School-Age: Fractals

It's the first week back to doing library programs and we're starting with fractals!

1. Reading
We started the topic of fractals discussing shapes in general. We read the book "Shapes, Reshape" by Silvia Borando. I let the kids guess what they thought each pile of different rectangles and squares would turn into. 

2. Discussion
We defined fractals and I shared the book "Mysterious Patterns: Finding Fractals in Nature" by Sarah and Richard Campbell. It tied in perfectly with "Shapes, Reshape" because we made sense of different shapes in the picture book by having them turn into animals. And then, in Mysterious Patterns, we actually began pointing out shapes we see around us in nature. 

I shared a few pictures I had printed off as well as the pictures in the books to show shapes that they already know in nature -- circles, triangles, cones, cylinders, etc.

Then I shared pictures of fractals and talked more about what they are. The book has an excellent illustration of a tree branching out into smaller and smaller branches demonstrating that each part is a replica of the whole. The same was shown in an image of the individual pieces of a broccoli.

3. Craft
Bringing our shapes discussion full-circle, we made a craft out of shapes that was an exact replica of one of the animals in the book. I chose the hedgehog because I like hedgehogs. It was also easy for me to make the rectangles and squares in Microsoft Publisher. After I made a template, I printed them off on blue paper. We cut them out prior to the programs and put each hedgehog in its own plastic bag to hand out to the kids at the program.

Here's an example I made of the craft:

And some examples my teens made:

Notes:
This was a great week back to programming. Everything went smoothly and we had a good turn-out. Hopefully all the participation we had for Summer Reading Program bodes well for our Fall program attendance (fingers crossed)!