Little Scientists: Flowers

Little Scientists is absolutely one of my favorite programs! It's for 2-5 year olds and lasts about 30 minutes. This month, we investigated flowers:

First, we read Plant the Tiny Seed by Christie Matheson. This was perfect for this program- short enough for the attention spans of the age group but still showed parts of flowers and things flowers need to grow. After the story, we broke up into stations:

We always have a take-home experiment (usually an activity that would not be possible to complete in our 30 minute program). This month, kids all got a cup with a stem of Queen Anne's Lace and water dyed with liquid watercolor. I filled the cups right before the program started so that the flowers were still white when kids got there and they were encouraged to guess what would happen to the flower and observe changes over the next few days. The internet told me any white flower would work for this, but Queen Anne's Lace was fabulous- the colors showed up easily and quickly.

Building a flower- kids used roots, stems, leaves, and petals to "build" a flower.

To practice visual discrimination, we played an insects vs. flowers game. I though this would be most interesting to the younger attendees, but even the 4 and 5 year olds liked this one. I found this printable on Teachers Pay Teachers here.

Color matching game

Flower counting station- kids had the option of choosing an easier activity (counting petals on a flower up to 10) or a harder activity (practicing tens tables up to 20). Kids who were able ended up doing both.

I didn't take a picture, but we also used snap cubes to measure some flowers and compare sizes.

Parts-to-whole matching activity- this one was also a big hit. Kids tried matching a picture of a flower with a close up picture of a part of the flower. This one was also from Teachers Pay Teachers here.

We do a craft most sessions, and this one was a big hit. Kids used flowers (cut out using our die cutter) and beads to make "flower power" necklaces. They were encourage to make a pattern with the colored flowers or talk about the colors they used, but they could  really do whatever they wanted. Sometimes that's the most fun craft of all!

Baby Summer Camp

To go along with my quest for more baby programming, I had a Baby Summer Camp at the library this past week. The program was for 0-36 month-olds and their parents, although most of the kids for this particular programs were between 12 and 30 months. Here's what we were up to:

Obstacle Course- depending on ages, kids hopped over the pool noodles...

crawled through the tunnel (or through a hula hoop)...

and rode a pony (or ran) to the finish line! Most kids were young enough that they only did one step of the obstacle course at a time.

Arts & Crafts- paint in a bag, one of my personal favorites.

Music- we just had a nice donation of new instruments, which everybody loved banging on, honking, and strumming.

Popsicle Stick Picture Frames- we took pictures on our photo booth computer and decorated classic popsicle stick picture frame. I did find that kids were less interested in this part (which I somewhat expected) so it was nice having the music station in the same room.

And swimming! Only one little girl went all the way in, but all the kids liked splashing in the kiddie pool.

Little Scientists: Music & Sounds

This was the latest in my Little Scientists series (a STEAM-based program for 2-5 year-olds). Our Summer Reading Club theme this year is Reading Rocks, so I thought a very noisy Little Scientists would be perfect! Here's what we were up to:

"Song Writing" stations- kids used symbols like squares and hearts to "write" a song. Each shape stood for an action like clapping or stomping and then they would perform their song for the adults. This was great for the 4 & 5 year-olds.

Our art station- paper plate tambourines.

 

The highly- popular free music/instrument/dance station, courtesy of our bluetooth speaker and our assorted library instruments.

Xylophone station- kids used colored strips to match the missing keys in a picture of a xylophone (printable can be found here). Then they could play a real xylophone!

Sound vibrations- we used drumsticks on a set of real bongos, a balloon stretched over a cup, and a balloon stretched over a bowl to see how high we could make beans and rice jump! 

My personal favorite (which kids also liked and caregivers loved) was the cup-and-string telephone. Nobody could believe it actually worked, but kids loved whispering messages to their adults and hearing back from them.

Baby Prom

For the past year or so, I've been trying to pick up the number of programs we offer for infants and young toddlers (generally 0-23 or 0-36 months). Our library has a pretty large population of families in these age groups and they also seem to be looking for more activities besides our lap sit storytimes. As I was brainstorming, I thought how much fun it would be to offer programs based around life milestones, just scaled down for babies. Thus, Baby Prom!

This ended up being a very simple program to plan and execute and the only thing I needed to purchase was the balloons for our fantastic photo booth. Around 30 babies attended with about 45 adults and I think it was a really fun bonding experience for everybody. Plus, almost all the babies were dressed up and about half the adults, which made it extra festive!

Photo op! The arch is made from coat hangers, held together with gorilla tape, and decorated with balloons. We own a compressor made just for blowing up balloons, so it only took about 3 hours to make.

Our library has a computer dedicated to taking photos. It uses the Sparkbooth program and an attached photo printer to print photos on demand- it's very popular at programs!

The dance floor

Making corsages (adults were more interested than the kids, which was expected)

Kids and adults loved the dancing (especially all of the shakers and scarves that went along with it)

Bubble machine was on full blast (also a huge hit)

Friend & family groups planned to attend together, which I thought was really fun!

