Friday, January 27, 2017

School-Age: Math

Math...eh? Sounds like not a whole lot of fun but we made it fun this week!

1. Reading:
We read the book "A Hungry Lion or a Dwindling Assortment of Animals" by Lucy Ruth Cummins. This book is hilarious as animals keep coming in and out of the story at different parts. We played a game while I read the book. I printed the characters and had my teen helpers cut them out and stick them to Popsicle sticks. Then we had a variant of a reader's theater. The kids worked in groups and had to listen along to the story and keep track of which animals were leaving and which were returning on each page.



Our Characters: 


2. Activity:
After the book, we collected our characters and had the kids stay in groups. We handed out BINGO cards that I had made. They were math related so each of the squares had random clipart. Some were vegetables/fruit, some were animals, and some were random pictures. Each picture was a certain number of what was in the picture. Two bananas, seven cats, four rabbits, etc. 

An example of one of our scorecards:

The number BINGO ended up being a very popular and fun game! The kids loved it and asked for more rounds! But we had to move on to our finale -- the craft.

3. Craft
I wanted a simple craft since I knew we would spend a majority of our program having fun playing BINGO. Since our book was about a hungry lion, we made lions out of paper plates. It's a simple craft since all you need are paper plates, markers, and scissors. I had the kids color the outside edge of the paper plate for the lion's mane. Then they cut strips along the edges for the lion's hair in the mane. They could add a face to their lion in the middle of the plate. (Some were better than mine!) 



Overall, it was a fun program! After our Tuesday program, we learned it was easier to have the kids lay out their characters in order for the 'reader's theater'/subtracting part before we began reading the book. Otherwise, they enjoyed listening along and sharing which characters went missing each page -- it worked on listening skills and reading/listening comprehension. That was the subtracting part of our program. The BINGO was all about adding different amounts of items together (counting the amount of birds/bananas/etc.). And our craft tied into the hungry lion book. 

Most importantly, we had fun all while learning a little math at the same time!

Saturday, January 21, 2017

School-Age Special Event: Lunar New Year

In our Fall and Spring sessions, we usually do a special event once a month. The special event for January was celebrating the Lunar New Year.

1. Reading:
We read the book "Bringing in the New Year" by Grace Lin. It's a fairly new book about the Chinese New Year and had some wonderful information in the back of the book about some common traditions that many families and communities have to celebrate.



2. Discussion
I had a very short discussion after I read the book, where I read the information at the back of "Bringing in the New Year" by Grace Lin. I talked about some of the crafts we had planned and how they related to the celebrations many people had surrounding the Lunar New Year.


3. Crafts
We had not one, not two, not even three crafts...we had FOUR crafts. I set up four stations for the kids to visit. At some of our other special events, it has worked well to have a 'passport' where the kids earn stamps by completing the activity or craft at each station. I made a passport for our program that had each craft.

The signs for the stations:


3a. Chinese Lantern:

We took red paper, folded it in half longways, and cut up the middle but not all the way through. Then we taped the ends of the paper to make a tube with the slits poking out to make a lantern. The kids were able to choose the yarn they wanted as their handle to the lantern. Fancier versions of how to make the craft can be found here and here

3b. Chinese Dragon
I based our dragon craft on a version I found online. There was no template for it, so I had teen volunteers cut strips of colorful paper. Parents and teen helpers helped the kids make chains of paper for their dragon bodies. As for the heads, I made a template on Publisher using the oval shapes and had teens cut them out.

3c. Bookmarks
It is customary to write wishes and poems on red paper to hang up for the New Year. I had small pieces of red paper cut out and kids could color and write their wishes for the New Year. If they wanted, they could use their paper wishes as bookmarks for their books.

3d. Learn to write Chinese characters
I found some neat worksheets for kids learning how to write Chinese characters. I posted them up on the wall above one of the stations and had paper that the kids could use to practice writing the characters. Another poster from a different website taught the numbers 1 through 10 in Chinese


How did it go?
All in all, I think it was a pretty successful program. We had between 40-50 people at the program. It was busy and hectic, but a lot of fun. There are definitely things I would do differently next time. A lot of the crafts needed tape or glue and it is harder to do those with that many kids and at stations where kids need to move through them quickly. Otherwise, all the kids and their parents seemed to have had a wonderful time!

