This one of those posts that will inspire you and your kids to create together! This article’s main goals are for you to understand what a make space is, why it is so important to get your children involved with one, and for all of you to create at least one of these super creative and engaging projects.
A makerspace can be the ultimate place to put collaborative learning into practice, and to give your kids the right tools to build a better future after only imagining it before. But what exactly is a makerspace and how easy is it to have one at home? Let’s begin!
What is a “Makerspace”?
According to the site Makerspaces.com, a makerspace is a “collaborative workspace inside a school, library or separate public/private facility for making, learning, exploring and sharing that uses high tech to no tech tools. These spaces are open to kids, adults, and entrepreneurs and have a variety of maker equipment including 3D printers, laser cutters, and even sewing machines. A makerspace, however, doesn’t need to include all of these machines or even any of them to be considered a makerspace. If you have cardboard, Lego and art supplies you’re in business.”
In other words, a makerspace is a space built, designed and fully dedicated to hands-on learning, and to strengthening creativity. Those who participate in a makerspace are, at some point or another, creating a product, whether it is digital or physical, but a product.
What could your kids learn from learning in a makerspace?
Participating in a makerspace will require from your kids to do a number of things that will help them develop 21st-century skills. Teamwork and creativity are the most basic ones, but quite a lot of critical and analytical skill will be needed in the creation process.
Having one of these spaces at home is possible! Make sure to have enough material to begin with so your children can explore the different possible areas, and then you guys can decide together in which specific area you’d like to swim a bit deeper.
Your own makerspace can grow at a slow pace, and there are several tools available to complement this learning process, so don’t worry! You are not alone.
3 amazing projects to do with your kids at your Makerspace
Now, we’d like to show you some simple projects that you can do at home with your kids. These projects aim to light the inspirational bulb in your kids’ hearts and enable them to grab any project they might want to do, and actually do it!
Take a look at these 3 amazing projects, and start getting ready to see the excitement on your kids’ surprised face.
An electric circuit through paper
In this short video, you can find all the explanation you need to make an electric circuit in paper with your kids. This can easily be the 1st project you guys do in your brand new makerspace. Ready to see? Click the play button!
Watching a movie? Make popcorn in a recycled can!
Are you planning on watching a movie with the entire family this upcoming weekend? Start a bit earlier, and prepare the popcorn in a recycled can of soda. Yes! Your kids can now recycle a can and turn it into an amazing, portable popcorn machine!
Project your kids’ movies onto your wall, with a shoebox!
So your kids just created an amazing short film in our YouTubers course? Amazing! It is time to share it with the entire family. Take their project one step forward, and build a projector with an unused shoebox! Don’t know where to start? Take a look at this explanatory video!
Give them the right tools to succeed in tomorrow’s world
Your kids will have to face challenges you are not even aware of. The world is changing, and with it, the required skills to successfully penetrate the workforce of the future. Whether they want to be independent and create their own ideas while leading the process, or if they want to work for someone else, they’ll be required to know more than what society asked of you.
To make sure they develop the right 21st century skills, programming can be a phenomenal companion to their learning process. It will give them even more tools to strengthen their critical thinking, creativity, teamwork, and analytical thinking, among others.
Register them to learn how to code in one of our live, hands-on learning coding lessons. Our supportive, open environment with our trained instructors will make sure they not only learn, but also, they’ll discover more things about themselves in the process. Want to try? Enroll them today, and let yourself be surprised with their results tomorrow.
