STEM + Stories: Earth Science

Birdseed Mining

I really enjoyed this month's STEM + Stories! We did two activities I found on the American Geoscience Institute's lesson plans for Earth Science Week*. I made fossils from plaster of Paris (SO messy but fun and some of the fossils did dry too hard for the kids so we had to add more water during the program) and we did a birdseed mining activity. I had the kids wear eye protection for both activities as there was dust involved.  Everything was pretty much as described in their lesson plans but I did want to blog about this program because their lesson plans for Earth Science Week are all awesome, dirt cheap (pun intended), and they have ideas for elementary through high school. So this is a great resource to have in your pocket.

Homemade fossil

I read three books: Gold Fever by Verla Kay to go with the mining activity, A Rock is Lively by Diana Hutts Aston, and If Rocks Could Sing by Leslie McGuirk. I did introduce the California Gold Rush era a little bit to give some historical context as the age range for this program is 5-12. Most of the attendees were in the middle of that range. This book has some great cross-curriculum uses in a school setting as it is written in rhyme. Worth checking out if you can track down a copy.

I had a lot of fun with this program series and plan to offer it again next summer!

*Earth Science Week is October 9-15 in 2016. 

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"I Love Sailing" Draw and Tell

I wrote an easy draw and tell story for my Sail Away program this week and I wanted to share it for Flannel Friday. I hope you like it! It's so simple to draw--mostly lines and circles and you finish with a sailboat! 

This week, our host for Flannel Friday is Kate at Felt Board Magic.

Download the story and instructions here. 

Finished sailboat

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Sail Away: Boat Storytime with a Craft and STEM activities

Sail Your Boat Station

Every three years, my fair city participates in the Tall Ship Celebration. This festival is a huge deal and it's one of my favorite recurring events around town. And we have a lot of cool events in the summer, so that's really saying something. I wanted to do a simple program for the Monday night before the festival this year to have something to get the 2-6 year olds pumped up for those tall ships!

Sail Away Story and a Craft Program: 
Monday, July 11, 2016 at 6:30 pm


Craft: Pool Noodle Sailboats
Supplies: Pool noodles cut into approximately 12-15 pieces (I used a serrated kitchen knife), drinking straws cut into 3 inch lengths, craft foam for the sales, hole punches, scissors.

Book List: 
Sail Away by Donald Crews
Little Tug by Stephen Savage
On the Boat by Cynthia Amoroso

Songs, Rhymes, and Storytelling: 
Let's All Do a Little Clapping --my storytime opening song

Let's all do a little clapping!
Let's all do a little clapping!
Let's all do a little clapping,
And spread a little cheer. 
(we clapped, tapped, drove our boats, swayed like a sailboat, etc.)

Row, Row, Row Your Boat (traditional and "screaming" verse)

Row, row, row your boat,
Gently down the stream,
Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily,
Life is but a dream.

Row, row, row your boat,
Gently down the stream,
If you see a crocodile,
Don’t forget to scream.

"Zoom Down the River" (I learned "Zoom Down the Highway" from Jbrary and adapted it to be about a boat)

Zoom down the river
Zoom down the river
Zoom down the river

Sink or Float Station

FAST!

Up goes the drawbridge
Up goes the drawbridge
Up goes the drawbridge
Our ship is going past.

Down goes the drawbridge.
Down goes the drawbridge.
Down goes the drawbridge.
Our ship has past at last.

Zoom down the river
Zoom down the river
Zoom down the river
FAST!

"I Love Sailing" Draw and Tell (I also wrote a draw and tell story for this program! It will be posted on Friday!)

Activity Signs:
We had two stations: One where kids could blow their sailboats across a bucket using straws and another where they tested household and office objects to see whether they would sink or float.

I made the signs for the activity stations using Canva. You are welcome to use them yourself. Download them here. 

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STEM + Stories: Robotics

Ozobot in action

This summer I am doing a monthly program called Stories + STEM. Each meeting, we'll have a different topic and we will read a story or biography and then have different stations with activities related to the topic. This program is for ages 5-12 and I limited it to 40 kids at a time. June's topic was robotics.

I read two books: Beep! Beep! Go to Sleep! by Todd Tarpley and Oh No!: Or How My Science Project Destroyed the World by Mac Barnett. Then I divided the children into three groups and they visited three stations in a rotation.

Two of the stations were competition robots from the local high schools' robotics teams. The children were able to drive the robots, learn how they were built, and ask questions of the students on the teams. The coaches were also there supervising.

The last station was run by one of the robotics coaches who brought a set of 8 Ozobots to the program and showed the kids how to program them using paper and colored markers. I was not familiar with Ozobots before the program and they are so cool!

This was a simple program to put together and made an awesome community collaboration between us and our nearest public and Catholic high schools. The robotics coaches actually reached out to us to hold a program during Robotics At Your Library Week, a Michigan initiative to have robots visit every library in the state between June 19-June 25 this year. We had 78 people attend, including parents and grandparents. We are hoping to repeat this program (or one very similar) next year! 

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Finger Play: Five Lovely Starfish

I wanted to share with everyone a really simple but fun fingerplay I spotted in Artsy Toddler Storytimes, which is my favorite resource for planning my 2 and 3 year old storytimes. In that book, this rhyme i sused as a flannel board rhyme but I decided to adapt it as a fingerplay. I like it because it's simple enough I can actually memorize the words. I adapted it on the fly to use some fun vocabulary words that are synonyms for "big" so each verse was a little different.

