The Fab Explor-A-Lab begins...

This is my journey.

After teaching 3rd grade for the last 3 years, my principal came to me and asked me to teach a "science oriented discovery research type class." Her words.

Wow. She basically gave me total freedom to create a class from scratch. Overwhelming, but extremely exciting! I will have all grades Pk-6th, once a week for 45 minutes. Now the problem...what to do? I have so many ideas, yet I don't know where to start. I mean, it could be anything! Seriously. I'm on brain overload.

Genius hour?
Robotics?
Makerspace?
Science Lab?
Learning Menus?
PBL?

The possibilities are endless.

So, I'm just going to start documenting my journey here. I'm not sure what this will look like - and I will probably end up writing about a whole bunch of failures! But, I'm always telling my students that they can't succeed if they haven't failed first, so I guess it's time to live that out.

Here are some pictures of my room as it is right now. I'm moving 11 years of teaching into this tiny room and having to purge SO much. I'm a bit of a hoarder. I think all teachers are to some extent. It's a problem. But I also have to move the entirety of the science lab into my room, so there's that. It's a crazy massive mess that I need to sort out.

Want the tour? 

I have two rooms with a door and window separating each room. The smaller room will be my "office" type space, but I want it to be available for students to work in as well. 

I love this wall. I want to paint it with whiteboard paint so it can be an idea wall as well as my projector wall. Anyone have a good deal on Idea Paint? :) 

We moved the two lab cabinets in from the science lab so there are lots of cabinets and work space. (And I love the exposed brick!) 

Here's another look at the window/door separation into the second room. 

This is in the second room right now. I love my bar height table and stools - and the kids do too! They love to sit and work, but they love that they can stand if they want too. (I have to get the table cleaned first in order for ANYONE to work here though!) 

And one last look from the front door. What a mess! 

I love the room and all it's learning possibilities. I can't wait to see what I end up with!