SEPTEMBER 25 2025
This journal entry is called the Word Grab Challenge. It’s pretty simple: grab 3 random words for the Grab Bag. Write them at the top of a journal page. Now, create a drawing that tells a story with all three words in it.
A couple of things to do if you’re stuck:
- You can exchange 1 WORD
- You can write a short story instead of drawing it
SEPTEMBER 18 2025
Today’s journal is all about music.
Music is like a key that unlocks a special door that nothing you smell, touch, taste, or see around you can. Once the door is open, our bodies can’t help but move—heads bob, shoulders shake, feet tap. Music also makes us feel things: a burst of energy in our chest, happiness, or maybe even a little anger. Sometimes it brings back memories, or thoughts about the future, or just floods of colors.
Let’s open that door and let our pencils show what we feel.
I’ll play three songs. For each one:
- Open a new page in your journal.
- Grab a few colored pencils.
- Show what the song makes you feel—with lines, shapes, colors, and even a few words if you’d like.
If the beat is sharp, maybe your lines are jagged.
If it’s slow, maybe your strokes are long and smooth.
If it gets loud, let your shapes get bigger.
If it gets quiet, let them shrink.
Or, if the music feels powerful, you might try drawing starbursts that shoot outward, spirals that keep winding bigger, or waves that roll across the page.
Don’t think too hard—let your pencil dance until the page is full. It doesn’t need to be perfect.
Here are a few examples from last week:
A 6th-grade artist is filling her journal with drawings.
Inside your Maker Journal, create a pocket. This pocket will store your very own memory card that you will use to capture your work in this class. Here’s how to make the pocket:
Dentro de tu Diario de Creación, crea un bolsillo. Este bolsillo guardará tu tarjeta de memoria, la cual usarás para capturar tu trabajo en esta clase. Así es como se hace el bolsillo:
1) Now that you’ve made a pocket, label your SD card.
2) Place the card in a camera
3) Take pictures of your journal cover and the journal entries you have completed.
4) Remove the card and place it in your pocket. DO NOT LOSE THE SD CARD. If you do, you will have to borrow a classmates or buy your own. They are expensive and you only get one.
SEPTEMBER 15 2025
As we approach our first social issue, let’s continue to flex our creative muscles through journal exercises. Today’s exercise is called “Piecing together stories“. You will be taking images that are missing important parts. With your colored pencils, you will complete the images in ways that are realistic or weirdly awesome. Your final drawing should look like a page from an interesting story.
Now write one sentence that tells what’s happening in your picture.
SEPTEMBER 11 2025
Students have already begun creating entries in their journal. These include a song and a poem, art, a shopping list, and favorite poetry they found. There are no wrong things to include in your journal- just fill in those blank pages!
To help build the skills and creativity to do powerful social action, it’s time for another journal entry. This one is called “Name the Color“.
To do this, turn to a blank page in your journal and mix the paint on your plate with a Q-tip. Once you create an interesting color, make a circle of it on your journal (not too gloppy or it won’t dry quickly). Under your color, use your imagination to invent a name for it. Repeat 2 more times.
SEPTEMBER 8 2025
OK! At this point, you should have (1) created the covers of your journal and (2) made a pocket on the inside cover of your journal.
Once you’ve completed your journal, ask for an SD card, write your name on it, and place it in a camera. Take a picture of your journal covers. Remove the card and place it in your journal pocket.
Time for a quick journal entry to launch your work on them. Today, you’ll be creating a blind contour self-portrait. This basically means drawing yourself by looking at a mirror and never looking down on the page.
Before you do this self-portrait, make a frame using Washi Tape. Now, set up a mirror and get going! Your drawing will look like a VERY WILD version of yourself and that’s part of the fun! Because, when you think about it, maybe we’d be even happier without focusing so much on how we look on the outside.
SEPTEMBER 4 2025
Well hello! Welcome (back) to The Tech Cafe- where we use arts, crafts, music, food, movies, and more to make positive changes in the world.
¡Hola! Bienvenidos (de nuevo) a The Tech Café, donde usamos arte, manualidades, música, comida, películas y más para generar cambios positivos en el mundo.
Before we get started MAKING. I want to set a few ground rules for our Makerspace:
Antes de empezar a CREAR, quiero establecer algunas reglas básicas para nuestro Makerspace:
The Tech Cafe is one-of-a-kind. It’s incredible and it’s ours to share. Put things back where you found them, clean up– even if the mess isn’t yours–and leave it better than you found it.
El Tech Café es único. Es increíble y lo compartimos. Deja las cosas como estaban, limpia (aunque el desorden no sea tuyo) y déjalo mejor que como lo encontraste.
Don’t steal. There are so many cool tools, art supplies, and play things here. If you want to borrow something, ask! I usually say yes. But you should leave here with your pockets and your backpacks the way they came in.
No robes. Hay muchísimas herramientas, materiales de arte y juguetes geniales. Si quieres pedir prestado algo, ¡pídelo! Normalmente digo que sí. Pero deberías irte de aquí con los bolsillos y las mochilas tal como vinieron.
This year, we’ll be brainstorming our ideas in Maker Journals.
Este año, compartiremos nuestras ideas en los Diarios del Creador.
Now that you’ve made your journal, it’s time to have some fun in The Tech Café! Next month we will begin talking about our first social issue: Animal Rights. Before we dive in, though, I want you to get comfortable with some of the ways we express ourselves here in this Makerspace.
Ahora que ya creaste tu diario, ¡es hora de divertirnos en el Tech Café! El mes que viene empezaremos a hablar de nuestro primer tema social: los derechos de los animales. Antes de empezar, quiero que te familiarices con algunas de las formas en que nos expresamos en este Makerspace.
So, below is a set of activities you can do to experiment and get creative:
A continuación, se presenta un conjunto de actividades que puedes realizar para experimentar y ser creativo:
