Maxine Inspires Makers in 1st Grade

Recently, the 1st grade and I read the book Made By Maxine by Ruth Spiro, which is about an innovator and inventor named Maxine who loved to take old things and make new things. In the book she makes a moving fish tank for her pet fish Milton.

 

After we finished the book, we talked about “designing” and “making” with the 1st graders. Then we gave them the challenge to design a playground for an animal. We assigned animals, like a giraffe, penguins, woodpeckers, bats and more, to the students. The 1st graders used their iPads to go to the PebbleGo online database to research more about their animals and help inspire their playground designs.

 

During our next Integrated Learning and Information Science time, we gave the 1st graders a maker kit. In each bag was a collection of random materials, pipe cleaners, puff balls, foam pieces, cardboard, craft sticks, etc. Then they began building prototypes of their animal playgrounds. First graders were so creative in the ways they used their materials and created their prototypes, focusing on the best playgrounds for their animals. Students took pictures of their playgrounds and shared them in their classroom SeeSaw app so that classmates in their pod and in the other class pods could see their designs.

Click here for photos.