Friday, January 20, 2017

School-Age: Rainforests

I went on vacation last week so I gave my library assistant free rein to do as she'd like for the school-age programs last week. She did a program about the juvenile nonfiction book "Have You Filled a Bucket Today?" by Carol McCloud. It's a great book if you haven't read it and her program went splendidly. 

Now that I am back in town, we are learning about the rainforest this week! 

1. Reading:
We read the board book "ABC Rainforest" by the American Museum of Natural History



It was a great book to share at a program for school-age kids with beautiful pictures and lots of interesting facts about rainforests and the animals and creatures that live there.

2. Discussion and Activity
I showed the kids a picture of the different layers of the rainforest. I described each layer and talked about what plants and animals they might find in each layer. 

Then we played an activity. I chose about 8 different animals and insects from the "ABC Rainforest" book and we played a game to see if the kids could guess what part of the rainforest each creature lived it. I had them work in small groups of 2-4 kids each. I gave them a picture of the rainforest layers and cut-out pictures of each creature. They put the animal/insect on the part of the rainforest they thought it belonged. Then I revealed whether they were right. The kids LOVED it. The small groups cheered when they were right and everyone was so excited about each upcoming animal.

3. Craft
Since one of the animals in the book was an Emerald Tree Boa, we made our own to take home. I found a version that made a springy mobile from DLTK's Crafts for Kids.


Notes:
We had a lot of fun this week and more manageable crowds. Or at least it felt that way so maybe it's just that I'm getting the hang of this school-age program thing :).

Wednesday, January 4, 2017

School-Age: Winter Water Cycle

It's a little weird not doing storytimes. Not just because I'm not presenting them but, when you work with the little ones, most of the programs are earlier in the day. When you work with school-agers and teens the programs are typically in the afternoons and evenings. It'll take some adjusting for sure.

As for our first program of the Spring 2017 session, I chose the Winter Water Cycle! It may not be snowing in our part of the world but, with snow in the forecast, who knows what might happen! It always seems to snow right around when I've planned a snow-themed program...

1. Reading:
We read a book I've been looking forward to sharing called "Best in Snow" by April Pulley Sayre.



2. Discussion
We had a discussion while reading the book about the different parts of the water cycle and what happens in the water cycle in winter. I referred to the "Secrets of Snow" in the back of the book to explain what was happening in each picture in the book.

3. Demonstration
I demonstrated the water cycle with an activity I found from the Gift of Curiosity. The kids were excited because we made it 'rain inside'.

What you need:
a. Glass Bowl (I brought in a glass Pyrex bowl from home)
b. Plastic Wrap
c. Salt
d. Hot/Warm Water (I used an electric kettle we have in our staff room)
e. Ice

I had my teen helpers on my Tuesday afternoon program get the demonstration together and the kids gathered close as we watched the water condense on the top of the plastic wrap and begin raining inside the bowl. It was neat, even for us adults. 

I used a simple water cycle drawing to go over what we saw in the demonstration and how the water cycle works in our world. I also showed pictures of real world examples of the water cycle and asked them what part of the water cycle each of the pictures demonstrated. Then we discussed the how and why if the picture required some discussion (like one on water vapor or condensation -- it's impossible to show condensation inside of an actual cloud). 

4. Craft
Last, it was time for our craft. We made umbrellas out of paper plates.




What you need:
a. Paper plates (cut in half)
b. Umbrella rods (cut out of paper)
c. Rain drops (cut out of blue paper)
d. Yarn (cut in strips)  


Notes:
As for things that we would change?...

We had a ton of people at our Friday morning program -- way more than we had planned for -- so my Library Assistant and I are brainstorming ways for crowd management in regards to the craft part of the program. Our afternoon program earlier in the week had a smaller number of attendees. It was easier for us to work one-on-one with kids that needed it. We also have teen volunteers on the Tuesday afternoon program. 

But, despite how popular our school-age morning program is for attendees in our community, it is incredibly difficult to find teens that are also free each week on a morning. So, between not have teen helpers AND having a ton more school-agers in attendance, we were a little overwhelmed. I think the craft was fine for earlier in the week but we need crafts that require a little less help from adults. We will have to see what that looks like for our future programs this spring and going forward. 

Also...maybe we ran out of supplies. We had JUST one extra kid beyond what I had made beforehand. Luckily, with this craft, all we needed to do was cut a paper plate in half and cut another umbrella rod. So we'll make even more supplies so we can be sure to have extras on hand for future weeks.

All in all, though, is was a hugely successful event! I can't wait to see how the rest of the spring session shapes up!