Easy Family STEM by Carrie Robinson @ CEN

We usually associate STEM programming with school aged kids and up. But believe it or not, there are plenty of ways to engage the 5 and under crowd in STEM activities, and you don’t have to be some kind of rocket surgeon to do it.

“What?!” You may be asking, incredulous. “What can you possibly teach a preschooler or a toddler about something so abstract?”

That’s a great question, which you may or may not have asked! Last October, Central Kids started a biweekly family STEM program called Little Explorers, which we alternate with Toddler Yoga. Little Explorers is a hands-on, interactive discovery program that delves into different STEM themes, and it is geared towards toddlers and preschoolers.

The key is to ditch the jargon, focus on one abstract concept and demonstrate that concept concretely in a variety of ways. This month, I decided to use light and shadow as my Little Explorers theme, which would be an opportunity to explore both earth science and physical science. I got the idea from this website, which is from the Massachusetts Department of Higher Education.

First, I die-cut a bunch of different shapes, laminated them, and taped them to jumbo popsicle sticks. I saved as many of paper outlines as possible (rather than throwing them away) and laminated those as well.

Then, I made a big shadow theater. All you have to do is cut off the flaps, top and bottom, of a regular old cardboard box, leaving you with a cardboard frame. Then, tape white butcher paper or tissue paper over one of the holes. If you use butcher paper, this will stabilize the box; if not, you’ll need to use something to support it (two bookends should work nicely.) I also found some really sturdy smaller boxes lying around, so I decided to make mini-shadow boxes (I had six, and we usually get around six kids and their parents who come). I also cut out 6 sets of 3”x3” red, green, yellow and blue cellophane that I found in Create HPL. Finally, I went out and got a 10-pack of flashlights from Wal-Mart for $9.82 and I was ready to go!

Little Explorers is set up in interactive stations rather than serial, guided activities. This keeps the younger kids engaged and allows the older kids to work at a more advanced level. I start each program with a group introduction to the concept we are covering that day, usually on the storytime rug, followed by an explanation of the different stations, and then set the rugrats loose to explore.

On the morning of the program, I set up a projector in the program room, against a blank wall, with our storytime rug in front of it (note: to get the projector to show a white screen instead of blue, I had to hook up a computer and project a full-screen white picture onto the wall, which I made in Paint...technology, am I right?). Against an adjacent wall, I laid yoga mats out in a semicircle, like the rays of the sun. No one noticed, but I like to think it added an ineffable, thematic ambience to the room. Each yoga mat had a mini-shadow box, a flashlight, a cellophane set, and 4-5 laminated shadow puppets/outlines. I set the big shadow box up in the center of the semicircle on a chair. Now I had three stations: the yoga mats, the big shadow box and the wall with the projector.

As 10:30 rolled around and everyone arrived, I flipped off the lights and asked all the kids and parents to stand on the rug, facing the wall, away from the projector. We talked about the sun during the day, the moon at night, how the sun shines and casts shadows, etc. Then I asked all the kids to point to their shadow on the wall, wave, point to mommy’s shadow, make their shadow jump and so on. Then we got started.

My time during the bulk of the program is spent making rounds from child to child, encouraging them to try different things along with their parents, to experiment and hypothesize and all those other fun and fundamental scientific concepts. The kids bounced back and forth between activities and, as always, I was amazed at the creativity and ingenuity of young children. One three-year-old pointed the flashlight at the wall, started rotating it in his hand, and exclaimed, “Ferris wheel!” Then he, his mother and I talked about the ways it was like a ferris wheel: how it moved, how it had spokes, how it carries people, etc. And so playing with a flashlight became a conversation about ferris wheels, which became an opportunity to teach about simple machines. Cross-pollination like this occurs all the time in Little Explorers, as the kids forge new connections right in front of your eyes.

Before I knew it, 45 minutes had passed and our time was up. At the end, I sent everyone home with a shadow box of their very own.

What can you teach very young children about science and math? Tons, it turns out.

Further Reading
NAEYC’s pages on Math and STEM

Teaching STEM in the Early Years by Sally Moomaw

STEM Play by Dierdre Englehart

Enriching early scientific learning by Jane Johnston

International Children's Talent Show

The team at SWX/WAL along with volunteers from across the system had a smashing success with their International Children's Talent Show! Check out just a few photos of performances below and see all the photos plus videos by following the hyperlinks.

Congrats on a fantastic program!

STEM Unplugged

After seeing an ALSC blog post that mentioned a cool-looking unplugged coding program that used a taped grid and paper, I wanted to try a similar program at PLE to introduce the kids at ASZ to coding concepts. I chose a Mario theme for the program because all the Mario games are pretty popular at PLE and the characters and world are pretty easily recognized by most kids.

Also, there are lots of ideas and tutorials for Mario props on Pinterest. I used paper lanterns, pipe cleaners, and paper to make the Bob-ombs and the Chain Chomp. I covered the cardboard boxes with red construction paper to serve as brick walls and used cardboard for the coins and their stands. The flag is made from a cheap dowel rod and a painted Styrofoam ball. For each "playable character," I made a visor hat (or crown) from cardstock and elastic and then made a corresponding flag that attached using Velcro circles to the flag pole.

For the program, the kids partnered up, with one person being the player and the other the character. The player used the printed directional arrows and commands (start, action, stop) to create a program and then read it out loud, having the character move through the grid and interact with the different elements according to that program.

The kids really liked it, though we did run into some issues. For one, I think there were too many elements on the grid, making it too difficult. Only one person actually got their player all the way to the flag pole. The rest of the players hit the Bob-ombs (they did enjoy acting that out) or were bitten by the Chain Chomp. Because it was kind of difficult, it was also a bit time-consuming. A number of the kids got impatient and started doing other activities (video games, coloring, etc.) and lost interest. For future programs, I'm going to find ways for more kids to be involved at the same time, like having them work in teams, or having two smaller grids and having a race between two teams.

And, using the idea of the grid and the printed arrows and commands, pretty much any theme can be applied. Like Minecraft could be a cool one to use. What are some of your ideas?

- Kristin @ PLE

Planning Ahead Saves You $$$!

I love after holiday sales! It’s exciting to find items on the cheap. Last year after Easter, I found bags of plastic eggs for 10 cents a pop. I ended up spending $2.60 for the whole cart. Sometimes planning way in advance saves you tons of money. I ended up with well over 1,000 eggs.

I was saving them for this year’s Easter Egg hunt program. Since I had so many eggs, I had plastic eggs on hand to do the maracas craft (like the one pictured below) for our Summer Jubilee event that was Fiesta! themed.

In fact, there are many things you can do with plastic eggs. One of my favorite idea that I found during my google search was Wobble Eggs. They’re easy to make and are very versatile when it comes to decorating the outside part of the egg.

There are a variety of ways to make the egg wobble. It all depends on your budget and age group. You can use pennies, heavy nuts, or play dough as suggested in the directions below.

Wobble eggs in action:
YouTube
My Kid Craft
Instructables

Nhu @ STE (BRA)

STEM Ideas from the Lunar and Planetary Institute

The Lunar and Planetary Institute is a really cool place. They are the swell folks that lend out their planetarium. I got to go to a training there last month to try out some STEM ideas with their education coordinator. Here are some cool things from LPI that you could do at your library for STEM programs, including Star Parties!

UV Kid
Mess level: 1
Materials needed: Chenille stems, UV beads, regular pony beads, assorted scraps of tissue paper, aluminum foil, etc (optional: sunscreen)
Basics: Make a person/animal/creature out of chenille stems, decorating with UV beads and regular beads. Take your creation into the light and watch the UV beads change colors. Then create some sort of sun protection out of the scrap materials. Then take your creation back out into the sunlight and see how well you did.

Oreo Moon Phases
Mess level: 4
Materials needed: 6 oreos per kid, paper towels, plastic cutlery, printed calendar
Basics: Subtract frosting from oreos to model moon phases. Place them on a calendar of the current month to show when the phases will be visible.
Note: Here is the PDF of the calendar we used. You’ll have to make your own or do some editing since it’s for December 2017.

