Now that Christmas is over, and the decorations are back in storage for another year (well, hopefully ), it’s time to start looking ahead and Valentine’s Day is just around the corner.  What better time to incorporate a fun activity into your everyday learning.

3D printing has become almost mainstream.  Technology skills HAVE become mainstream.  And necessary.  We live in a world where we can basically run an entire household from the palm of our hand while sitting on the couch.  Impressive.  Equally frightening.  So instead of fighting the inevitable, why not find new ways to incorporate it into your homeschool curriculum?

My daughter was introduced to 3D design a few years ago.  She LOVED it.  At the time, we were lucky enough to find several of our local libraries had purchased 3D printers.  Although she couldn’t choose the colors for her prints and there were project size limits, it was free.  Along with free comes pretty long wait times for projects to be completed.

So when my techie husband declared we “needed” a 3D printer, I was less hesitant than usual.  I mean less so than when he declared we “needed” a 4000 inch TV (to replace our 35 inch) that could massage my feet and reposition the Hubble telescope….  he didn’t win that one.  But, he did ultimately win the printer.  (It only prints one color and cannot communicate with anything in space.)  

Now, I fully admit that he was right about the purchase.  Read it twice, because when it comes to gadgets, I don’t say that very often!  He’s a smart guy and saw his opportunity with this one.  He has printed car accessories, light fixtures, table leg covers, parts for my sewing machine, and so much more.  All the stupid little things that annoy me that I can’t find a solution for anywhere.  Like I said, smart.  And then, he used it to teach.  Genius.

For the past six months, I’ve been “substituting” for middle school General Science, high school Physical Science, Technology, and Robotics and Electronics at the homeschool Options program that my daughter has attended for the past 8 years (more discussion of that in a later post).  The two science classes used standard curriculum;  the other two did not.  When classes went full remote in November, I struggled to come up with ideas to keep the kids in Technology engaged.  And then my daughter reminded me of her love of 3D design and printing and suggested I create projects for the kids to complete.  Another genius.

And that’s what I did.  Being November with holiday baking quickly approaching, I decided to have them design cookie cutters.  There are more 3D modeling software options than I can name (this article has great information to help in choosing).  My situation was a little tricky dealing with numerous kids with varying capabilities and resources, so I chose Tinkercad.  It’s a basic program that still has functionality, is fairly easy to use, allowed me to create “classes” so I could see what the kids were working on and provide help if needed, and is free.  It worked great and the kids loved being creative, while learning technology.  It may not have been an ideal situation, but I count it as a win.  The school does have a printer, so I was able to print their projects and have them ready for pick up before winter break.  Not only were they able to learn something, they were able to see the end result of their effort.