School-Age: Wilma Rudolph

Since this week overlapped with February and March, I decided to honor both Black History Month and Women's History Month by talking about Wilma Rudolph. 

1. Reading

We read the book "The Quickest Kid in Clarksville" by Pat Zietlow Miller. It was a wonderful book about kids getting prepared for the parade in Clarksville, Tennessee, in 1960, honoring Wilma Rudolph after she won 3 gold medals in the Olympics that year. 

2. Activity

We played a game of True/False with facts about Wilma Rudolph. We have sticks that another librarian made with double-sided paper dots attached to them. One side is red and the other is yellow. I had the kids hold up the red side if they thought the statement was false and the yellow side if they thought the statement was true. The kids loved the guessing game.

3. Discussion

We had a short discussion after the True/False game where I read the end notes from "The Quickest Kid in Clarksville", sharing some facts about Wilma Rudolph.

4. Craft

Since I did not want the kids racing (running) in the library, I wanted to find a fun way that the kids could 'race' without moving. I decided on making boats out of sponges and wooden dowel rods. I found a similar craft here at the Easy Peasy and Fun blog. The first part of the craft was having the kids design the sails on their boats. They got to color the paper triangles that my teen helpers had cut out prior to the program. I punched, with a hole-puncher, two holes in the paper sail. Then they easily slipped over the wooden dowel rods when they were done.

The one with the yellow sponge and grey sail is mine. I tried making them with 12-inch-tall dowel rods but they were much too heavy and fell over when they were placed in the water. I snapped one in half to test it and that ended up being my example craft since having jagged wooden edges is a safety issue. I took the rest of the dowel rods home and sawed them in half before the program.

The other one was too adorable. One of my attendees made his boat into a Ninja Turtle boat. I couldn't NOT take a picture!

 

5. Final Activity

We raced the boats! I had small rectangular containers that we use to store craft materials. We filled them with water and had the kids take turns blowing on their sails and racing their sponge boats. The kids LOVED it.

Notes:

I wasn't sure how the racing activity was going to go but everyone LOVED it. My first thought was 'OH NO, water in the library!', but I had a teen helper or a staff person monitoring the sponge boat races. The monitor made sure the kids were taking turns and, when the race was over, they made sure the kids squeezed their sponges out before taking the sponges out of the containers. 

I also wasn't sure how the taking turns piece would go. When we did Giant Board Games at the library, or used microscopes in past school-age programs, it was a struggle trying to take turns. But I think, because it was a quick turn-around between races, the kids did not mind waiting their turn and watching the races between the other kids. 

Something to remember for future programs -- and a lesson learned. Sometimes taking a gamble does pay off :)!