Recently, I was in need of some grid paper. Not x-y graph paper, but paper with squares and dots on it. And I wanted 11×17 capability. There are many online where you can choose what grids/dots you want , then download and print. Here are a couple :

https://print-graph-paper.com/

https://incompetech.com/graphpaper/

This second one has a great variety of paper layouts, and is where I got an iso-dot paper (but only 8.5×11)

I believe it is Chris Woods (dailySTEM ) who has suggested that you should always have a stack of grid & iso dot paper handy for kids to randomly sketch ideas.
I agree

I also came across a virtual grid paper drawing tool…

https://virtual-graph-paper.com/

and a cool virtual isometric drawing tool (from Chris’ website)

https://www.nctm.org/tools/mathresources/NCTM_IsoDrawing.html

Eastern Green Middle School 6th Graders are reading The Last Beekeeper

I took my cardboard tools, assorted cardboard and craft materials (pipe cleaners, craft sticks, straws, coffee stirrers, buttons, pom poms, batteries & bulbs)) to them. Their task was to make something important from the book.

They were new to the cardboard tools, so those were a big hit. They were also very excited to be making anything they wanted. There were a variety of bees & hives, drone bees, drones, night cat, wrist communicator…

We chatted a little about what they were building and why but the next day they had to describe to the class the importance to the story of what they made.

Eastern Greene Schools had a community fun run on a Saturday at their track.
I set up a variety of activities
Of course there was paper circuits. I also had some necklace trinkets (fairies, gnomes, thunderbird) to make a necklace. PVC pipes for construction. But the most popular was string art.

It was a chilly & damp day, so not as many people came as expected, but I had 2 dozen kids stop and do something and talked with half dozen adults. I got to meet an administrator and a couple of teachers

One of the projects we have been working on is “hands”

The pre-school traced their hands and “signed” them. Our job was to cut it out of wood for an ornament. We took pictures, removed the background using RemoveBG, imported that file into Lightburn and traced it. Often we had to adjust the trace specs to close vectors.

Sometimes we had to edit that vector file because the name touched the outline of the hand. We used edit nodes to break some paths and delete some nodes. It took a little bit  of pre-processing to get them all ready for lasering

We also did an afterschool session of cardboard construction of a “gingerbread house”. They used cardboard cutters, hot glue, craft sticks, straws, pipe cleaners to get some semblance of a gingerbread house. Not everyone got done.

I laser cut some gingerbread people that they could add to their house

Some students at Owen Valley High School formed a group to raise money to help rebuild a bridge at McCormick’s Creek State Park. I had spoken with 1 student and the librarian about sublimation and they asked if they could borrow my equipment in order to sublimate some products to sell at the Christmas on the Square in Spencer. I took my printer and heat presses to them, showed them how  to do it , then left it for a couple of weeks. They used pictures that they had taken and made some tumblers, coffee mugs, canvas totes, cosmetic pouches, garden flags and earrings.

 

I took their logo and laser cut some wood & acrylic… badge size and keychain size

I got a little behind in posting my travels, so the next few posts are out of chronological order.

…

I will get back in order in January.

I got in my sleigh and headed South to Crawford County.

We landed at East Crawford Elementary, in a Fourth Grade classroom.

We got to talk about electricity and find out what ideas or words or people they already knew. They hit upon how we use electricity for almost everything, how it is made (corrected to generated),conductors, insulators, copper,  batteries, positive & negative ends…
Occasionally there are some misconceptions (Edison did NOT invent the light bulb, he came up with a long lasting, easy to produce filament; Ben Franklin did NOT invent electricity, he proved that lightning is electricity).

Then we got to using it with a battery and some LED’s. The challenge was to light up an LED with one battery, then more, then explore various color combinations. After they had some time with that we got down to making paper circuits with out LED, battery and some copper tape

6th grade Language Arts students at Eastern Greene Middle School had a research project about Christmas customs & traditions from a country not the United States. When I came in, it was to help them create something digitally with imagery that would tell about the customs/traditions that they found for their country. Many used tinkercad, as it is a new tool that they are exploring. Some used canva. There was Kentucky Fried Chicken, Christmas Goat, Krampus, presents in shoes, special cakes/foods, words in different languages…

The next day (i was not there) they had to present to the class what they designed and why it was important to that country.

a sampling :

I got to get a class at Linton Stockton Elementary started in their coding journey with the Root robot. We use them on the floor, though I have been told they will stick to a vertical whiteboard.

We started off exploring the browser interface. Their task was to start the robot in the bottom left square and make the it travel around the grid in a rectangle and get back to where it started. There was lots of exploration with the blocks. Only a couple of groups accomplished the task, the rest got pretty close. Then we paired the actual robots and made it happen on the grid mat. Eventually, we asked them to add some music or colored lights. The excitement when things got moving AND they could add lights or sound! They all worked diligently for an hour…and could have gone on longer (but they had somewhere else to be).

I spent the morning (12/14) at the Orleans Public Library for the Orleans Christmas on the Square pre-event. They had a small craft for kids to do and I had paper circuits with a Christmas theme. I used templates from Makerspaces.com (https://www.makerspaces.com/make-christmas-light-up-cards ) (these are nice because they print on the backside where to put copper tape and light and battery)

Families dropped in throughout the morning and into the afternoon. In total we had 20 kids (elementary age) and a dozen parents. One parent took 5 home for the kids who were at play practice

More to come at Orleans Public Library in 2025