Because there is such a short amount of time between the end of the day and Back-to-School Night (about 3 hours), it has been a tradition at our school for dinner to be provided to teachers who stick around after school. Previously, these dinners have been held in the faculty lounge. This year we requested that dinner be provided in the Library and Learning Commons so teachers would have an opportunity to see our new Maker Playground (read more about the Playground in Ms. Simon's blog post) and get reacquainted with our space and library resources.
We strategically placed the food and drinks in the back of the library and set-up tables in the center aisle so teachers would have to walk by the Maker Playground and through additional table stations. In addition to the Maker Playground stations, we also set-up tables in the center aisle to ensure teachers saw the equipment being used in the Maker Lab before eating.
Although
food was the priority, we did have teachers take notice of the stations
in the center aisle, especially the “Light up Your Nametag” station and
the “Makey Makey” station 
which used jello to play the Wack-A-Mole game and the “Learn to Crochet” station
where Mrs. Stanton was demonstrating how to crochet a hat. 
We know Back-to-School Night is a busy day for teachers as they prepare to welcome parents to their classrooms so we were pleased with the fact that teachers were able to see some of the Maker Lab offerings on their way to dinner. We hope what they saw inspires them to return and encourage students to use the Maker Lab and Maker Playground, and hopefully
make something on their own like what Mr. Shelley did the following day!