FABClassroom: Fabricating the City of Ember

For this week's FabClassroom we head over to Boyden Elementary School in Walpole, MA.

Cheryl Ivatts is a fourth grade teacher and her students recently embarked on a Fab@School Maker Studio journey mapping out the City of Ember.  

“We are an active, curious fourth grade classroom in Walpole, MA. Letting students create and explore on their own is a driving force in our daily routine. I read the book “City of Ember,” written by Jeanne Duprau as a read-aloud to the class a few months ago. The kids loved the book and were hanging on every word.

With none of the kids having read the book yet they were experiencing it together and trying to unlock the mystery in it. Realizing how much could be done with this story and wanting  to let them show their vision I gave them free reign to design a bulletin board to match that vision.

They knew they needed buildings, roads and pipes. Having seen Fabmaker used in the school previously and with the help of Nancy Carroll, our Digital Learning Coach, the kids each designed a building to go on the board. Next they knew they needed lanterns so those were made using the Fabmaker also. The next thing was the pipeworks this was made using the cylinders and then the kids even were able to have blue colored water put in ziploc bags and placed in the pipes!

As I finished reading the book they begged for me to read the next in the series – “The People Of Sparks,” and when I said I would be reading a different book many went out and found the book on their own and read it. I do believe that the excitement around the bulletin board pushed many to read it because they were able to connect to the book on the next level.

One of the aha moments was when they were all working on parts of the board in groups chosen by them and working on building parts of the board thought out by them. Giving up control while showing them the resources available was the best way to unleash their creativity!”

Is your classroom a FabClassroom? We would love to feature your school! To be featured in an upcoming post, send an email to info@fablevisionlearning.com You can also tweet your photos with the hashtag #FabMakerStudio! For more posts featuring Fab@School Maker Studio, click here.

FabFriday: From Snow Forts to Bees, First Graders Design with Fab@School Maker Studio

Welcome to FabFriday, a blog series that highlights Fab@School Maker Studio in the classroom. For this week's FabFriday we meet Karen Wolff's first grade class at the Boyden School in Walpole, Ma. This post first appeared on Mrs. Wolff's blog, The Wolff Den. 

What a fun week we had building a snow fort! The idea started by exploring with Fab@School Maker Studio software on our Chromebooks.  We experimented with different shapes and connected them. From there, we learned how to make 3-D solids. We were going to create a snow village with our solids, but instead decided to build a snow fort!  We started by creating cubes with the Fab@School Maker Studio, but found that they were too small to build with. We even tried gluing magnets in the cubes to make they stick together, but in the end decided on choosing another solid – rectangular prisms. We went back to the Chromebooks and figured out how to create them and then built our snow fort!

We also created snowflakes to use with the Bee-Bots.

Speaking of bees, we read a story about Honey Bees this week. We learned about the long “u” sound and the two sounds “y” can make at the end of a word. For example, in the word “sunny,” the “y” sound like an “e," but in the word, “fly,” the “y” sounds like an “i.” We also talked about the life cycle of honey bees. We diagramed the bee life cycle using Kid Pix and learned about the anatomy of a bee by creating them with the Fab@School Maker Studio.

In math, we are working with fact families. We learned that all fact families have  three numbers. We can make two addition sentences and two subtraction sentences with the same three numbers.

In social studies we’ve been learning about oceans and continents. We know there are different kinds of land, like plains and mountains and different types of water, like rivers and lakes. We also talked about natural resources like water and wood.

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How is your classroom using Fab@School Maker Studio? We'd love to share YOUR tips and ideas! For more FabFriday posts, click here. Send your photos to info@FableVisionLearning.com for a chance to have them featured on the next FabFriday!