ALA Annual has come to a close, and I’m all packed up and ready to take the train home. There’s always a bit of melancholy that settles in after such an energizing few days. It is a strange mix of exhaustion and exhilaration. The conference high is real, and coming down from it is never easy.
Tag: LEGO
LEGO® Build to Give
This year, our local Lego club came to me and asked if our libraries would like to partner with them to spread the word about LEGO®’s Build to Give program. Our libraries love having LEGO® programs and they are very popular in the community, but I had never heard of this program.
Summer Learning with Lego®
The Webster Groves Missouri School District offers a Summer Exploration Experience (SEE) for elementary students in grades first through fifth for five weeks at the beginning of the summer. Historically, this program has allowed teachers the opportunity to create their own curriculum based on Project Based Learning (PBL) methods. PBL is a “teaching method in which complex real-world problems are used as the vehicle to promote student learning of concepts and principles as opposed to direct presentation of facts and concepts.” All SEE teachers are trained in the PBL method of teaching before the summer session begins allowing for ample time to build a unit from scratch. Teachers can take the time to develop units that they can incorporate into their yearly curriculum or create a unit based on a topic of interest. The most important aspect of creating a PBL unit is that the teachers and their students have…
Earth Day STEM Day!
Earth Day is April 22nd this year. However, I want to point out that April is also National Humor Month. I am making a large sacrifice here to bring you a post about introducing your youngest library patrons to citizen science instead of something rib tickling, side splitting or otherwise thigh slap worthy. So, here we go. No funny stuff. And just as an aside, please slap only your own thighs as to do otherwise is considered harassment and is actually frowned upon in many workplaces. A Trilogy of Cunning Plans For your consideration, three cunning plans to expose yourself and small children to STEM this Earth Day: Citizen Science, STARnet’s STEAM initiative, SciStarter, and Seed Libraries. For those of you counting along at home, that makes four (4), making this a poorly named overview of what’s to come. Actually, I think there’s five…oh, well. Citizen Science So, what exactly…
Holy Cupcakes! Batman Turns 80
80 Years of Conceptual Continuity Batman Day is coming up! Are you prepared? Monday, September 16th, 2019 marks the day it all began. The Batman character was born out of tragedy and flew into the psyche of comic book aficionados worldwide.
Building STEM Connections with Lego Club: A New Outlook on an Old Program
Lego Clubs have been a staple of library programming for the past decade, as it’s nearly guaranteed to attract a crowd. And STEM has been proven to enrich children’s lives with its focus on hands on problem solving and critical thinking. So it’s only natural for the two to come together, as engineering is already the main focus of Lego Club. Only now it can be elevated to a whole new level, as STEM-powered Lego Club combines the mass appeal of an already popular program with analytical and scientific processes that can develop and inspire young minds. For the past few years, I’ve run my Lego Club like an engineering laboratory. Each time we meet we don’t build around a theme, but rather around a challenge. Can you build a pipeline out of Legos that can actually hold and direct water? Can you think in new directions and build on…
Block Party
I first learned about Block Parties at ALA Annual 2013. The idea was to have kids come the library for a block building party. I knew I had to try this at my library, so I started our Block Parties during this year’s Summer Reading Program. They have become a huge hit and I am continuing the program after we had such a great success. The Block Parties are easy to set up and run. The library has a large set of Legos already, but to add to the block collection, we purchased a set of wooden blocks and several sets of Duplos. I also have a large collection of styrofoam packing blocks from our computer packing (make friends with your IT staff!) that I use for block building. I also included other wooden blocks we had in our storyhour collection, shape sorters, foam blocks and any other block toys…
DUPLO Storytime at the Library
I was very excited by the partnership between the Association for Library Service for Children (ALSC) and LEGO/DUPLO. My library purchased classroom sets of three of the Read, Build, Play book and block sets for use in storytimes and other programs. I planned a special storytime series to debut the new sets. The three sets we used were Grow, Caterpillar, Grow, Let’s Go Vroom, and Busy Farm. The librarian toolkit was a great resource for storytime ideas for each book, and it also provided good information to share with parents/caregivers. Here is an outline of how we ended up using the Grow, Caterpillar, Grow book and block set in our special storytime offerings for two and three year olds. Butterflies and Caterpillars Books: The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle Butterfly, Butterfly by Petr Horacek Grow, Caterpillar, Grow by LEGO/DUPLO Rhymes/Songs/Flannelboards: Five Little Caterpillars (from Storytime Magic) Very Hungry Caterpillar…