Make a comet

Mess level: 10
Materials needed: 5 pounds of dry ice (purchased the day of or the day before the activity and stored well-wrapped in a freezer before use), Mallet, Eye protection, Thick work gloves or insulated rubber gloves, Plastic bowl (large), Paper or cloth grocery bag, 13 gallon garbage bag, Pie pan or flat tray, 1 cup of sand or soil, Dash of ammonia, Dash of organic materials, such as rubbing alcohol or corn syrup, Strong flashlight, (Optional) a printed image of a comet, (Optional) tools for making additional observations, such as magnifying glasses, cameras, scales, an ear thermometer, or infrared thermal cameras that work with smartphones and tablets (such as a Seek Thermal Compact camera).
Basics: Make a comet by mixing fragments of dry ice with sand and water. This is definitely the most involved activity. If you have a larger group, I would recommend having several staff on hand helping to make the comets. Dry ice is something that we have to be really careful with, so please take every safety precaution in the directions. You could also do this as a demonstration.

- Angela @ COL

New Program: The Reading Circle

You’re never too old to listen to a story! Our read-a-loud book club meets every week and features the book club Narrator reading a chapter or two from the current selection. Participants are invited to practice their own read-a-loud skills in a friendly, no-pressure environment. Missed the last meeting? No worries, we have a quick recap at the start of each session. Ages 5-10

This was a new program that I am very excited to start but, as I am currently in transition, am unable to get up and running at the moment. I figure many of you may be interested in starting this program at your locations.

When I thought of this program, I wanted a program that required minimal prep, would not stress staffing level, and would be a program that I could offer on Saturdays, and any staff member could take over if needed. This program also addresses the gap in reading-based programming for children who are too old for storytime.

My vision for this program is to create a safe and relaxing environment for kids to enjoy a read-a-loud story done by the facilitator. The last 10 minutes of this 30-minute program would allow kids who want to partake in the read-a- loud to do so. Kids can pass on the opportunity if they choose - there is no read-aloud requirement for participants. If all the kids pass, the facilitator would continue to read to the kids. Like the description stated, this is a no pressure environment. I want the kids to enjoy the program and in doing so develop their listening and comprehension skills as well as foster the love of stories.

The first two books I planned were:

Sideway Stories from Wayside School by Louis Sachar
Each chapter in this book is a story about one of the students on the 30th floor of Wayside School. I love this book for its wacky, silly stories. The great thing about this book is that the kids will not be lost if they missed the previous meeting. We had an opportunity to read this book to kids during Camp Houston and it went very well so I know this would be a great first book for this program.

Where the Sidewalk Ends by Shel Silverstein (or any other title in the series)
This book contains numerous long and short poems that all have an element of the absurd. Patience Agholor and I passed this book around to the kids during one of our down time sessions of Camp Houston. We sat in a circle and the book was passed around. Whoever had the book had a moment to look through it and pick a poem to read out loud. I think the youngest kid we had in the circle was about 5-6 yrs old and he had no problem picking out a short poem to read. The thing to remember about this part of the session is to let the kids read and figure out the words themselves. We are not looking over their shoulders. We do not pressure them to read.

Other Book Ideas:
Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark (series) by Alvin Schwartz …great for October Meetings

Homer Price by Robert McCloskey contains 6 short stories about Homer’s adventures in his small town and would be a good fit for this style of program.

Do you have any suggestions for books that would be great to read for this program?
Please comment with your ideas.

Do let me know if you end up doing this program at your location and how it went.
- Nhu @ STE/Currently at PAR & BRA

Catapult into FUN!

I had a lot of success with a catapult STEM program I did recently and wanted to share the fun!


There are a number of blog posts about making catapults using craft sticks and rubber bands (links below). I hot glued bottle caps at our program, but in some of the blogs they used spoons instead or even masking tape instead of rubber bands. Most of the kids made the simpler catapult I had an example of and I showed them how to make it, but I told them they could make it however they wanted or make adjustments to it, which some of them did. I also put out markers so they could write their names and decorate if they wanted to. Once the catapult was finished, they were cleared to go to the launch zone, which was a table I'd stuck printed number signs showing the number of inches and a start sign on and had fluff balls and poms for them to launch. They were all really good about only launching those items and I had kids from every age group excited about it and participating.

DIY Catapult posts & instructions:
Easy (and Fun) Catapult for Kids to Make
STEM Activity for Kids: Popsicle Stick Catapults
Popsicle Stick Catapult for Kids STEM Activity

- Kristin McWilliams @ PLE

Do you have something you'd like to share on the YS Blog? Send it to Rebecca and Sara!

