In my district we started with a STEM lab, which was later renamed the STEAM lab, which is now called STEAM with robotics. Some districts call this STREAM. If you teach long enough you already know that each political administration likes to rename things and you have seen many different names or acronyms in your career :) I wanted to create something in my room that was going to be easy for the kids to remember, somewhere they would be excited to work in and something that could fit with any standards. This is how I came up Tinker ~ Create ~ Innovate.
Over the past few years I began to create stations and lesson ideas to use during science and math. A few years ago I even made science one of my rotations during guided math which I called STEAM. Here is a picture of my rotation board and other rotation boards in my TpT store.
Since the start I watched and listened to the kids excitement for their weekly visit to the steam lab and their enthusiasm when they were able to use the steam stations in our classroom. I wanted to see that same excitement and enthusiasm everyday so this year I created a Maker Space in my classroom. I am so excited about how it came out and my kids are too!
I created 100 supply labels and posters for the bulletin board. The posters on the bulletin board are on rings by topic since there is not enough room to hang everything. I just flip to what I need or open the ring and separate them for the lesson. I even created a STEAM team and gave them names to help the kids make connections to each discipline.
This year I will be sharing my new space and all the exciting lessons and activities we do there. With more and more standards and testing requirements than in the past I love to integrate lessons for science, math and reading. There is never enough time for everything unless we make these cross-curricular connections.
I hope you come back to Tinker ~ Create ~ Innovate with us!!
