School-Age: Microbes

One of my library assistants, Ms. Shelby, planned and presented our school-age programs this week. She is what I call a "LIT" [Librarian-in-Training], and graduated from library school this past December. Since we have three-month-long program sessions it is nice to have a break mid-way through the session for me. It is super helpful to have an opportunity to work on my schedule for the following session (especially since next session is Summer Reading Program!!!). 

Also, it is a great way to give library assistants the opportunity to gain some programming experience to give them a leg-up when they go to interview for librarian jobs! I was so grateful when I got those chances when I was a library assistant so I try to give opportunities to my library assistants whenever possible. 

Ms. Shelby decided to talk about microbes [viruses, fungi, and bacteria] this week. [If she writes it up on her blog, I will link to it later!]

1. Discussion
Ms. Shelby showed pictures of different types of common fungi, bacteria, and viruses to the kids. She also explained what those words meant to the kids.

2. Reading
Ms. Shelby read the book "Germs" by Ross Collins. It was a fun read and the kids enjoyed it.

3. Activity

Ms. Shelby had the kids help her activate yeast. She chose several helpers. One kid measured a couple teaspoons of yeast into a bowl. The next kid measured a couple teaspoons of sugar into the bowl. The third kid carefully poured a little bit of room temperature water into the bowl. And a fourth kid carefully stirred the bowl. 

While they were waiting to see the results, they were able to take turns looking at yeast under the couple microscopes we have at our library. (They're the small pocket microscopes you can buy on Amazon. They're not great...but they're microscopes so there's that.)

4. Craft

We ended with the craft and made puff-ball cooties out of yarn and googly eyes.

Notes:

It was a fun program this week! I enjoyed watching someone else do programs - I feel like it is very helpful for me to see what works and what doesn't when I'm not the one presenting. We had a little larger groups this week but I think it is because one of our schools in the area is out on break. The craft was fun but it helped that we warned parents before we demonstrated how to do the craft that we would need their extra hands to help us out. 

I had planned to do another activity with the microscopes later this session but it might be more trouble than it's worth. One of the microscopes has a bulb out and the kids do not take turns very well. I realized this when I attempted to use the microscopes at a program last session. Even when they are told that every microscope has the same slide, they still want to look at each one. And, being school-agers, they have to touch the dials which makes the slide not in focus anymore. It's certainly a challenge and the fact that they are not good quality microscopes does not help.