D-cell batteries power a flickering of miniature light bulbs across a kindergarten classroom. Intermittent, high-pitched alarms sound as little fingers discover the joy of closing their own circuit. These sounds are not the result of an electrician at work. Rather, early-elementary students are exploring and testing new-found theories in electrical circuitry in the Makers session they have selected.
Look closer and you see one particular team of three students, comprised of kindergarten through second graders, begin to apply what they are learning in electrical circuitry with a particular, innovative wonder. The emerging leader of this small group happens to be a student who has not previously found academic success in the traditional sense. He receives support services for reading instruction and phonemic awareness work. However, on this day, he is leading his pack of learners.
Using their provided battery, an extra alligator clip, some wires and their alarm, this team of young children tape their contraption to the classroom door and excitedly create a functional burglar alarm. The teachers of the session beam with pride as they witness the results of these students’ scientific wonderings and explorations.
Welcome to Makers Week.
Alternative Learning Activities
Elementary students at Holland Christian (Holland, MI) spend a week engaged in alternative learning during Makers Week. They devote each morning to solving problems, exploring various technologies, building their own inventions, and ultimately teaming up to more deeply discover who God created them to be as learners.
God, our Maker, is a creative God. We seek to provide learning opportunities to celebrate the innovation and creativity of His young image-bearers through this style of learning. Students collaborate as members of a team of mixed-aged students. Their goals in each session are to solve problems, explore scientific principles, encourage one another with alternate ideas when failure is encountered, and celebrate their God-given gifts of designing, complex planning, and working within a supportive community.
Creativity and Exploration in Education
Christian schools are responsible for celebrating and enriching each uniquely created student. Every child’s God-given gift of curiosity, creativity, and capacity for innovation is to be nurtured and developed. By allowing a student’s imagination to flourish, educators enrich the learning experiences rather than stifling a student’s “out-of-the-box” thinking. Young children have an extraordinary capacity for creativity, and they often use it unabashedly as image-bearers of their Creator. From the opening chapter of the Bible throughout Scripture, we learn that God is creative and students were made to reflect this creative spirit. This capacity for creativity, problem-solving skills, and innovation will carry students successfully into the future.
Because our life in the present day is changing at a breakneck pace, educators must be certain that they are providing learning experiences to prepare students for a future that is technologically rich and full of innovation. Students’ learning should not mirror the learning we experienced in grade school lest we prepare them for the past rather than the future. Rather, today more than ever, we have to teach our students how to learn, not what to learn, and how to be invigorated and confident in that ability.
It can be challenging, if not intimidating, to find the time in the school day or flow of the school year to pack in more. We understand. We had the same hesitation. Elementary educators know the reality that teaching standards continue to push, expecting more and more demonstrated learning from younger children. But we have found that Makers Week is a gentle introduction into innovative learning for both students and teachers. By setting aside one week of mornings, teachers are able to bear witness to children learning in active, inventive ways without feeling that they’ve had to “give up” too much time and space in the flow of their timelines and goals. In fact, we have found that many teachers begin to infuse their students’ learning with Maker experiences after they see the passion and enthusiasm in the eyes and hearts of their children.
Running a Makers Week
But buyer beware, Makers Week is really messy. LEGOs are all over the floor. Kiddie pools splash down the hall with soggy tinfoil boats. Marble runs are duct taped to the walls to hold up toilet paper tubes, foam, and PVC pipes. Flashing robots roll around underfoot.
But it’s beautiful too.
We are embracing the mess because there are gems to be found in that mess. Children are discovering their God by freely exploring His world in new ways. They play with physical principles that lead us to marvel at God’s greatness.
Makers Week is run similarly to a kid play conference. Students choose four out of eleven or twelve different STEM sessions they’re interested in exploring, and then they spend time in a different session with different schoolmates each day of the week. They’re placed in mixed grade level teams (kindergarten through third graders are grouped together as are fourth through sixth graders). Together they figure things out, problem solve, and create. Students learn social skills, communication skills, patience, self-awareness, and fine and gross motor skills. They then play with concepts such as coding, engineering, physics, and technology.
Teachers serve as guides, coaches from behind the scenes who ask prompting questions, carefully scaffolding the experience. Teachers choose not to provide the “right answers” for students but rather allow children to discover through trial. Students are given the space to explore and to develop their own knowledge and abilities.
Yes, students get frustrated watching their ideas fail, fall off the wall, or sink under the water. Sometimes the coding doesn’t work. The robot won’t move.
But then the students begin to problem solve together and learn to lean on each other. They get ideas from other groups and improve on them.
Pine Ridge third grade teacher Lynae Stielstra understands the significance of letting students make mistakes. “We live in a generation when kids think there’s only one right answer. If they make a mistake, it sends students into a tailspin. Through Makers Week they learn how to work through a failure, how to learn through trial and error.”
Makers Week is a way of tying the national Makers Movement into our local Christian education. As Christian educators, we are called on to consistently and authentically expose the greatness of God using our curricula as a tool. We teach our children to reflect on how we, as stewards of the King, use scientific knowledge to glorify God. How can we further God’s kingdom with the ever-changing technological tools in our world? We believe children should question and use critical thoughts to honor God in all things. As image bearers, we are on an endless journey to discover and understand our great God.
Visit again the kindergarten classroom with bulbs, batteries, and buzzing. Here we see students who have followed their wonderings, persevered through failed ideas, and found success. Through exploration and experimentation, they are discovering more about themselves as uniquely gifted learners. Children find they often learn more effectively when in community. Ultimately, our students discover how God has uniquely created them and how He displays Himself profoundly in our universe.
Miska Rynsburger is elementary principal at Holland Christian’s South Side Christian School in Holland, MI.
