School-Age: The Scientific Method

For our last school-age program of the session, we did a program about The Scientific Method.

1. Reading
I shared one of the last nominees for our state's children's book awards, "Ada Twist, Scientist" by Andrea Beaty. It has a perfect rhythm to the text, the story was humorous, and both the text and the pictures were appealing to kids.

Also, I LOVE sharing books that remind kids that no matter their age, gender, or race, they can be whatever they want to be in life. 

2. Discussion
We defined The Scientific Method in 6 simple steps. THEN, we broke down how Ada Twist did this throughout the book. 
1. Observe something in your environment
Ada smelled something stinky!

2. Ask a question (about your observation)
Ada wanted to know what was causing the smell.

3. Make a hypothesis
A. Her first hypothesis was that her dad's cabbage stew was causing the smell.
B. Her second hypothesis was that the smell was caused by the cat!

4. Conduct the experiment
A. She smelled the cabbage stew and added ingredients to it, to see if it smelled better/worse.
B. She sprayed the cat with cologne and perfume since it did not smell on its own.

5. Conclusions from experiment
A. The smell was not from the cabbage stew.
B. The smell was not from the cat.

6. Report results
I explained that Ada didn't necessarily report her results in the book but that, if she were conducting a true scientific experiment, she would have reported those two conclusions she had learned.


3. Craft
Our library is closed on Friday, for Good Friday, so I only had one school-age program this week. I decided to do something a little messier than normal, knowing that we only had to do it for one program instead of replicating two days. SO, we made slime!

We had more kids than normal at our program because it was only on one day this week. I had my teens set up two of our folding tables and lay newspaper over top of them. 

I went ahead and put the ingredients for the slime on the tables and, once we finished with our discussion, I allowed the kids to evenly distribute to both tables for our 'experiment'. 

Materials needed:
A. Water
B. Elmer's Liquid Glue
C. Cornstarch
D. Large bowls
E. Spoons to stir ingredients
F. Small Dixie cups or other cups for measuring


The recipe I used said that it is a 1-1-1 ratio of the three ingredients. As we discovered, during our 'experiment', you actually required A LOT more cornstarch than that to make it thick like slime. BUT, that was all part of the fun!

I pre-measured all the ingredients to put out on the table and had the kids take turns adding the ingredients to the bowl. I designated one of the older kids to be our 'stirrers' so that we did not have ingredients tossed around the library. 

The first thing you do is mix the glue and water together. It needs to be thoroughly mixed before you add the cornstarch. We used Popsicle sticks to scrape the glue out of our measuring cups, but all the other ingredients came out easily. 

After the glue and water were mixed, the kids helped add the cornstarch. It was still very soupy, but luckily we had an extra box of cornstarch. We added a full box of cornstarch to each tables batch and they finally thickened up enough to be officially called slime.

I didn't want to go overboard and have the kids play with the slime with their hands in the library. I compromised and had my teen helpers distribute a bit of slime in individual plastic baggies for each kid. Once the kid had their bag of slime, they could decorate it as they wanted.

For slime decorations we had:
A. Food coloring
B. Glitter
C. Letter beads
D. Gems


Notes:
Yes, it was messy but it was still fun. I am glad I saved it for a week when we only offered one program because of how the week fell. That being said, the kids had a great time and the parents looked as though they were enjoying watching the chaos unfold. What a great way to end a program session before we take a break for April!

School-Age: Hot Air Balloons

Hot Air Balloons have always been a bit of a fascination to me. They are colorful and festive, and there are entire festivals devoted to them! I saw a neat craft for them which ended up being the inspiration to have a weekly program about them for my own curiosity's sake!

Reading:
We read "Hot Air: The (Mostly) True Story of the First Hot-Air Balloon Ride" by Marjorie Priceman. It actually did have quite a bit of historical information even if the story seemed too fantastical to believe! There actually was a hot air balloon that was launched for the first time in the 18th century, in France, and WAS carrying farm animals!

Discussion:
The kids were FULL of questions this week and we almost didn't have enough time for the crafts! They were so curious how hot air balloons worked and those hands kept raising every time I got to another slide.

True/False:
We played a quick game of true/false to test their knowledge of hot air balloons. Some of it we had covered in our discussion, but most we had not!

Craft:
I had found a neat 3-D hot air balloon craft on Pinterest that originated on the Crafty Morning blog. I found a similar template online and printed out the balloon parts on different colors of paper. That way, the kids could decide what colors they wanted their hot air balloons to be. For the 'baskets', I cut toilet paper rolls into 3 different pieces and painted them. I used pipe cleaners as the 'rope' connectors between the basket and the balloon.

