Ever heard of a banana piano? How about a cat taking selfies? These are just a few things you can do with Makey Makey – an electronic tool that allows you to connect everyday objects to your computer. I was recently introduced to Makey Makey and started exploring with it myself. After playing a little soup can DDR (Dance Dance Revolution, for those of you who remember), I started thinking about all the different ways Makey Makey could be used in the classroom. Of course for fun but what about reading? Writing? Math? SCIENCE?! The possibilities are endless! Figure 1: Makey Makey in use to play soup can DDR. Photo by: Hayley Justin If I was going to use this in my classroom for the very first time, I decided I needed to narrow it down to a very specific topic – counting coins. Every time I teach about counting coins I notice my students struggling to bridge the gap between knowing the value of each coin and their knowledge of addition. It can be hard for such little ones to use these concepts simultaneously! After researching the Makey Makey website, I found yet another technology that can be used along with Makey Makey to make it even better! This technology is called Scratch – a place where you can create, or use created interactive stories, animations, and games. This is where I hit my home run. On Scratch, I found an already created animation of a cash register that tallies up your value AND the amount of each coin used. Having Scratch as a source of already created animations plus allowing you to create new animations yourself makes Makey Makey even more easy to incorporate with already existing curriculum. You can find my Innovative Lesson Plan here. Here's to #makingwithMakeyMakey!
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