Passive Program Idea for Fall/Winter: Leaf Rubbing!

I recently did a craft program built around Anthony Browne’s Frida and Bear Play the Shape Game. If you haven’t seen this one, I highly recommend it. Frida and Bear alternate making pictures out of shapes, including shapes they draw and shapes they find in nature. For instance, they start with the shape in red, then draw in the rest to create a dog:

I read the book, then gave the kids shapes to base their art on. I also collected a bunch of leaves and twigs from the neighborhood behind our library so they could use those as a starting point as well.

This was my creation. Kids guesses of what it is: tree, stump, leaf. Clearly I have a future in the fine arts.

A couple of the kids made some cool stuff out of their shapes, but one of them really latched on to the nature theme and just wanted to make rubbings. He was having such a good time that he inspired my passive craft program for the Saturday after the Thanksgiving holiday.

I went for a walk over the holiday and picked up a lot of cool leaves and sticks from around my parents’ neighborhood. (Hooray for free supplies!) Then I picked out all of our naked crayons and put everything artfully on a table outside our kids’ room. I also left out an example.

I made a little sign in picmonkey, letting people know what it was all about:

If I had to change anything it would be to have some sort of direction about how to do a leaf rubbing. I guess I expected at least the caregivers to know how, but I had to show several people how to rub the crayon horizontally. By the end of the day there were leaves strewn about the table and floor, but it was an easy clean. For the minimal effort put in, this was a very satisfying passive program.

What kind of passive programs do you run? I want to hear about them!
- Angela Barratt @ COL

STEM Program Ideas

Want to run a STEM program during ASZ or on the weekend, but forgot to request a kit in time? Want to include a STEM activity in storytime? Here's a STEM resource that I've added to the Kids, Tweens, and Teen pages: STEM In Libraries. I do love that you can filter for Science, Technology, Engineering and Math, or just look at all the ideas they offer.

What project do you want to try at your location? Let us know in the comments by November 1st , don't forget to include your name and location in your comment, and get a prize from the treasure chest at the next youth meeting!

Programming Resource

Have you heard of programminglibrarian.org? It's a great resource for programming ideas for everyone from kids through older adults. You can filter your searches, or browse ideas limiting by cost (there are free program ideas!), library type, topic and program type. If, for some reason, you do not have a backup program idea for SRP, you should definitely check out this site, and find a backup program idea!

Check it out, and let us know if there are any cool programs you'd like to do at your library in the comments!

Easy Crafts for Kids

What will you do if your SRP performer doesn't show up? Do you have your plan B in place? Here's a website with some AWESOME easy craft ideas, and a lot of them don't require much more than paper! http://www.easypeasyandfun.com/ This is one of my favorite things right now:

I've made a frog puppet before using a similar technique, but I hadn't seen a shark puppet! This is a fairly simple craft that could work for multiple ages, so a great plan B if you need a quick program! Also, some of the activities could work as passive programs. Check out the site and let use know what crafts you are excited about trying at your location in the comments!

-Sara

Music!

While I have been known to throw down some Wiggles in storytime on occasion, I am all about broadening the musical horizons of both kids and caregivers. As long as it’s kid-appropriate, you can share music from many time periods and genres. I use songs during storytime, of course, to dance and sing to, and I make playlists for playtime as well. I also try to have music playing during other programs, like crafts. On that note (pun intended!), here are some of my favorite resources for music:

Spare the Rock
A fabulous radio show that plays in Austin but is also available online.
From their website: “The show plays “indie music for indie kids,” including the best of music aimed at kids (like Dan Zanes, Moona Luna, Ella Jenkins, Elizabeth Mitchell, Lunch Money, Caspar Babypants, and They Might Be Giants) right along side kid-friendly tracks from the likes of The Ramones, Mike Doughty, Ella Fitzgerald, Brian Eno, Pizzicato Five, Andrew Bird, Fishbone, and more.” Right up my alley. Also it led me to a totally rockin’ tribute album to David Bowie called Let All the Children Boogie.


