FABClassrooms Around the World: Part 2
Welcome to the continuation of our international FABClassroom adventure! This is the second of two blog posts highlighting the creativity of students using Fab@School Maker Studio in classrooms around the world to design, invent, and build their own geometric constructions and working machines - or anything else they can imagine. Take another peek at some more exciting projects below!
Burnham Brook School in Canterbury, NH
Students and educators at Burnham Brook School are both using Fab@School Maker Studio in creative and powerful ways. From sculptures in art class to paper masks for students who have dyslexia, Fab@School Maker Studio is empowering everyone to create bravely - even students who have a history of struggling with complex paper art projects. Kim Slayton of Burnham Brook School has even witnessed how Fab@School Maker Studio is empowering students first hand:
“I have a student who, due to birth complications, has only four fingers on one hand. This makes it especially difficult for her to use scissors. She was so excited and amazed when she came across the Fab@School Maker Studio program. She was able to plan and create a very complex paper art project without difficulty [and cut it out with the digital cutter]. It was a great “aha” experience when she finally saw her concept come to life."
Arrowwood Elementary in Highlands Ranch, CO
Arrowwood Elementary is a FABschool, applying and grappling with concepts creatively in order to deepen understanding. As part of this, the older students have been making prisms with Fab@School Maker Studio to be used as manipulatives by younger students, which reinforces both geometry concepts and school community!
Sir Charles Tupper School in Halifax, Nova Scotia
Laura Kennedy’s third grade students not only learned geometry and created bookmarks with Fab@School Maker Studio, but they also developed communication and collaboration skills and self-confidence along the way. Students loved creating projects and even expanded their learning with storytelling, poetry, and nonfiction facts about their design processes. To quote Ms. Kennedy, “Bookmarks might have been the task but confidence was the result.”
Wake County Public School System in Cary, NC
Wake County Public School System students have been busy making everything from story cubes to houses with Fab@School Maker Studio. Third graders have fabricated 3D story cube for writing and digital storytelling; other students created little houses to combine into town and city displays that demonstrate the difference between urban, suburban, and rural communities; and simply looking at pre-made projects with the 3D viewer in Fab@School Maker Studio has allowed students to better understand the difference between 2D and 3D. Even the principal joined in the fun one day with a bright orange crown that he fabricated and wore himself!
Salvation Army Boys & Girls Club of Yuma in Yuma, AZ
Lesson plans, display models, and curiosity abound at the Salvation Army Boys & Girls Club of Yuma, where Fab@School Maker Studio is so popular that two classes had to be established to meet demand! While many projects have been created so far, Program Director Tania Pavlak also noted that top spinners and a bee are two stand-out favorites.
Is your classroom a FabClassroom? We would love to feature your school in an blog post too! To be featured in an upcoming post, send an email to info@fablevisionlearning.com. You can also tweet your photos with the hashtag #FabMakerStudio! For more posts featuring Fab@School Maker Studio, click here.