Makerspace in Special Education

Do you include Makerspace in your resource classroom?

I've been intrigued with the concept ever since I heard about it! I'm pretty sure every undergrad paper I ever wrote somehow included a quote from Howard Gardner #nerd

I kept the thought of offering Makerspace opportunities in my mind as a “someday” for quite awhile (too long!).

Why did I wait so long? 

Number 1 – I'm not a Science teacher nor STEM-certified

Number 2 – I'm not a classroom teacher, either!

I am a special educator. I love my students, push them to do their best, and collect lots of data.

So I pushed the thoughts of using discovery learning and design to the back of my mind…for awhile.

Now may be reading along and wondering now:

“What is Makerspace anyway and why is she so interested in it?”

Makerspace involves hands-on learning (if you've been following me, you know that's my jam!) and student-led discovery. Activities include engineering, coding, technology…but not in these pre-packaged lesson-plans-with-a-rubric style. Makerspace involves using the enviroment around you – the possibilities are endless for the curious mind!

If my description still leaves you wanting more (I totally understand and not offended, lol), I recommend doing a quick search for Makerspace in Education and “classroom makerspace.”

Incorporating Makerspace in the Resource Room Setting

Last year my curiosity finally got the best of me and I decided to incorporate makerspace into my students' learning.

Specifically, I used the concept during our center rotations.

I tweaked a bit here and there to make sure we were still focusing on learning along with our goals and objectives, PLUS I came up with an idea to “keep it altogether” in the resource room:

You may remember reading about how I fancied up my “TEACHER” toolbox to incorporate learning center activities – you can read it HERE!

I decided to take the same idea to store all the makerspace materials!

There are drawers with labels to store hands-on tools, like playdough, cubes, and nature materials. I also use about half of the drawers to include tasks (“build a log cabin” and “design a new cookie”) and my favorite, “Build a Game.”

Here's a closer look at the Winter Makerspace Toolbox:

These tasks provide a bit of structure which some students gravitate towards, while others are all fired up and ready to go!

You can check out all the seasonal Makerspace sets HERE.

I hope that using seasonal materials will help my students connect a bit more with the environment and see the possibility outside of the classroom walls!

Should I make an “all year” kit? I'm thinking…YES!

I'd love to hear how makerspace learning is going in your classroom!