On Friday, Ms. Analu's first grade class tested out a new idea, Creation Stations
@The LOFT. Students chose one station to explore from five different station options prior to the session: Bee-Bots, Stop Motion, Lego, Art, Green Screen.  They had to choose a topic that interested them as the entire 40-45 minutes at The Loft would be spent at that one station, no switching stations.  Students arrived eager to get started right away.  After brief instructions on what to do if they got stuck (ipads with iBooks ready to go with directions on how to explore, discover, and create with the materials), where to store their ipads if they didn't need them, and a reminder that we must tidy up at the end, Ms. Analu's first graders literally jumped to task.

The students were so engaged, excited, and enthralled with their explorations, discoveries, and creations that the time flew by for everyone!  Not only did students love this time because it was fun, valuable skills were practiced and learned:  communicating with each other to problem solve how the Bee-Bot works, collaborating with other students in order to build a Lego City together, critical thinking to figure out how to make a typewriter out of paper, to name just a few.  So it seems that the first trial run of Creation Stations @TheLOFT was a success.  Ms. Analu confirmed that she would definitely bring her students back for another session.