My Own Personal Music Collection
Don’t overlook your own favorites! Again, as long as they’re kid-appropriate, it’s totally cool to play your faves. Plus the kids will see how much you love them and it will help them get excited. Also, it’s totally okay to bring back the hits from your own childhood. For instance: Raffi is timeless. And often caregivers think it’s a hoot to hear songs that they heard as kids.

World Music
Get some other languages and rhythms in there! Putumayo kids is a great place to start.

Disney Movies
I am not above playing the Moana soundtrack to gain cheap cool points. Also, can we all agree that “How Far I’ll Go” is a huge earworm? (It’s stuck in your head now, isn’t it?)

Freegal
Freegal is a great thing to refer caregivers to, since a lot of them play music on their phones and it’s easier to download via freegal than play an audio cd. As long as they have a library card, they get 5 hours of streaming music per day and 5 MP3 song downloads per week. Some rad artists you can find on Freegal: Caspar Babypants, Laurie Berkner, They Might Be Giants, Sesame Street

Some of my favorite kids’ artists/albums that I haven’t mentioned yet:

Songs from Sesame Street
Usher’s ABCs, anyone!? (we love jammin’ to this in preschool storytime)

The Muppets: Green Album
Highlights: Weezer & Hayley Williams’ Rainbow Connection, Andrew Bird’s Bein’ Green

For Our Children
This is an album I listened to so much as a child that I broke the cassette tape. It is old, so it’s not in our catalog, but I checked and you can ILL it. Trust me, Little Richard’s Itsy Bitsy Spider will change your life. The sequel, For Our Children Too!, is not quite as good but has some gems like Seal singing Puff (The Magic Dragon) and Cher covering A Dream is a Wish Your Heart Makes.

Old Town School of Folk Music
Ms. Renee Benson introduced me to the Milkshake Song and baby time would also transform into a mad dance party when we sang it. Also, I used their Row, Row, Row Your Boat during our Boats Afloat toddler storytime, and it was such a big hit that now we dance along to it every week.

Leave a comment with some of your favorite music to share in storytimes or to have in the background during other programs!

- Angela @ COL

Dramatic Play

Hello all!

Angela here. I had a lovely jaunt at Jungman but I am happy to be reunited with Collier’s kids room and the kids who fill it. One of the things I really missed was the Dramatic Play Elephant. We have this blue elephant that I think is supposed to hold books but it is really so much better at holding costumes and other dramatic play toys.

Those books are just begging to fall out. And VHS tapes!?

Look how perfectly the hats fit into the cubbies.

There are few things I love more than the amazing costume combos I see in Collier’s kids room: construction worker fairies, dinosaur princesses, firefighter doctors… so much imagination at play!

I don’t want to get too didactic here, but I do want to spotlight some of the early literacy benefits of Dramatic Play. Research has shown that more Dramatic Play is correlated with higher test scores, increased language ability, and development of critical thinking and social skills. And this research is all across socio-economic lines!

While researching for this blog post, I found this really cool breakdown of the kinds of play. Sara Smilansky was a researcher who divided play into four levels. All of them are important, but they do build on one another:

1. Functional: moving objects, practicing motor skills, and experiencing the immediate environment
2. Constructive: movement of objects in a non-random way, with a goal
3. Dramatic: “free, symbolic play in which the child explores relationships with the world (and others in that world)” (Furman 173)
4. Games with Rules: children accept and adjust to rules of play (could be an official game or a game with socially created rules)

You may be familiar with programs that celebrate all of these kinds of play! For instance, baby playtime will be mostly functional play, with some constructive. By age 2, kids are starting into Dramatic Play (think play food and magic wands).

Dramatic Play can involve acting out daily activities that children experience, activities seen or heard in stories, and creating new scenarios based on these experiences. With Dramatic Play, kids are practicing “symbolic representation — the ability to use one thing to represent another” (Furman). This helps reinforce the literacy concept of letters and words representing ideas.

In the Elephant, in addition to costumes that I have acquired from various sources (some were costumes that my siblings and I wore as children, and some came from the toys I found already here at the branch), we have: a baby doll, a plastic doctor’s kit, an old camera (with the batteries removed), and a hear-myself sound phone. If you would like to spend some of your $200 discretionary budget on dramatic play items, Lakeshore has a whole category! Or, take a look and get inspired to use some things you may already have at your branch.

