Mater Christi Makerspace
Maker Space
Teacher Talk: Kindergarten’s Mystery Bug Emerges in the Makerspace
September 22, 2015
Mrs. Rogers Kindergarten students adopted trees on the school campus to watch how the trees change over the course of the school year. They collected leaves and seeds to look at with magnifying glasses, and to do rubbings to add to their books about their tree. It seemed like a great opportunity to pull out one of our laptops, donated by MyWebGrocer, and the digital microscope to get an up […] Read more...
Makerspace: Strengthening Vocabulary
August 31, 2015
At the very end of the 2015-2016 academic year Madame Giron’s 5th grade French classes made claymation videos to practice transportation vocabulary. In the videos, a clay character (or two) travels to France on vacation and uses multiple modes of transport, including car, plane, boat, bicycle and even a flying car! Students worked in groups to create a segment of claymation video for each mode of transport. To make a segment […] Read more...
Makerspace: 3rd Grade Students Build Mousetrap Cars to Understand Force and Motion
May 14, 2015
Mrs. Coulter’s third grade class is learning about force and motion in science. In the new makerspace, students built cars powered by mousetraps to understand how unbalanced forces result in motion. They used a variety of materials, including large wire guides donated to our makerspace by Greensea in Richmond, as well as coat hangers, bamboo skewers and recyclables provided by families. Following the engineering design cycle, students designed, built, tested […] Read more...
MCS Students Build a Robot with Parts Donated by Greensea Systems, Inc.
May 1, 2015
The Mater Christi Makerspace located on the second floor of the MCS elementary building is home to a new community of makers. It was formed to provide space and materials for students and teachers to explore, make and share. Thanks to a lot of hard work on the part of adults in the MCS community, in particular, Mike Early, MCS technology director, and Tricia Finkle MCS Makerspace Consultant, the space […] Read more...
Makerspace: Mrs. Roger’s Kindergarten Students Extend Their Study of Light
April 9, 2015
Mrs. Rogers’ Kindergarten students visited the Mater Christi School Makerspace to extend their study of light. Students added a color changing LED to the end of their magic reading wands, used a white LED on a coin battery to explore transparent, translucent, opaque and reflective materials, and made sun catchers! Before coming to the makerspace, students read books about light and completed an activity “Where Does Light Come From?” In […] Read more...