Overall, we had a great time and I think it's definitely worth repeating next summer!

What I Read This Week 5/29/2018

A friendly & uplifting look at a flag many kids may have seen before. The colorful illustrations reflect the tone of the story and I especially like the inclusion of real-life photographs at the end of the story.

Sweet rhyming story for more science-minded friends. Fan's of Andrea Beaty's books (Rosie Revere, Ada Twist, and Iggy Peck) will also enjoy this one.

A really fun seasons book. I loved the illustrations and the rhyming adds a fun touch.

Super sweet story about the importance of friendship (and sharing carrots). 

Really unique illustrations in a non-fiction book that would make a great bedtime story or storytime read aloud for pre-schoolers.

Loved this one- really reminded me of Natalie Russell's Lost for Words. Very sweet plot about finding your place in a group of  friends and fun, detailed illustrations.

Very sweet twist on a traditional fairy tale. I think the updated illustrations are a huge boost that makes this story a more timely version of classics like King and King.

Mini Masters of Library Science

We had so much fun at this week's Mini Masters of Library Science program! I can't take all of the credit- I got a lot of my ideas from Tales for the Tiny (including the file for the fabulous diplomas), Hafuboti, and Miss Meg's Storytime. I borrowed ideas from each one, added a few elements, and tweeked until I thought it would work for our patrons.


And it did! I set up six stations (pictures below) and each kid got a booklet to stamp at each station. After they collected all six stamps they could collect their diplomas! We had about 20 kids (PreK-4th grade) stay for 30-60 minutes depending on attention span and everybody finished. It was a little hectic (especially at our circulation station) so I could not have done it without three fabulous teen volunteers. I chose to hold the program during National Library week, but it could really be done any time of year. I think everybody had a lot of fun and left with a little more knowledge of the library and what the librarians do every day. Here's how it was set up:

"Locating Items" was our scavenger hunt station. Kids could choose from green level (easy), yellow level (medium), or hard level (red) and find items throughout the children's section. Some easy items were things like a picture book or a block from the play room, but harder items were things like a new chapter book or a non fiction poetry book. This was a fan favorite, for sure!

Programming was a lot of fun. Kids could sing a song, play a little mouse game, or read a story to their grown-ups or friends.

Readers advisory had different levels of challenge, like the scavenger hunt. Easy questions were things like "Do you have any books about dogs?" or "I'd like a book with trains" and harder questions were things like "I want a scary chapter book" or "Do you have any books by the same author as Elephant & Piggie?"

Sorting also had three levels- easy meant sorting early readers by the color of their spine stickers, medium meant putting picture books in alphabetical order, and hard meant organizing by Dewey number.

The recommend a book station was also popular- kids could write or draw about their favorite books and their recommendations are currently displayed on one of our bookshelf end caps.

I didn't manage to get a snapshot of the circulation station because it looked like a tornado hit it almost instantly. Easy challengers simply checked in books (which I had checked out on our department's library card), medium challengers' items had a few holds placed on them, and hard challengers' items may have had several things wrong- holds, missing DVDs, etc. This is the only station which required constant librarian supervision (and at one point, a second librarian & computer).

Our diploma station (featuring fancy certificate paper from who knows when, whose partial pack actually inspired this whole program)

Our teen volunteers participating in story time!

Over all, this program went really well and I think it would be fun to do again for the families who couldn't make it this time. If anybody at all would like the files I made for the stations, diplomas, or stamp books, please just leave a comment. I would love to pass them along!

What I Read This Week 4/13/2018

I've been making an effort to catch most new picture books (and some early to middle grade graphic novels) as they come out, so I thought I would revive What I Read This Week as a weekly roundup of what new things I've read recently. Here's this week:

Hannah Harrison has written my #1 favorite picture book (Extraordinary Jane) and every single one of her books has the most amazing level of detail. Friends Stick Together includes touches like a kangaroo teacher who keeps school supplies in her pocket and a penguin who brings a juice box labeled "salt water" for lunch. These details only add to a sweet story about two new friends learning to appreciate each other.

Another sweet friendship story, this time a graphic novel about two sloths with two very different ideas about adventure. Although the two sloths meet other new friends along their journeys, they remain BSFF (Best Sloth Friends Forever).

Sometimes if you give new things a chance, they might end up finding they're not so strange after all. Perfect for animal fans, silly story fans, and anyone who appreciates simple but perfect illustrations.

I thought this was a really good follow up to the original. The illustrations are still very sweet and I appreciated the variety of women profiled, both professionally (scientists, artists, etc.) and personally (different countries of origin, ages, physical abilities, and more).

This one is not actually new (2015) but I just discovered the sequel to William and the Missing Masterpiece, which is another one of my favorites (and usually a big hit at preschool storytime). The humor will probably go over younger storytimers' heads, but my 4 and 5 year olds liked looking through the detailed illustrations to find clues along with William.