If it is not feasible to leave Dramatic Play materials out on the floor of your library, consider using them in a program! You could have dramatic playtime or bring some hats to a hat-themed storytime. Dramatic Play does not have to involve props or costumes. It could be as simple as: “let’s all get on our horse and gallop around the room!,” or “Flap your wings because today we are birds”! But the benefits are far from simple.

Cited:
Bennett-Armistead, V. Susan. "What Is Dramatic Play and How Does It Support Literacy Development in Preschool?" Scholastic.

Furman, Lou. “In Support of Drama in Early Childhood Education, Again.” Early Childhood Education Journal, Vol. 27, No. 3, 2000

Origami Boxes

Paper crafts are one of my favorite things to do  with my kids at home. You can create this box and lid  to be a card that opens out when the lid is removed. Or you can glue or hot glue the flaps to the inside of the box and have a nice sturdy little box. The box template can be printed out on 8.5x11 paper and the box itself measures about 2 inches tall when it's completed.

 I've included the instructions for both the box and the box lid above the templates for cutting out. The nice thing about that is  you can print these out and the teens or (elementary age kids)  have the instructions with pictures right in front of them so they can follow along as you all do the craft together or try it on their own. I recommend using cardstock and not regular paper. It makes for a sturdier project.

Once the box is done, they can decorate it as they like. I used heavy card stock and paper flowers in the photos you see here. But the possibilities are endless.

This could make a great card or gift  for Mother's Day or even Father's day (with the right paper choices--comic book pages glued onto cardstock?)

For anyone who replies in the comments section, I'll create a box similar to the one pictured (but with different themes and paper) so you have a sample of your own. Don't forget to put your name and location! I'll get your little boxes to you at the next Youth Services Meeting in March. 

-Michelle Johnson

If you want to conserve paper and print out the box and lid on the same page, here’s the template for that. It’s a slightly smaller box (2 inches instead of 2 ½ inches) but is a nice alternative when doing this for a larger group.

Bubble Bonanza

Last year, I ran an in-house SRP program for the littluns before the big kids got out of school. I mixed up a few different bubble solutions and we had a blast making a huge mess. I put plastic down on the floor and covered it with bed sheets to prevent slips.



I got the giant-bubble wand at the dollar store! But there are directions for making your own online.

Here’s my Pinterest board if you’re interested:

If You Want to Throw a Star Party, Part 4: Day of Destiny

If you look closely, you can see an astronaut!

I had way too much zooming around in my brain on the day of our Star Party. Luckily, Julia was there corralling volunteers and giving them tasks. I definitely recommend having at least one staff member to do this on the day of your event, unless you’re very, very organized (a state of being I can only aspire to). We had three phases of volunteer help: a morning shift for prep work, an afternoon shift for setup, and an evening shift for the actual event. In the morning, 3 volunteers were busy cutting out last minute things and preparing snacks. In the afternoon, 10 volunteers made a few signs for the event, mapped out the solar system on the floor (to scale!), and set up tables where we needed them.  During the event, 10 volunteers helped check people in and guided the flow. They helped out with the photo booth station to take photos, at the moon flipbook station, and one held an ipad with a constellation viewing app.

I found these awesome bulletin board pieces stashed away at Collier,
and they gave me the inspiration to map out the solar system on the floor.
The planets were not to scale but the distances between them were.

You can calculate a scaled solar system with this super-handy website. I found it worked best to measure the distance I had to work with and scale Pluto from there. Volunteers on the afternoon of the event measured out the distances, stuck the planets down, and created fact sheets to place on the floor next to each planet.

I did the planetarium show 3 times and the astronaut spoke 3 times, each at 6:15, 6:45, and 7:15. That way, people could do both things and still have time to do the crafts and other activities. We did end up ticketing the planetarium since only a limited number of people can fit inside at a time (people got tickets as they came in to the library).

As I mentioned, the planetarium was in the meeting room, along with the snacks. The astronaut was in the kids room, and the photo booth was in the teen room. Crafts, tattoos, and ipad station were in the hallway. I covered our Crayola Kiosk for the night with a queen-sized sheet; it worked great. Several unattached adults participated and had fun, but we made sure to leave the adult area of the library alone in case anyone did not want to attend the Star Party.

