1. Reading
We read the book "Whoosh!: Lonnie Johnson's Super-Soaking Stream of Inventions" by Chris Barton. It was a wonderfully informative book about Lonnie Johnson and the kids enjoyed hearing about an invention that many of them have used (or own!).
2. Discussion
We had a brief discussion about the Super Soaker and Lonnie Johnson. The book was fairly comprehensive, and long, so I did not want to spend much more time talking at the kids. I showed them some real pictures of Lonnie Johnson, since "Whoosh" is mostly illustrations. The best was a picture of his robot Linex that he had won a science competition with!
3. Craft
A. Ideas
The craft was about coming up with their OWN inventions. The first thing I wanted them to do was draw with paper and pencil ideas. They spent about 5 minutes doing so.
B. Prototypes
Then the kids got to make a PROTOTYPE of their invention. I had seen a lot of neat crafts people have done with pool noodles. I decided to lay out a whole mess of craft supplies we have surplus of. We used glue dots and then I put out Popsicle sticks, puff balls, beads and buttons, pipe cleaners, Q-tips, etc.
A few examples that my teen volunteers and I made:
One teen made a space craft that detected liveable conditions on other planets:
Another teen created a robot that sorted clothes:
A third teen made a single-serve hot pocket oven:
And I made a dishwasher that PUT away the dishes after they were clean:
Notes:
The kids had a great time (and so did I)! The ones that came to the program earlier in the week were still talking about it to their friends at a Lego program we hosted the next day. The kids LOVED making up their own inventions and bringing them to life with the pools noodles. It was hectic and there were lots of kids, but it was so much fun!
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