Summer in the Library: STEAM Day

For our 2nd Wednesday in the Library, we focused on the STEAM concept.  What that meant for my students was that Mrs. Youel was opening up the Makerspace!  However, since these days are open up to anyone and everyone, it was a bit different, as some of the students told me ("Wow, I didn't know you had this many things!").   It was nice to show the parents, though, what the Makerspace actually is and that their donations go to good use!

I decided we would do structured stations with free play, if that makes ANY sense.

Building Station:  Students could use Legos (always a hit), Tinker Toys, Marble Runs, and PlayDoh to make things.

Art Station:  I brought out my binder of activities we've done this past year that I've kept the directions, opened up the "Fletcher's Creation Station" wiki page on a couple iPads, and set out different materials for those projects, as well as a few extra (like painting) so students could get their create on!







Take Apart Station:  ALWAYS a hit!  If you have a Makerspace, or are thinking of starting one, THIS is the big hit - almost bigger than Legos!  Students have a BLAST taking apart things to see how they work.  Since it's summer, I had a tape player and a CD/tape player that didn't work, and let me tell you - they took them down to bare bones!  However, the conversation that ensued about how they discovered a magnet in the speakers....and the fact the screwdriver they were using was magnetized after awhile....would've made any Science teacher happy!





Circuits/Coding:  On my iPads, I have a folder for "Hour of Code" apps, so I locked in a couple for play:  Lightbot, Scratch Jr, and Foos.  I also set out my Little Bits with some suggestion cards that I got on TPT as a freebie.  One set shows what to build, the other makes a suggestion.  I can't wait to use these next year with my kids - maybe they won't be as obsessed with the buzzers!  I was surprised this station didn't get more activity (I had about 1-2 kids check it out briefly, then moved on), but I'm finding that although the kids love to use tech in the library, hands-on wins hands down! (pun intended).



So, 4 simple stations, but the participants (including some parents) were engaged for the 2 hours and some were even reluctant to go (always a sign of a hit!), but of course, it was lunch time so they were also hungry!

It was a lot to set up, but it was a very hands-off activity, unlike the Amazing Race, where I was bouncing from here to there, helping out at stations (someone's got to ref the Kangaroo race!).  I hope you're able to use some of this in your library or classroom!  I ended up conversing with some of the parents who came, and totally forgot to get action pics! :(  Good thing I remembered my set up ones!

Summer Activities in the Library: Racing Around the World

So this week was my 2nd Wednesday of my "Summer in the Library" activities.  This is my 2nd year doing this program.  Last year, I skipped around days, not sure what day would be popular (and trying to fit everyone's schedule).  This year, I decided on Wednesdays, came up with some new themes, repeated a favorite (Minecraft), and voila!  here I am!

Because my summer life isn't as relaxing and time free as I wished, (massive house cleaning and ridding out things going on at home!), I'm blogging about my first two Wednesdays that already passed.  But, to give you a peek at what I'm talking about, this is the schedule I sent home with parents, advertise on Facebook, have on the school calendar, and when I can, the school Facebook page.  Note that I invite all - all ages, not necessarily have to be a student and, because where I live/work, we are surrounded by different counties, not necessarily a student in our district!  That way, it's also open to homeschooling families, cousins, family, neighbors, etc.  I've gotten a pretty good response so far, despite vacations, swim lessons, Vacation Bible School, Summer School, etc.

I saw the idea of an Amazing Race:  Library Edition from a public library and ran with it!  Because of size limitations, abilities, resources, etc, I adapted it to my school library.  I decided to go with continents, rather than countries/cities.  I also wasn't sure how long it would take each person to complete each task (it took about an hour for everyone to go "around the world" except for a few who wanted to go around and do it again).  Like the TV reality show, there were "Roadblocks" where you had to do the task and "Detours" where you had a choice.  I got very favorable feedback from kids (I even had some high school kids come!) and parents.  

Here are a few pictures from the day:

Africa:  Roadblock!  Students learned how to play Mancala and then created their own from egg cartons to take home and play!

North America:  Detour:  Match pictures of landmarks to their names OR create a family/personal totem (the papers explain what each animal represents), and they cut those out and glued to wood paint sticks

Asia:  Detour:  Create an origami butterfly OR using instruction sheets, learn to write in Chinese characters

Antarctica:  Detour:  Learn about penguins from a short video and then put them in order from smallest to largest OR migrate with the arctic tern (draw the migration route and then "fly" around the room/route)

South America:  Roadblock:  Students created a Mayan temple using wooden blocks (the Jenga pieces were perfect for this!) 

Creating totems

Chinese Writing (papers from Education.com)

Creating Mancala games

Mayan temple

Migrating with the Arctic Tern

Playing and creating Mancala in Africa

Mayan temple:

2 more Mayan temples (they loved I kept taking pictures!)

If you're interested in seeing more, click {here} for TPT and {here} for Teachers Notebook.

Summer in the Library

One of the ideas I mentioned at my interview for my library position was that I wanted the library to be more open to the community.  One way I'm accomplishing this is having 4 open library dates this summer for parents and students to come in and hang out, check out books, and do an activity.  Taking it one step further, I decided to theme each day.  I also kept the same time, but picked different days during the week so hopefully if someone couldn't do Mondays, for example, they may be able to come to another day!

Knowing I would HAVE to do a Minecraft activity since those strategy guides are one of the most highly circulated books I have (besides Wimpy Kid!), I also picked Legos, since that is another theme very popular with students.  Gaining inspiration from Pinterest, I also included a super hero day and a spy day (just because I thought the spy obstacle course looked so cool!).

I created a flyer that went home the last week of school and was excited to hear that even some of the fifth graders were excited about the days, especially Minecraft.  I feel I'll have a lot of little ones at Lego Day, but we'll see.  I have no idea what the response will be - guess it depends on vacation schedules, babysitter/work schedules, etc.  I know my daughter will miss 2 of the days because of day camps she's attending (fortunately I scheduled it from 10-12 so no conflict getting her there!).

So there is a LOT out there for Lego activities.  Other than challenge cards, I really didn't need to create much.  The link to my Pinterest page on Legos is {here} in case you want to check it out.  I'll make sure to post pictures of each event!  Since this is my first time doing this, I'm sure some of it will be trial and error.  I have a feeling I'll have more ideas for my challenge cards, so I'll post those when I post the pictures.

However, I was inspired to create activities for the second date, "So You Want to Be a Spy?"  Students will fill out a badge, fingerprint themselves, crack a secret code, hunt for character silhouettes, and dust for fingerprints.  They'll also go through a "laser" obstacle course set up in one of the aisles. (Pinterest page on my summer themes {here})

If you're interested in seeing more, please click on the picture below.  I'm so excited and am already working on the next two dates/themes!