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May 26, 2016 by Karen Jensen, MLS

MakerSpace: Challenge Cards, getting teens to try new activities in the Teen MakerSpace

May 26, 2016 by Karen Jensen, MLS   6 comments

challengecards We are having tremendous success with our Teen MakerSpace at The Public Library of Mount Vernon and Knox County (OH) and are very excited to see the teens in our community using the space and learning new things. We have learned that certain items are more popular than others, with the button makers and 3D pens being hands down everyone’s favorites.

We have also seen that some of the elements are a little less self-directed then we imagined them to be. Sometimes, our teens want prompts to help get them started. And after a little bit of searching I learned about “Challenge Cards”. Challenge cards are a great way to help get teens engaging with some of our Teen MakerSpace elements. They basically work like a writing prompt, giving just that little push needed to get the creative juices flowing.

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We currently have Challenge Cards for our stop motion animation station, the LittleBits, and Legos. Some of the Challenge Cards we found online, others we created ourselves. Our Lego Challenge Cards are a combination of those we found online and those we created with the help of teens sitting in the Teen MakerSpace.

In the future, we hope to develop (or find) some coding challenge cards. And because our iPad bank is perfect for learning photo manipulation and meme creation, I think we will also be developing some Photo Challenge Cards.

We laminated our cards and created signage, making them available right next to the station so teens can grab a card and go. We have found that it has prompted some of our teens to try new activities in the space and recommend them.

Here are links to some of the various Challenge Card examples we have found to date or created for ourselves. If you know of others you would like to share, please add them in the comments.

LittleBits Challenge Cards: https://lb-community.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/supporting_file/asset/263/LittleBitsChallengeDeluxe.pdf. ;  http://littlebits.cc/education-project-challenge-cards ; http://littlebits.cc/lessons/littlebits-101-classroom-set-edition-with-task-cards
Lego Challenge Cards:  http://www.freehomeschooldeals.com/free-printable-lego-challenge-cards/
Dash and Dot Challenge Cards: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/31191042/dash_character_challenges.pdf ; http://www.thedigitalscoop.com/the_digital_scoop/2015/01/dash-and-dot-robots-blockly-with-1st-graders.html
Scratch Challenge Cards : scratch challenge cards https://jvcomputerclub.net/scratch-club-beginner-level/scratch-club-level-1/scratch-cards/ ; http://checkthis.com/scratchstarterkit
Stop Motion Animation Challenge Cards: https://www.scribd.com/doc/313555018/Stop-Motion-Challenge-Cards
Button Maker Challenge Cards: buttonchallengefirstpage buttonchallengesecondpage

Filed under: Makerspace

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Challenge CardsCodingLegolittleBitsStop Motion AnimationTechTech TalkTechnology

About Karen Jensen, MLS

Karen Jensen has been a Teen Services Librarian for almost 30 years. She created TLT in 2011 and is the co-editor of The Whole Library Handbook: Teen Services with Heather Booth (ALA Editions, 2014).

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Comments

  1. Naomi Shadis says

    June 1, 2016 at 3:19 pm

    Thank you for these wonderful suggestions! I hope to adapt for my library. FYI: I noticed that the link to the scratch challenge cards : scratch challenge cards https://jvcomputerclub.net/scratch-club-beginner-level/scratch-club-level-1/scratch-cards/ ; http://checkthis.com/scratchstarterkit actually opens the Dash cards. I don’t know if this can still be fixed or not.

  2. Shawn Remely says

    November 10, 2016 at 11:12 am

    I was trying to find the challenge cards for Stop Motion and it has been removed. Is there a way to see them again? This is the link I was trying to use: Stop Motion Animation Challenge Cards: https://www.scribd.com/doc/313555018/Stop-Motion-Challenge-Cards

    Thank you for any help you can give!

    Shawn

    • Karen Jensen, TLT says

      November 10, 2016 at 11:48 am

      Shawn,
      Can you email me please at kjensenmls at yahoo? I will try and get them to you.
      I will look into the link.
      Thank you,
      Karen

  3. Kylene says

    February 1, 2018 at 10:53 am

    Some of the links no longer work. Can you please fix or share via email? Thanks!

  4. Amy Skrovan says

    May 4, 2018 at 4:11 pm

    I would love to get the links to the challenge cards mentioned in this blog post. The links no longer work. Is there any way that you can email the links?

Trackbacks

  1. Https://ferrann.co/blog/aceite-de-coco-para-el-cabello-secreto-guardado/ says:
    February 4, 2019 at 3:40 am

    https://ferrann.co/blog/aceite-de-coco-para-el-cabello-secreto-guardado/

    MakerSpace: Challenge Cards, getting teens to try new activities in the Teen MakerSpace — @TLT16 Teen Librarian Toolbox

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