As parents and maybe teachers will ponder, why don’t we get the best out of people?
Sir Ken Robinson (A visionary cultural leader) once said that it’s because we’ve been educated to become good workers, rather than creative thinkers. Students with restless minds and bodies, are far from being cultivated for their energy and curiosity. “We are educating people out of their creativity,” Robinson said.
It’s a message with deep resonance. The Little Makers engage and provoke the learning patterns that children have, by nature since birth. Our vision and mission drives us to not only excel in STEM education, but pioneering STEAM in Malaysia. We believe in activating children curiosity, creativity and individuality, through a series of well-structured STEAM education programs.
All our weekend classes are featured with monthly theme. October 2018 was a story on Biology (Respiration / Respiratory system) to tell, we visited the 5 kingdoms of living things on its respiration and respiratory system – all happened in our weekend classes.
1st week of Oct we were running Maker’s lab with “Yeast”! Yeast can grow? How does it breathe? Where the air goes to? Can you smell / taste it? We opened the wonderful sensory of the children, bringing their imagination towards single-celled microorganisms classified as members of the fungus kingdom.
2nd week of Oct we were running Maker’s lab with “Plant” and discussed about the presence of o2 in the air through combustion experiment. We further deliberated on cellular respiration, on how the cell uses oxygen to break down molecule of glucose. Do you know what is produced as a result when the sugar is broken down? Do you know how the energy, water, and carbon dioxide produced is? This lead is to discuss on photosynthesis of plant in the class.
3rd week of Oct we were running Maker’s lab with “Gills”. Most fishes exchange dissolved oxygen and carbon dioxide in water by means of the gills, children get to understand respiration and respiratory system through “Gills”, with STEM discussion on operculum, pectoral fin and Fish Organ Systems. We let children lead the “Post-Mortem Examinations”, working as super-sleuth forensics teams in studying Life Science.
Last week of Oct the Makers went into seeing, touching and feeling at mammal’s lung. Many of us don’t usually notice, that you are taking breathe in twelve to twenty times per minute, day after day, you breathe — thanks to your body’s respiratory system. Your lungs expand and contract, supplying life-sustaining oxygen to your body and removing carbon dioxide from it, after absorbing oxygen, your lung will filled with blood resulted its color moved to red, the blood then leaves the lungs and is carried to your heart.
End of Oct marks the time of year again, when the air gets colder and the pumpkin-flavored smell everywhere. A month that gives us the fun holiday that are family-oriented, but “The Little Makers” make the day even more memorable to the children, we made time out for Magic. Our beautiful sorceresses was flavoring S, T, E, A and M into the magic powder, transforming the class into the Maker’s Halloween, where the children made to cute and creepy “Makers”. We have a great selection of magic to freak out the spectators (with grin).
“Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world, and beyond.” It’s a message with deep resonance. That’s the reason why we let our students to be “Makers”, painting their own imagination. Our children see magic because they look for it.
The advancement of technology is making electronics play a critical role in our quality of life. From making small toys to attaching components on an aviation machine, there are many examples where we need to do soldering to make a technology works as it should, this lead us to Maker’s electronic and light festival in November 2018, it was such a captivating month.
On top of our service offers on robotics class / kits to our Makers (which will consume higher level skills), we start our student the right way from the fundamental -> Soldering Training (Lesson 101).
1st week of Nov we combined ideas formed from Biology (Oct’2018) + Electricity (Nov’2018) in our Maker’s Lab. Leading children from the Respiratory / Respiration system with our Biology theme in October, converging on Fish-Gills, we stepped into making a fish prototype with string led in the class.
What’s a string led exactly? String led is the smallest led that we have now compared with Edison Incandescent Light. With its small and waterproof structure, we wired it to form the lateral tangential of the fish, making the “Edison First Light Fish of 2018”. Edison’s experiments were guided by his remarkable intuition, one of his greatest contribution to the modern industrial world came from his work in electricity. American inventor Thomas Alva Edison, in the first public demonstration of his incandescent light bulb, he lighted up a street in Menlo Park, New Jersey. Although the first incandescent lamp had been produced earlier, no inventor had been able to come up with a practical design until Edison embraced the challenge in the late 1870s.
One of Edison’s favoured quotes, “That’s a way to do it better, find it”. It drives us to continually innovate in our ideas. With a good understanding on children thought process and learning patterns, we aim at leading the best experience out, from our children, the future’s Makers.
After the making of “Edison First Light Fish of 2018” last week, in the 2nd week of November, our Makers were advancing into simple soldering training with pure wire and metal. We have 6yo showed us tremendous focus, patience and determination in mastering the soldering skill. We believe that, any handy skill get mastered at a young age, chances are the important knowledge will pair with the child, well into the adulthood.
3rd week of Nov our Makers tried on the 3D Peocock Celebrity with LED – watching our Little Makers let the iridescent tails, unfold into distinctive spread, boasting the colorful “eye” markings of blue, gold, red, greens and other hues. That’s where we brought upon our project making “3D Peacock Celebrity with LED”
When it comes to parties, fun events or other playful occasions, one thing you will need to mark the atmosphere complete is the balloons. Do you know, you can have more than just a normal balloon? That is where we bring upon our project making “Sparkling Bubble Balloon” in 4th week of Nov.
We went with a structured monthly theme, we gave children a start from the basic, and we allow children the joy and freedom to try, to play, to design and to make. A structural STEM + Art can ignite a child’s interest in solving problem.
Let children get head start in STEM.
“I like to build things,” a child said to us, a choice made by the children.
This is when a child see the magic in making 😉
Do connect with us at “The Little Makers” FB https://www.facebook.com/steam.com.my/