Makerspace

Create These 5 Fantastic Devices That Move

Are you teaching a unit about simple machines or things that move? Use these tried and tested recipes to help get you started with student friendly instructions for devices that your students can build and test as part of their science units or makerspace. Come have a read!

One of the best sciences units includes making devices that move. One of the best things about teaching science is having students create amazing things when they are just left with their knowledge and their creativity. We love to foster this type of learning in our classroom.

If you teach simple machines, then there are so many different opportunities to have students create and build exciting contraptions. We pulled together a list of ideas and a few of our favourite recipes for devices that move to make your search quick and painless.

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Astronomy Lessons That Are Out of This World

by Brain Ninjas

Are you trying to find lessons for your space or astronomy unit? We gathered up our best lessons that inspire your students to research, learn, create and inquire about all thing space including stars, planets, space travel and astronauts. Come take a look and get your science lessons planned for the whole unit!

Ever since I can remember, the objects in space have fascinated me. Whether learning about Halley’s Comet in science class or taking astronomy lessons while in university, it has always been exciting to learn about the different objects in the Universe.

As an adult, learning about the different ways cultures talk about objects in space has been even more interesting. During a trip to Australia, the stories of the people who lived in the Luritja lands were shared during an astronomy presentation. It was the first time I had an appreciation that the Greek-named constellations and the stories I had learned growing up weren’t the first stories to be told about the stars. At that time, I started seeking out the stories told by Indigenous People across North America.

That is when I decided there were many more astronomy lessons to be learned in the classroom. Read on to see some of the lessons we use in our classroom.

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Why Should You Build Makerspaces Immediately?

by Brain Ninjas

Makerspaces give your students the change to be creative, solve problems and learn in new ways. They add to your STEM, STEAM, science or art lessons too. Still not sure why you should have a makerspace? Check out this post!

Makerspaces. They seem to be all the buzz, but the concept that drives them isn’t new. For many years, we’ve been focused on directing every moment of our students’ lives. As parents, the lives of children are scheduled to the point they never have a moment to decide for themselves what to do. As teachers, if our students don’t look like they’re working, we worry that someone will think they aren’t learning. So when did we decide as adults that play is a bad thing?

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How to Escalate Your Chemistry Experiments

by Brain Ninjas

Are you looking for some simple and easy chemistry experiments that can be done safely in the classroom with household materials? We've got lots of resources for you. Come read!

Our classroom chemistry unit is one of our favourites to teach because it allows for so many opportunities for students to explore and experiment. Sometimes, we let students explore on their own by posing questions to them. Other times, we demonstrate experiments. Either way, experiments take a bit of work to set up, do, and clean up. Don’t let that stop you. Here are some of our favourite chemistry experiments!

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Mastering the Angles: Innovative Approaches to Teaching Geometry Concepts

by Brain Ninjas

Are you looking for ways to teach geometry concepts in your upper elementary classroom? This is one of our favourite units. We teach 2D shapes, 3D objects and transformations with interactive math notebooks, task cards, Boom Cards and a huge project where we build an arcade. It's so much fun! Come see how we do this in our math class.

When we start talking about quadrilaterals, trapezoids, and parallel lines, many students get lost quickly. There are so many new and uncommon words introduced in our geometry concepts unit and it is especially difficult for English Language Learners. These are some of the ways we build an understanding of shape and space concepts in our classroom.

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Engaging Weather Lessons All in One Place

by Brain Ninjas

If you are looking for weather experiments, lessons and activities for Canadian classrooms for grades 3-6, this post is for you.

Are you tired of wasting your valuable time searching high and low for the weather lessons you need for your upper elementary students? There are so many weather activities all over Pinterest, but we find most of the weather lessons are for preschoolers, which is not exactly what our students need.

We focus on creating materials for teachers who teach the same things to the same age we do. Most of what we create comes from not being able to find what we need. Weather worksheets are just plain boring and not at all aligned with our teaching style, so we’ve created weather experiments and activities that we use in our classroom. We want to help you by putting everything in one place so you don’t have to use all your time collecting lessons from all over the place.

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How to Create Wooden Ornaments for Christmas

by Brain Ninjas

Create these adorable wooden Christmas ornaments using recycled game pieces and a little paint. Step by step instructions and design ideas are included

Have you ever seen something in a store and thought, “I can make that for way less money?” Maybe. Or, have you ever thought, “Wouldn’t it just be easier for me to buy it instead of making it?” That’s how we’ve usually felt looking for wooden ornaments for Christmas.

We accidentally made these little Christmas ornaments and they turned out so cute that we knew we had to write about them so others could make their own. This project started completely by accident, but sometimes, the happiest of accidents turn out to be blessings in disguise. So, this is our path to making some wooden ornaments from recycled game pieces, but you can take a few shortcuts with our lesson below.

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How to Make Christmas Wreaths With Recycled Materials

by Brain Ninjas

This simple lesson can be done by anyone using recycled fabric. It makes a great Christmas gift from your students to their parents. Come read through all the instructions and make one for yourself and check out some of our other Christmas crafts.

Here is a great activity your students can do that is both environmentally friendly and makes a wonderful Christmas gift. If you plan on using this as a Christmas gift from your students to their families, you’re going to want to start collecting the materials a few months in advance so that you have enough pieces.

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How to Create Recycled Paper Ornaments

by Brain Ninjas

Use up all that paper laying around your classroom and make some great ornaments that make great gifts! These make great Christmas or Earth Day crafts.

Here’s a little task you can give to your students to make an environmentally friendly Christmas tree ornament. Using recycled paper products is good for the environment, especially if parents keep the ornaments that are created for generations. It’s especially great if you have lots of extra paper lying around. Rescue it from the recycling bin and use it to make the holidays a little brighter.

This is a great task to put into your makerspace for the month of December, but you can make these any time of year if your paper isn’t seasonal.

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How to Host a Maker Walk

by Brain Ninjas

Create an opportunity for your makers to show off their creative sides by hosting a Maker Walk. We' veput together a planning guide to get you started. Come check it out-so easy and fun!

Are your students using your makerspace and now you want to show off their hard work? Host a Maker Walk. Picture a science fair, but so much cooler because it’s filled with the creations your students made in your makerspace!

This can be done with the school’s makerspace or you can just use the creations your students have created from your classroom’s makerspace (like us),

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How to Work Through the Design Process

by Brain Ninjas

The design process is useful for working through a problem. We use it in science and in our makerspace. Come learn about the process and get some design thinking posters for your classroom.

Here’s a quick lesson you can do with your students to learn how to use your Makerspace while teaching students to enjoy the process of solving problems. Problem-solving is a skill that needs to be taught, learned, and practiced. The design process uses simple steps to help alleviate frustration between creating, testing and refining. When all of your students have a common language, it can help facilitate conversations between them. Come learn how we use the design process in our classroom.

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What Goes in a Makerspace?

by Brain Ninjas

Check out this great list of imakerspace supplies to fill your makerspace! Get creative and have some fun. The best part is that you probably already have so many things in our list. Come read it!

You’ve decided to have a makerspace because you understand the value of the learning that can take place. If you aren’t quite sure, maybe you should go back to our post: Why Should You Build Makerspaces Immediately? It talks about the reasons a makerspace can be valuable in your school or classroom.

What should you put in it? Anything you want. Start small. We put out origami paper and a book during the first week just to see what would happen. (Turns out the answer to that question is lots of paper frogs.) But seriously, we made a list of potential makerspace supplies.

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