Just how hard is it to build a bridge? Well, I think our library kids can best answer that question. What I do know is that planning a Kids’ STEM Workshop around bridge building using Legos and Engino toys to help reinforce the B.A.T.S. design that all bridges utilize was super easy, and super fun!
The skinny: This was a wonderful, relaxed program that cost us $0. The Engino toy parts and Legos we used were proved to us through a grant and by gift from our Friends of the Library. We already had these resources, so it made sense to me to feature them as a STEM program. Again, if you do not have these materials, then this may be a great idea for a grant project. I hope this lesson plan helps spark every better ideas you can use in your grant proposal for how you plan to use these materials in your community!
Flannel board: 
We live in a binary world. Our computers, music, books, magazines, almost every form of media is digital and it all runs on the binary code. But, it is surprising how little many of us understand about the code that influences so much of our lives. For Teen Tech Week in March 2017, I wanted to do a program for tweens on coding and showing them the binary system. But, is binary code easy enough for kids to understand and write? Can we do a coding program without a computer? As we found out, the answers are yes, and yes!
With spring in the air, this was a fun way for one of our library interns to beautify the wall above our picture book collection. The butterflies were made with our die cut machine. Our intern cut out each die cut butterfly in two different colors of paper, and then hot glued the butterflies together to make them 3-D.
Wow! Give kids a challenge (and don’t tell them that it is hard) and watch them create for you! That is the lesson I learned by offer a STEM program using Engino toy parts to build simple machines. Our kids both followed the directions, and free built. Engino toy parts are a cross between Legos and Knex, and they are a little bit harder to work with than either of those toys. Lots of fine motor skills were needed. I ran this program with 5th graders, 2nd graders, and an all ages program. All of the groups were able to build the simple Experimental Car, and then enjoyed some free build time.
With Saint Patrick’s Day approaching, our staff wanted to have a fun craft for the kids as a passive program. Here is what they came up with! Enjoy!