Our county was given a grant to put Makerspaces in all of the middle schools, primarily as support for the after school program. For our school we got approached to see if the library would want to run it and we jumped at the chance! 

Currently the Makerspace is open to students during their lunch period and twice a week during an after school Maker Club. It's in a small conference room off of the library, that has a window we can see into but cannot fit a ton of students. Small groups of students can be in the room but larger groups use tables outside of it to work.

Building a Makerspace is overwhelming, even with all the reading and touring other schools that I did. The thing I have learned the most is that you need to start small and build it up, to keep yourself from getting stressed and to put some structure in place that works for your school. We were forced to slow down as our materials have been delayed longer than anticipated (just got our first box in this week!) and it's given us time to adjust our original vision.

1. Focus first on putting systems & structures into place.

2. It's okay to put limits on the Makerspace use.

This has been our biggest challenge because ideally we would want students to have autonomy and freedom to create. We started with that and it was a disaster, both figuratively and literally. So many Perler Beads stuck in the carpet! We needed to figure out a management plan.

One of our big limits has been the total number of students allowed in the Makerspace during their lunch period. Students have access to all of the Makerspace materials but as the room is small and we have other students in the main library, limiting the number has helped us manage the Makerspace and helped students have more room to actually work. 

The other big limit is the number of options students have in our after school Maker Club. The short version is the first part of the year was chaos and it just was not working. We decided that having an open Maker Club was not working for us and instead limited students to 3 monthly options. This has not only cut down on some of the issues we were having but it also set clear expectations for the club.

 

student works in progress

3. Simple materials & projects are best to start off with.

Through the delay of our fancier materials and in conversations with other middle school librarians, we've discovered that students tend to gravitate towards the low tech options. This makes sense as it requires less of a learning curve and students can jump right into it without feeling intimidated. This also makes it easier to implement a Makerspace, both in planning and for the budget! 

The Perler Beads have been our most popular item, by far. We also have yarn, painting, and random supplies that students can use to build things (I emphasize "things"- I have no idea what some of these creations are!). Items like straws, popsicle sticks, and toliet roll tubes can be used for STEM activities as well. Start small and build both yourself and the students up to the more complicated items. 

this is a small portion of the toliet/paper towel rolls we've amassed!

4.  Collect basic materials and ask for donations.

There are a lot of recycled materials to just collect, namely pieces of cardboard, toliet or paper towel rolls, etc. We asked for donations from staff, which also helps get the word out that there is a Makerspace. These low cost materials are easy to gather and there are a lot of activities they can be used for. 

We also used our Buy Nothing groups on Facebook to get items and it's been amazing. We requested supplies but also just kept a lookout for items that could work. Through this we got all of our Perler Beads, as well as puzzles and random art supplies. We also posted to our friends that we were looking for items; don't be afraid to ask! 

None of these items were high tech but that goes along with #3. 

we pulled some of the books from our collection to display in our Maker library

5.  Create a plan for the year, with room for flexibility.

Our grand vision of the Makerspace has been altered a lot this year. We have changed the physical space of where we thought the Makerspace would be and of course had to change plans with the delay in materials. Having a loose big plan is good, especially when you have a grant to take advantage of! But how the Makerspace is built up and how it will be used will change as you get more comfortable with it.

Make a plan for each month, adjust it as you go, and realize you can go slow. All of the things do not need to happen all at once; leave room for the culture of a Makerspace to start to form in your school.