When a parent donated a 3D printer to my 3rd and 4th grade makerspace, I jumped at the opportunity to integrate this rapidly evolving technology into my Lower School’s curriculum. After several frantic months of trial and error and a introductory 3D-printing workshop, I designed several 3D-printing projects that enhanced my 3rd graders’ Africa unit and allowed them opportunities to create meaningful and innovative artifacts for their classroom museum. Students designed 3D-printed cookie cutters of African animals and wrote creation tales about them. They also coded geometric designs with TurtleArt and imported them into Tinkercad to create stamps for marking cloth in traditional African Kente designs. During my talk, I will share what I learned as 3D-printing neophyte and what others should know as they begin to incorporate 3D printing into their curriculums.
Slide PresentationLesson Plans
