Outreach for Librarians: Make 'n Takes

Why Make 'N Takes in the Library?

There is always the age-old reason of make-people-feel-comfortable-in-the-library or so that the librarian becomes a familiar face that they will be comfortable with when they need assistance, but there's much more to having Make 'N Takes in the library.

Students have not been given the opportunity to be creative or to work with their hands.  They've not been given time to create, innovate, to make mistakes and fix them - or even just live with them.  Because art has often been removed from the k12 schools because of budgets and time spent working on high-stakes, standardized testing, students haven't had an opportunity to learn some of these necessary skills.  

• Creativity is a muscle that has to be exercised.  Creativity can be learned, but it must be practiced, and creative thinking flows over to other areas of their life - including their class work.
• Students don't know how to work with their hands, and this forces them to think critically about how they're going to accomplish something and to problem solve as well as the necessary small muscle skills.
• Our students often need things to be perfect.  As anyone who has ever worked on a creative project knows, what is in your head is not always what appears in your created project.  This creates frustration in students, so they need to learn to either fix their problem or to be satisfied with what they've created and not be a perfectionist.
• Art can be relaxing, and students can discover new hobbies.

Suggestions

Always take pictures of completed projects for future marketing use.

Try the project yourself before trying to do it with students.  If you have other people helping you or running the event, have them do the project once so that they see where the trouble spots are.

Make 'N Takes

Make-A-Thon

Why:  March is Craft Month + Makerspace concept = Make-A-Thon

Supplies:  Besides the supplies for each project, have an abundance of paper towels and large garbage cans.

How To:

This is a Make ‘N Take event on steroids since there will be multiple stations with different activities.

Things to Think About: 

• Each station will need at least one worker if not more.
• Leave one worker free to float from station to station to see if they need more supplies or temporary help.
• Don’t assign yourself a station.  This leaves you free to float around the room supervising, troubleshooting, and taking pictures.
• Students haven’t been given a chance to use their hands and be creative.  Consequently, students have to be reassured that their project is “good” even though it’s not coming out the way they initially wanted it to look and have to be taught the concept of “We don't make mistakes, just happy little accidents.” ~ Bob Ross
• This event is best held outside the library in a larger, multipurpose room.
• If you do this event year after year, you will want to rotate projects, although sometimes you’ll want to repeat projects because you have leftover supplies.

Projects

Projects need to be “Make and Take”.  You don’t want students leaving their projects and coming back to collect them later.

Projects that we have done:

• Button Maker
• Sharpie “watercolor” tiles
• Paint terracotta pots
• Make Pet Rocks
• Perler Beads
• Calming Bottles
• Glass Gem Magnets
• 3D Printer Demo
• Digital Scrapbooking

Pinterest is your friend for craft project ideas!