Menu
Thank you, April Danielle Lewis for choosing Liberty Tech Kids as one of your partners for Labodies Safe and Sound performance piece for the Greater Mondawmin installment of Neighborhood LIghts for Light City, Baltimore 2017.
0 Comments
Combining materials exploration, photography, filmmaking and songwriting, our students formed production teams! They developed animated shorts using origami and additional paper puppets to tell a mini story. Teams each developed frames for mini scenes that were combined to tell one story. We then listened to a variety of songs to identify instruments we would mimic with found objects (plastic cups, shoeboxes, tins). We discussed how surface area affected tone and students experimented with making their own drum kits and microphones!
We sprang into spring with materials exploration! These pre-engineering challenges had students exploring how materials, shape, and weight affected a vehicle's performance. We had a foil boat regatta where boats were molded out of tin foil and their strength was tested in how many pennies it could contain before sinking!
Students took a deep dive into the world of game design! Working in teams of developers and designers, students identified their strengths in designing a videogame as a team. Designers used shapes to build vector graphics while developers unscrambled code needed for their type of game: racing, platform, or virtual pet. By working in teams, they were able to gain bonus soft skills used in game design teams and software development teams in real life!
Makerfaire 3 was a smashing success! Student designed from start to finish, this year focused heavily on transforming the space into a movie theater for "Lights, Camera, Action!" Parents shot movies and students screened their photography and film work in the Idea Lab. It was beautiful watching students bring their sketches to life and put their paper patterns to good use to create banners, sinage and seat covers!
In order to transform the Idea Lab into a movie theater for Makerfaire 4's theme of "Lights, Camera, Action", we created patterns. After measuring how much paper they would need using copy paper, student teams used theses measurements to cut their final banners, signs and seat covers out of bulliten board paper. Students also developed checklists for "All About Me" Google Slide presentations.
Students created a story from a grab bag of found images or their own stories and drawings to create the backdrops of their movie trailer. We discussed how design can influence sequencing to create a trailer with a beginning, middle and cliffhanger. Color, line and framing were used to create dramatic effects. These trailers were then performed in the "Green Screen Theater", framed by student photographers, exercising their skills from our Narrative Photography unit!
In October, we focused on using photography as a form of storytelling. Students researched examples of forced perspective and camera angles and worked in teams to create compelling shots!
Year two is underway! Thank you to our families who made their voices heard. This month, we focused on mini activities exploring sound and light, making mini projectors, mini speakers and light up business cards!
Capping off year one of Tech Kids with our second Makerfaire, partnering with Liberty STEAM night! Students facilitated stations on making kites, lanterns, garage band beats and board games. To close the evening, we tested the strength of our fortresses with a catapult competition.
|
AuthorKathleen Mazurek
Categories |