If you can imagine it, you can build it! That is the inspiration for this project. Schools focus time ensuring students have the skills needed to be successful later in adult life, cultivating strong readers, and mathematicians. But, there is more! I want to provide more opportunities for innovation!
Our students come to us every morning ready to be engaged in learning.
They are little sponges soaking up every opportunity and experience.
We are a K-5, Title 1, elementary school servicing families at 92% poverty rate. We have a high mobility rate (an estimated 20-25%), losing or gaining 1-6 students per week. Our school also houses three Life Skills classrooms and one of the district's Emotionally Disabled elementary classrooms.
Knowing many of our students grow up in poverty, we provide breakfast, lunch, and a fresh fruit/vegetable every day. We have a backpack buddies program that provides food to families over the weekends. The majority of our students come to us in Kindergarten below grade level. It is our duty to get them back on track to be successful as we send them on to middle and high school.
My Project
Help us build the Be a Maker (BAM) Build Bunker, also known as the Bon Air Makerspace! A Makerspace is a place where students are given freedom to explore creativity and imagination, while solving problems using critical thinking skills. It is their ideas that will make our future brighter!
My students need standard Makerspace building materials (a Lego & KNEX set.), a SnapCircuits set, and a virtual building program-Zoo Tycoon. I will facilitate our Makerspace by providing 6 "build" stations. Each station will include a variety of materials from Legos to toothpicks for students to solve problems. Each station includes a project card for guidance. A typical project card may read, "Build a model shelter that can withstand natural forces. Describe the features of your shelter." Students are free to explore the materials in the Makerspace to solve the problem. Student solutions will be featured on our BAM Build Bunker Blog for others to view and comment. Projects will be tied to standards and current units of study. The Makerspace project will allow me to steer away from typical classroom assignments and make learning fun!
Your donation will get our Makerspace project off the ground.
These materials are the "staple supplies" typically seen in Makerspaces across the country. This is just the launching point of our project which will continue to expand in months to come. When the BAM Build Bunker opens, it will increase learning time in the classroom by providing an additional learning space/time for students. The project promotes freedom to explore students' natural curiosities using hands-on and virtual building.
More than half of students from low‑income households
Data about students' economic need comes from the National Center for Education Statistics, via our partners at MDR Education. Learn more
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As a teacher-founded nonprofit, we're trusted by thousands of teachers and supporters across the country. This classroom request for funding was created by Mrs. Hollingsworth and reviewed by the DonorsChoose team.