Here are a few of ours that staff made as examples:

Notes:

I've said it before, but one of the greatest things about doing weekly programs for older kids is that you can find a topic that interests you and learn more about it...for work! And, most importantly, you and the kids can have fun in the process!

School-Age: Lions

This week we featured a few more books that were nominated as part of our state's children's book awards vote. Since two of the nominees that the kids could vote for were about lions, we learned about lions and read both books aloud!

1. Reading
The first book we read was "Lion Lessons" by Jon Agee. This is a hilarious picture book about a lion trying to teach a young boy how to be a lion in 7 easy lessons.

2. Discussion
We discussed some fun facts about lion behavior and I shared a variety of pictures of lions. It was a fairly short discussion but some of the kids were very into big cats so they were a rapt audience.


3. Reading
Our second lion book nominee was "Little Red and the Very Hungry Lion" by Alex T. Smith. It was a cute retelling of Little Red Riding Hood and the illustrations are bright and cheerful.

4. Craft
We made our own lion masks out of paper plates. I cut large holes in the middle of paper plates and used scraps of construction paper for the kids to glue around the edge of the plates to make their lion manes. Then we taped a jumbo craft stick to the back of the plate so that the kids could hold the plate up to their faces as their own lion mane. 

5. Reader's Theatre
We had a slight reader's theatre activity using our lion's manes. I took some of the lion lesson activities from "Lion Lessons" and had the kids act them out with their manes.


Notes:
I think the greatest thing about being able to read books aloud to kids on a regular basis is that I find a greater appreciation for some of the books I might have overlooked otherwise. There are books that I read, felt were nice enough, but when I read them to kids and see how much the kids LOVE them, I re-evaluate my own opinion of them. 

2018 Summer Reading Program Preview

Last year's Summer Reading Program Preview was pretty popular so I am doing it again! 

As a reminder, my library system participates in the Collaborative Summer Library Program as to deciding on our theme. We have some wiggle-room, as librarian's, as to whether we want to strictly follow the theme or not. It is there as a guideline but some years the theme can be a little easier than others depending on how creative and out-side-the-box you may be. 

The Collaborative Summer Library Program (CSLP) theme for Summer 2018 is Libraries Rock!

For May I am not following the theme much at all but after our Summer Reading Program kickoff in early June, all of June and July's themes will be related to the CSLP theme.

May:

1. My Little Pony

Reading: "Meet the Ponies of Ponyville" by Olivia London

Discussion: History of My Little Pony

Craft: My Little Pony paper craft

2. Masterpiece Art

Reading: "Masterpiece Mix" by Roxie Munro

Discussion: Using the book as a guide, various artists and genres of art.

Craft: Tissue paper Monet & still-life watercolor art

3. The Grand Canyon

Reading: "Grand Canyon" by Jason Chin

Discussion: The different layers of the Grand Canyon and the history of the Grand Canyon over time.

Craft: Grand Canyon torn paper collage

4. Two Truths and a Lie

Reading: "Two Truths and a Lie: It's Alive!" by Ammi-Joan Paquette and Laurie Ann Thompson

Discussion: Use the book for discussion about a variety of odd topics and play two truths and a lie.

Craft: Make their own plant creation

5. Homophones/Homonyms

Reading: "Bob, Not Bob!" by Liz Garton Scanlon and Audrey Vernick

Discussion: Homophones vs. homonyms

Craft: Homonym/Homophone print-outs

June:

6. Junkyard Instruments

Reading: "Ada's Violin: The Story of the Recycled Orchestra of Paraguay" by Susan Hood

Discussion: Talk about the real-life recycled orchestra and how the instruments were created.

Craft: Make your own recycled instrument

7. Wind Chimes

Reading: "Energy Island: How One Community Harnessed the Wind and Changed Their World" by Allan Drummond

Discussion: Wind energy

Craft: DIY wind chimes

8. Sound

Reading: "Squeak, Rumble, Whomp! Whomp! Whomp!: A Sonic Adventure" by Wynton Marsalis

Discussion: What is sound? Show them sound waves with a few simple experiments.

Craft: DIY harmonica

9. Decoding/Inferences

Reading: "Du Iz Tak?" by Carson Ellis (with accompanying book, "Baloney, Henry P." by Jon Scieszka)

Discussion: How do we decode text. Show them using the book "Du Iz Tak" and decipher what the text means.

