, cut toilet paper tubes to create the shape of the slide, and used a paper towel tube to help create a base for the straw ladder and tube slide to lean on and connect to.

Next, I wrapped the toilet paper tubes that I put together to form the slide shape in aluminum foil. The reasoning behind wrapping the tubes in the aluminum foil was because it made the slide waterproof. I thought the product would be finished at this point, but I wanted it to be able to stand on its own. In this form, the product was not able do that as you can see in this image.

In order to make the product more sturdy so that it could stand on its own, I began by cutting small slits in the bottom of the paper towel tube base and folding them outward to create a wider bottom. That still wasn't enough to help it stand on its own, so I added straws that connected the paper towel tube base to the bottom of the toilet paper tube slide. This addition allowed the product to finally stand on its own, however, when I did this, the bottom of the slide was not able to fit over the lip of the bowl that I used as the "pool" that the slide flows into. Therefore, I had to cut the straws that I attached from the base to the bottom of the slide and add smaller straw pieces in between that had the capability to bend over the side of the bowl. The final,successful product looking like this:

I even tested out the product's capability to hold up to water since it is, in fact, and water slide. You can view the product's success in this video clip.