Early years settings and schools

In the Sheffield MakEY project, pop-up makerspaces were organised in two nurseries and two primary school settings. The following provides a brief overview of the activities undertaken.

Broomhall Nursery School

In this project, three and four-year-old children engaged in a project on ‘Light and Colour’. They learned how to make complete circuits using batteries, LED lights and leads. They used the circuits in a range of creative projects, such as making torches, which were then used to create lightshows in a black-out tent using an app named ‘Pablo’. The nursery staff reported, in figure 1, how these were then used to create calendars to send home for Christmas.

Clifford Church of England Primary School

A class of year two children, aged six and seven, engaged in a project based on the Moomin stories, a Finnish series. The week-long project began with a puppet show about the Moomins, presented by a professional theatre company. The children created clay models of Moomin characters, which were then formed into 3D computer-designed models using an app named ‘Qlone’.

The virtual models were imported into the Google Virtual Reality app ‘Tilt Brush’, which the children used to create VR Moomin landscapes. The children also drew Moomin characters, that were laser cut by a local maker, James Wallbank, and they used these to populate shoebox theatres that lit up (see figure 2). They wrote playscripts for their theatres.

Finally, the children made animated films starring their Moomin 3D-printed models, which were printed from the Qlone files. Their learning ranged across the subjects of science, technology, and literacy.

Monteney Primary School

A nursery class took part in this project. The three and four-year-olds worked on re-creating their neighbourhood in models. They built model houses with their parents, then created a light for their houses using copper tape, LED lights and batteries. Following this, the children created lampposts using the same techniques, then completed their neighbourhood by building Christmas trees with flashing lights! The children used green screen technology to create films in which they sang Christmas carols in front of forests of the trees (see figure 3).

The project developed children’s skills and knowledge relating to electric circuits, and art and design.

Norfolk Community Primary School

In this project, a year three class of seven and eight-year-old children created imaginary playscapes. They first captured favourite play spaces in the neighbourhood using a tablet camera, then created collages of these spaces. They built a clay model of a play object to take into their imaginary play space, which were then formed into 3D computer-designed models using the ‘Qlone’ app. The virtual models were imported into the Google Virtual Reality app ‘Tilt Brush’ and the children created imaginary play spaces in this virtual world (see figure 4).

This project developed creativity and sills in technology and design.

The case studies concluded with a public display of the work in the Sheffield Winter Gardens in June 2018 and guidance on setting up a makerspace in schools has been developed.

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