Our brave and intrepid Ashley working nonstop at the nebula jar table making

galactic dreams come true. Big thanks also to Melinda Campbell for her jar assistance.

Many thanks to Sara Pope for attending and taking these photos! She even chipped in at the nebula jar table and with clean up!
The Star Party was so, so much fun. A lot of our regulars came out, and lots of people I hadn’t met before! Everyone had a pretty good time and it was totally worth all the effort and panic dreams.

This concludes my series on throwing a Star Party! Thanks for the comments and questions, everyone! Feel free to contact me if you ever have any questions, and let me know if any of these ideas work/don’t work for you!

- Angela @ COL

A Sweet Program Idea!

We had a very sugary December at Stella Link to end 2016.

For Season’s Readings we held three programs, one on each Saturday in the first three weeks of December. All three programs were for all ages up to 18 with 7yrs and younger needing parental supervision during the program. We also required registration since we had limited supplies.
Food programs can be quite messy, but very fun!

All materials used were pre-packaged. The only thing we had to make was the colored icing for the Holiday Cookie Decorating Program. The icing was pre-packaged. We added food coloring and did a lot of mixing.

All the ideas for the programs were borrowed from Pinterest. It is a great resource to find ideas and to get your creativity going when you’re slightly stumped on what to do.

Gingerbread House

You will Need:
Graham Crackers
Candy
Icing
Empty orange juice carton

Cookie Decorating

You Will Need:

Sugar cookies

Icing

Food coloring

Sprinkles

Christmas Tree Cupcake

You Will Need:
Sugar cones
Cupcakes
Icing
Green food coloring
Shredded coconut
Mini M&Ms

Amazing Art Resources!

If you are looking for ideas for art programs that you might want to do at your location, either for March programming or for any general time, check out the Art Lab books! They are available as ebooks (some through Hoopla!) and as physical books. What I especially like is that most of them feature 52 lessons, so you could, in theory, do a unique program every week for an entire year. Check them out!

Share your ideas for incorporating art into your library programs in the comments!

If You Want to Throw a Star Party, Part 2: 2 months out

I would be remiss if I left out at this juncture the fact that Star Party was so, so far from a one-woman job. It was really a team effort, and I would like to say a big “thank you!” to the whole Collier staff. My manager Julia did a lot and thought of many things that I would not have. Regular volunteers at our branch and our amazing summer intern helped immensely with preparations.

To request volunteers for the day of the event, Julia contacted Andrea Lawrence through the Volunteer Request form: Intranet->Community Engagement->side bar->Volunteer Request.  She requested volunteers for the day of, to help with final preparations (decorating, last-minute craft prep, snack prep, setup), as well as during the event (manning tables, ensuring smooth flow, assisting participants, clean-up).

At this time, I started prepping the display that would go in the kids area. I wanted it to go up one month before the star party, to generate space excitement and provide an opportunity for telling people about it. I started putting books on hold, and decided what I wanted my display to look like: starry background, moon, Stephen Hawking quote. Collier’s summer intern, Agnes, really did an awesome job putting it together.

Materials: foam core board (special order through NL Admin), black butcher paper from Create HPL, Cricut-cut letters, die-cut stars, glitter paint

Our whole branch got into it, and Cyrano put up a space-themed display in the adult area, too!

Two months out, I created a passive program, a “Star Search” treasure hunt through the library. If you’re interested I can share it with you.

At this time, you should also decide what all you want to have: photo booth, snacks, crafts, etc. We decided we wanted a photo booth with props, so Agnes and volunteers started working on those at around this time (Agnes made the totally bomb astronaut helmets). We chose our crafts: galaxy jars (http://www.momdot.com/diy-nebula-jar-instructions/) and phases of the moon flip books (http://deceptivelyeducational.blogspot.com/2014/11/phases-of-moon-flip-book_21.html).

Stay tuned for the next blog post, in which I learn that in order to give a planetarium talk, I actually have to learn some astronomy!

- Angela

I'm So Hot

Check out this video that was shared at the STEAM in Preschool Storytime training! If you're looking to incorporate videos into your storytime, the Storybots are a great way to do it. In 2 minutes, you/kids in your storytime can learn a lot about the sun by watching this video. Let me know what you think in the comments!