Craft: Alien paper craft

July:

10. Garden

Reading: "Florette" by Anna Walker

Discussion: Neighborhood gardens/flowers.

Craft: Plant flower seeds to take home

11. Duke Ellington

Reading: "88 Instruments" by Chris Barton (share "Duke Ellington: The Piano Prince and His Orchestra" by Andrea Davis Pinkney)

Discussion: Who is Duke Ellington? Share various instruments.

Craft: Thumb piano

12. Whale Songs

Reading: "Following Papa's Song" by Gianna Marino

Discussion: Whales and the music they make.

Craft: Paper plate whale craft

13. Rhythmic Folklore

Reading: "Bringing the Rain to Kapiti Plain: a Nandi Tale" by Verna Aardema

Discussion: The meaning behind the folklore.

Craft: Rain sticks

14. Pulp Paper

Reading: "5 Little Ducks" by Denise Fleming

Discussion: The song in the book and how the art in the book was made.

Craft: Create our own pulp paper!

School-Age: Daylight Savings

Last week we learned about Daylight Savings Time, in preparation for Daylight Savings over the weekend.


1. Reading
We read "At the Same Moment, Around the World" by Clotilde Perrin.

The book discusses how all these different children around the world are experiencing a different time of day. At the back of the book, it teaches about time zones and who came up with the idea of time zones.

2. Discussion
Before getting into a conversation about Daylight Savings Time, I wanted to first teach the kids about time zones -- hence the book choice. The kids needed to understand a bit about how the entire world has different time zones (24 time zones in total) and why. Once we talked about time zones, I introduced the concept of Daylight Savings.

We talked about how long Daylight Savings has been around. The United States has been using Daylight Savings since the energy crisis in the 1970's, but different countries have adopted it (and gotten rid of it) off-and-on over time. There is a wonderful map of the world on Wikipedia that shows which countries currently participate in Daylight Savings, which countries formerly did, and which countries never have.

Benjamin Franklin is credited with the idea of Daylight Savings from a (humorous) letter he wrote the Parisians about saving candlelight. I shared a page from "Now & Ben: The Modern Inventions of Benjamin Franklin" by Gene Barretta that mentions this.

I would like to think Benjamin Franklin did not intend for anyone to actually use it, but many countries have adopted it during war times or energy crises in order to attempt to save energy.

3. Craft
For our craft, since we are gaining an extra hour of sunlight at the end of our day, we made sun catchers! I used paper plates that we cut holes in the middle of. I cut larger circles of contact paper. Before the program, my teen helpers attached one side of contact paper and put the paper plate with the sticky side up on our craft tables. 

The kids put down tissue paper and, once they were finished, the teen helpers and I put the other contact paper over the tissue paper to create a stained-glass effect. The last part was optional, but we used hole punchers to put a hole through their paper plate. They could use yarn to thread a string through and hang their sun catcher up in a window at home.

Notes:
This was actually a very informative program (for myself and for the kids). I did not know nearly that much information about Daylight Savings until I researched while putting together the program materials. And I was actually surprised that none of the kids seemed to know much about Daylight Savings or time zones. There are usually always a few older kids that know a bit about the topic. So it was a hugely beneficial topic all-around!

School-Age: Constellations

Ms. Carol planned and presented this week, since I'm out of town tomorrow, so I will share what she talked about at this week's programs.

1. Reading
For Ms. Carol's topic about constellations, she started the program off by reading Coyote Places the Stars by Harriet Peck Taylor. 

The kids and I loved listening to this story about the Coyote using his bow and arrow to move the stars into shapes of his animal friends. It was a beautiful Wasco folktale about the constellations that appear in the night sky.

2. Discussion

Ms. Carol had the kids help her define what a constellation was. Then she showed them a variety of constellations (just the shapes of the stars) to see if they could name any of them. There were plenty of facts that I learned about - like pointer stars! I had no idea that well-known constellations, like the Big Dipper, had stars that pointed to OTHER constellations, or stars, in them!

Ms. Carol also played night sky trivia with the kids.

3. Craft

At the end of the program, the kids got to make their own constellations. They were given a black piece of paper, a strip of 12 gold/silver star stickers, and chalk. They could put their stars down in any order and then, using chalk, could create their own constellation.

Here is one I made:

And a few our teens made:

Notes:

It was fun to see the creativity of our kids at the program coming up with their various constellations! This was a great week and I enjoyed taking a break and observing Ms. Carol do her thing!