Friday, January 26, 2018

School-Age: Origami

A fellow librarian did a program recently on origami, so I borrowed the idea for my school-age kids.


1. Reading
We read "More-igami" by Dori Kleber. It discusses how a kid master's the paper crane but only with lots of patience and practice. I felt like the book had a perfect message to it - the kids are not going to be great at doing origami at first but they need to have patience and keep at it to get better.




2. Discussion
I defined what origami is. We talked about different types/techniques of origami (modular, wet-fold, action, etc.). After, I showed them pictures of neat origami using the various techniques and we had a 'name-the-technique' trivia.


3. Activity/Craft
We spent quite a bit of our program working on origami. At the end of "More-igami", Dori Kleber includes step-by-step directions on how to make an origami ladybug. We also practiced making a origami fox as a group. I gave them print-outs of other origami critters to make or take home with them to practice making.





Notes: 
For the most part this was a super simple and fun program. We did the origami together as a group which worked well, and I had teen helpers jump in whenever a kid needed individual help. We had a lot of future origami masters at the end of the program!

Friday, January 19, 2018

School-Age: Shakespeare

Although it is not a topic covered in public school until high school, we have SO many nonfiction (and even fiction!) books about William Shakespeare. He's kind of a big deal so I wanted to do a program about him!

1. Reading
We read "To Sleep, Perchance to Dream: A Child's Book of Rhymes". It contains a few lines or a couple short passages of Shakespeare's works and is illustrated by James Mayhew.


It gave them a perfect introduction to how Shakespeare wrote without overwhelming them with too much.


2. Discussion
We talked about who this Shakespeare guy really was. I shared some tidbits of information about how many plays he wrote, where he grew up, and when he lived. 


3. Activity
I based my activity off of a book that contained phrases or words that we use today because of William Shakespeare. The book is called "Will's Words: How William Shakespeare Changed the Way You Talk" by Jane Sutcliffe.


I had NO idea how many phrases I use on a daily basis are because of Shakespeare's works!

I made some flashcards of the phrases from the book. I shared the word or phrase with them and asked the kids to tell me what it means. Then I shared the information from the book about what play it came from or how it was used.


4. Craft
I decided a simple craft for this week would be to write with quill and ink! I found a bag of quills and a set of fountain pen ink on Amazon. I explained to the kids that Shakespeare had to write with a quill and ink for all of his plays. Imagine having to dip your pen for ink every few moments!

To make it simpler for all the kids to share the ink, I had my husband and coworkers save plastic bottle caps. They were the PERFECT vehicle to put a small amount of ink in without getting too messy.


Notes:
Our area was dumped on with snow a couple days ago so my end of the week program was not as well attended as I had hoped - I have a lot of left-over supplies! These are the woes of planning for library programs. Besides that, it was still a successful and fun program!

Friday, January 12, 2018

School-Age: Fractions

This topic certainly tested my knowledge of elementary mathematics. I was not sure how it was going to go considering that most elementary-aged students do not learn fractions until about 3rd grade. So it had the potential to be way too difficult for the younger kids and too simple for the older kids.

1. Reading
My topic was mostly driven by the fact that I LOVED "The Cookie Fiasco" by Dan Santat and wanted to find a way to use it at one of my school-age programs! 



In the book there are four characters but only three cookies! What will they do? 

By the end, the nervous Hippo has split the cookies in pieces and there are just enough enough pieces to go around! AKA, they have split the cookies into FRACTIONS!


2. Discussion
We talked about what a fraction is -- equal pieces of the whole. 

I have a few small tablet white-boards and I used them to demonstrate how the cookies were split into fractions. And then we found the fraction of cookie that each character got to eat.

2a. I asked them if they remember how many cookie pieces were left at the end of the book (12) and how many each character got to eat (3). I drew three circles (cookies) and asked how many equal parts each cookie needed to be divided into in order to get 12 pieces.




2b. The kids gave me several answers and I drew them to demonstrate how many pieces each answer would make. 

If we cut each cookie into 2 pieces (1/2), we would get 6 total pieces of cookie:



If we cut each cookie into 3 pieces (1/3), we would get 9 total pieces of cookie:



And, if we cut each cookie into 4 pieces (1/4), we would get 12 total pieces of cookie:



2c. Then we found the fraction of cookie each character would get. If each character gets 3 cookie pieces and the cookies are divided into 4 parts, the amount of cookie they get is 3/4 of a cookie.




3. Reading
Since we needed a bit more background information of fractions - numerators, denominators, the names of fractions, and more, we read some selected parts of the book "Fractions" by Joseph Midthun.
The book used easy-to-understand descriptions and pictures to teach the kids what fractions are. I paper-clipped some of the pages together so that I didn't overwhelm them with too much information.


4. Comparing Fractions Activity
Towards the end of the "Fractions" book it discussed comparing fractions. Using my white-board tablet, I wrote fractions and asked the kids to compare which one was larger.

Then, I drew a picture of each fraction, like I did with the white-board after reading "The Cookie Fiasco", to help them visualize the fraction and see why one fraction was larger than another. It was difficult to realize that larger denominators do not necessarily equal the bigger amount, which is why drawing the fractions helped considerably! 

4a. 1/8 vs 1/4 


 4b. 2/3 vs 1/6



5. Cookie Fiasco Activity
Using the book as inspiration, I created a worksheet for us to work on as a group to fill in. The first part has them fill in the fraction of cookie that matches the fraction. The second part is glasses of milk that they have to fill in. 



Notes: This program went so well! It is amazing how some kids just immediately grasp a concept. I loved hearing them tell me how much of each cookie fraction they needed to fill in! It was one of those topics I took a risk to do, because I was not sure how well it would be received, and I am so glad I did!

Friday, January 5, 2018

School-Age: Lego Man in Space

I thought I would kick off our Spring session with a bang so we did a program using LEGOs! My decision was partly because LEGOs are so popular and are sure to draw in a crowd but it was also to draw attention to our weekly teen-led LEGO program.


1. Reading 
We read the book "LEGO Man in Space" by Mara Shaughnessy. It is a true story about two Canadian teenagers that sent a LEGO Man into space using a weather balloon!


2. Discussion
We had a brief discussion about fact or fiction. Did they think it was really a true story? Did two teenagers ACTUALLY send a LEGO Man into space?

I showed them a few pictures I found from news articles of Mat and Asad. Here's an article from the Daily Mail of them after hiking to find LEGO Man after his descent back to Earth, including a video of an interview with the two teens. Here's an article from The Star, which includes pictures of LEGO Man's adventures after his fame.


3. Video
Most of my programs do not include videos/film BUT with a topic like LEGO Man in Space, how could we not watch his voyage into space? It was a viral video that the teens made using cameras that they had put in their Styrofoam spacecraft that captured the voyage of LEGO Man into space. It is also what catapulted them into fame after they posted it on Youtube!



4. Activity
And, of course, we used LEGOs for the kids to build their own space crafts. 

Here are a few photos of some of the kids creations:



Notes:
This was a perfect topic to ease back into a program session and, with LEGOs, how can you go wrong?