Here are the words as given in the book:

Five Lovely Starfish
Five lovely starfish sitting on the beach,
Along came a wave and now there are four.
(count down to zero)

So what I did was insert a different word in front of wave like: big, giant, huge, enormous etc. I used my left hand to count and made my right arm a wave with a rolling motion that knocked my left fingers ("starfish") down. 

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Minecraft Madness

The one program I knew I wanted to do over Spring Break was something Minecraft-related. We do have 10 public computers in my children's department but I knew that wouldn't be enough to meet demand so I decided to plan an "unplugged" program. I was fortunate to find tons of awesome ideas online and I actually think I have enough ideas that I didn't use this time around for another program. Maybe this summer?

Our program was a drop-in, all ages program held the Monday of Spring Break from 2-3:30pm. We had 95 people attend and I received some really kind compliments.  To decorate the room, I used black tablecloths. I also hung purple and black streamers and a Minecraft portal sign in front of our program room door.

We had two crafts, both from Kerry Ann Morgan's AWESOME blog post. What I loved about these crafts was their simplicity. We did the Minecraft creeper magnets and the Minecraft sticker crafting project. I overheard one of the boys say, "This is the simplest magnet I've ever made and (dramatic pause) THE BEST!"

The design your own realm craft required the sticker printouts, construction paper, scissors, and markers.

The creeper magnets required glass tiles from Dollar Tree, glue sticks, magnets, and the creeper face printouts.

We also had three games to play. I made 6 creepers out of dry floral squares from our local Dollar Tree store. I left them all in their plastic. Then I printed off a Creeper face image and duct taped it to the front of each square. Then I covered the remainder of the square with the same green duct tape (which we already had, score!). They turned out pretty cool and this seemed like the sturdiest way of doing it. This game was inspired by the Knock It Down Creeper game from this blog, but I made it a bowling game instead of a bow and arrow game.
I also made a Pin the Tail on the Pig Game. I made a Creeper helmet for the kids to wear instead of a blindfold (faster!).One of my coworkers made a Minecraft scavenger hunt so we had that out during the program as well.

Last but not least, I set up the library's portable green screen set up for a photo booth. I printed off these masks, laminated them, and attached them to drinking straws and let the kids take photos with their own devices. 

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Going to the Pet Store (take 2)

A few years back, I shared a rhyme called "Going to the Pet Store" and it remains a staple of my storytimes today, particularly my outreach and school visits. At my local Meijer, I found a set of puppets that I thought were the perfect size for bringing along with me when I go out into the community to do storytimes, especially because they come in an adorable carrying case.

Here's the rhyme again:

Going to the Pet Store

Going to the pet store,   (Slap your knees to the beat)

Gonna find a pet. 

I wonder what to get? 

Hmmmmm...  (Scratch your head) 

(Look in the house and pull out a puppet)

(I actually bought three sets of these puppets on clearance for $9.99 each. I've already blogged the pirate and ocean animals with a rhyme I whipped up for them, so please check those posts out too!)

This week's Flannel Friday is being hosted by Kate at Felt Board Magic. 

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I Swam the Sea to See the Animals

This is my second post about the puppet sets I found on clearance ($9.99!) at Meijer. The previous post was on pirates. Today's is on ocean animals and you can find the set at Amazon, but I think much more than $10 is too much. Here's a little song I made up to go along with the killer whale, star fish, dolphin, and clown fish. I would sing it all the way through and then pull out a puppet! Easy peasy!

I Swam the Sea to See the Animals

I swam the sea to see the animals, see the animals, see the animals.
I swam  the sea to see the animals, and this is what I saw!

This week's Flannel Friday is being hosted by Lisa at Lisa's Libraryland and is a Summer Reading Roundup! This year our summer reading theme is sports and so swimming is totally related. 

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Summer Reading Program 2016 Ideas

I know lots of people doing sports/games-themed summer reading programs. Here are some program ideas from my blog archives if you are looking for some inspiration.

• Life Size Chutes and Ladders (school age)
• Mascot Mania: Baseball (all ages) 
• Maze Maker (school age/tween)
• Minecraft Madness (all ages, blog post will be live in May!) 
• Minute to Win It (school age/tween) I have blogged several of these. 
• Mother Goose Games (early childhood)
• Parachute Playtime (early childhood) 

Please let me know if you try any of these programs and how they go! 

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Going on a Pirate Ship

I found this wonderful pirate set of mini-stuffies on clearance for $9.99 at my local Meijer store. I thought it would be great for storytime so I wrote a rhyme to go with it. I hope you like it! There is room for all of the animals hidden inside of the pirate ship, and pull one out at the end of each time through the rhyme. I'd probably save the shark for last because sharks upstage everything else. Also, all of these stuffed animals make noise but it would be entirely possible to do this rhyme without using the squeakers inside. I just thought that was worth noting so you're not surprised by a stray rattling sound or a woof.

Going On a Pirate Ship
Going on a pirate ship.
Gonna be a long trip!
Want to take some friends.
I wonder who to bring?
Hrmm... (or ARRGHH)

This week's Flannel Friday roundup is being hosted by our fearless founder, Melissa Depper at Mel's Desk. Thanks for hosting, MZD! 

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