Month: March 2016

More Future Fashion

Over the past 3 months at Widener Library we have been working on Future Fashion – a special Maker Jawn project funded by a Curiosity Creates grant from the Association for Library Service to Children. So far the kids have designed and sewed futuristic outfits, created superhero characters with artist Jihan Thomas, learned about Afrofuturism with Afrofuturist Affair creator Rasheedah Phillips, held their own… Read more →

Life Lessons in Stick Bombs

Maker Jawn programming is entirely open ended. Participants join in and leave and they desire. They follow their interests, tinker, and finish projects at their own speed. Most often, especially with younger participants, this tends to lead to a lot of unfinished projects. On slower days with fewer participants, one on one attention provides the encouragement needed to see a… Read more →

Read! by 4th

The Read! by 4th initiative is a city-wide effort aimed at majorly increasing the number of students in Philadelphia entering the 4th grade at reading level by 2020. At present, nearly half of all public school students in Philadelphia cannot read at grade level by fourth grade.   In February Maker Jawn participated at a Read! by 4th program designed… Read more →

Happy Belated Birthday, Dr. Seuss!

This year at Rodriguez, we celebrated Read Across America by throwing a birthday party for Dr. Seuss. Read Across America is an annual reading motivation and awareness program that calls for children to celebrate reading on March 2, which also happens to be the birthday of Dr. Seuss! Sara Palmer, the Children’s Librarian at Rodriguez, told me that RGR had celebrated with… Read more →

McPherson builds it

It’s an exciting time at McPherson Square.  Our Maker Jawn program has seen our numbers swell.  Most days, we have to turn the sign-in sheet over and have the children sign on the back. But the numbers are a consequence of the excitement and not the cause.  The cause is that makers are coming with ideas, engaging in projects, and… Read more →

Jewelry Making Makers

Hello, all! I’m Samira, another new Maker Mentor–mostly at the Ramonita de Rodriguez Branch Library! Recently one of the makers at Rodriguez library has taken to beads for her construction projects, and even more so when I made a small necklace out of them with a crude clasp. After that, she took to them again, and made me promise to… Read more →