Marble Drops. So simple. So fun. And, a great time to exercise design, problem-solving, and critical thinking skills while creating a slide for a marble to run down! I stood back for most of the program and watched parents and grandparents work with their kids to create the design their kids wanted for an entire hour. At every STEM Lab, I hope that the activity is engaging enough for kids to interact with adults and learn together as a community. That happened with this program!
The skinny: Great problem-solving exercise that the parents wanted to get in on as much as the kids! So many smiles as kids worked with their adult to create something fun at the library. I drew my inspiration from Coffee Cups and Crayons blog. They have a great video of how her kids did their project, so be sure to watch! This is a great project because even pre-kindergarteners were able to do it, as well as big kids. And, families worked diligently for a whole hour before they felt their design was just right, showed me how it worked, and then helped me clean up before heading home.
The skinny: This was a great program, and my students ran with it! They developed complex ideas and games just using their checkerboard and some random objects that I made available to them. Two students turned their checkerboard into the house in the Westing Game book. The goal of their “program” was to help a kid travel through the house without being hurt. I was surprised at how creative they took this, just using the simple instructions I gave them.
How it worked:
Set up involves moving 6 tables to the programming room, and setting up 12 checkerboards. This would accommodate 24 people, and so far, we have always been just under that. I have about 20 checkerboards in my supply room, so if we did get more kids, I could bring those out within minutes. I asked my teen volunteers to help me set up the tables this year and all the checker boards. We were done in about 15 minutes with everyone helping.
I heard this idea first from another library, and they told me that after years of offering it, kids have begun to count on it, and start to get excited weeks before the contest. I hope that happens for us!
Today we get to work with puzzles! You only get 20 planks, and they all look the same. How many objects can you create with those 20 planks? A lot. How much fun will you have? Again…a lot!
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!
“Once upon a time, sixty years ago, a little girl lived in the Big Woods of Wisconsin, in a little gray house made of logs.” So begins Little House in the Big Woods, the first book in an autobiographical series written by Laura Ingalls Wilder about growing up in 1800’s American. 150 years later, the Little House stories and activities are still wildly popular. And what better way to celebrate Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Birthday than to have a party at the public library as one of our Family Super Saturday events?
Put kids and marbles together and you automatically have a great time planned. Add a few lessons about Push and Pull, and you have an experiment in physics that combines fine motor skills, creative design, an understanding of force, and lots of marbles that went home with happy families. We held this program as a our second Workshop in January of 2017.
Jennifer Boothroyd. I try to use a book at least for a few moments every Workshop because it shows that literacy and STEM go together in fostering curiosity! I did not read every page of this book. Instead, I prepared some post-it notes and I placed them on pages where I wanted to ask the kids questions. This helped keep the book engaging, and kids and me asking questions about what we were reading.
With snow on the ground and Wisconsin suffering from a cold snap, it was the perfect night to talk about how Inuit people build houses with nothing by the natural materials their environment gives them: snow and ice. And, what better way to learn about it than by experimenting with geometric shapes to build igloos of our own…in the comfort of the heated library with marshmallows and toothpicks as our building materials of choice!
I try to pick one folk tale each month to highlight in Storytime. I try to find 3-4 different books that tell the same tale and I use a new book each week in Storytime. There are some folk tales that are part of our cultural experience. I have even heard that some teachers as part of the 4 and 5 year old Kindergarten screening will be asked questions about folk tales that every child should know, such as “The Three Little Pigs”. So, why not tell these stories in Storytime? And, why not use Passive Programs to re-emphasize these stories once Storytime is over?