Tuesday, May 31, 2016

Fables and Feathers

When the Project Promise Literacy Club came to the library this week, we read the fable, The Ugly Duckling, retold by Rachael Isadore. After talking about how a fable is a moral tale, one student suggested the point of this story is that you can't tell how someone is inside by looking at their outside.

Then we used this website to learn new vocabulary that named parts of a feather. Rachis, calamus, barbs, veins - we individually studied a feather as we located each part.
Finally, we went to the tables and made a beautiful, long necked-swan from a paper plate. It was covered with feathers!

Tuesday, May 17, 2016

Robots!

Today, at the New Hampton Community School's Project Promise After School Program,  I brought several robot-themed books and we read the group's choice. Rabbit and Robot: The Sleepover by CeCe Bell was a funny story in chapters about friends who were trying to follow a plan for a sleepover. After the story, each child cut out and colored a paper robot, then wired it with string in the back to make him slide up and down when attached to a doorknob. 


Thursday, May 12, 2016

Ready to Plant

Recently, we read two fact-based books about gardening. Up in the Garden and Down in the Dirt by Kate Messner shows what is going on above and below ground as a grandmother and grandchild plant, tend to, and harvest their garden. Yucky Worms by Vivian French details the importance that earthworms play in keeping a garden healthy. 
Our craft was to decorate a paper that we then glued to a planting cup. After we planted two seeds, we made a stick that said "Sunflower!" If the package is correct, these plants should grow to be twelve feet tall!! Wow!

Saturday, May 7, 2016

Mothers' Day

With Mother's Day coming in a few days, we read stories about moms (and grandmoms) today at Storytime. In Llama, Llama Misses Mama by Anna Dewdney, Llama has to go to school and is afraid he's not going to have fun without his mom - but you know that doesn't really happen! Koala Lou by Mem Fox told about a koala who wonders if her mom still loves her - and you know she does! I Love You Stinky Face by Lisa Mccourt was about a little boy who comes to realize that his mother will love him no matter how he looks or acts or even smells! And What! Cried Granny by Kate Lum was about Patrick, who had his first sleepover at the house of his clever, problem-solving grandmother!

For our craft, we made beautiful Mother's Day crowns that said MOM. After we pasted the letters onto a headband, we decorated with drawings, stickers, jewels, stars, and hearts. We knew our mothers would be proud to wear them on their special day!
And finally, here's one of our fathers, wearing the finished crown upside down. 
WOW - what a good papa!!

Thursday, May 5, 2016

Crazy 8s - Glow in the Dark City

Today was our first Crazy 8s session with a new group of K-2 afterschool program kids at the New Hampton Community School. The room was dark when everyone came inside...

Last season, we made polygons with glowsticks and styrofoam balls.  This season we began with polygons again - triangles and squares - but quickly we realized they could be made into 3D shapes or polyhedrons. So off went the lights and we began to build, watching for shapes that would make our creations stable and sturdy.                                                                                                              
Some kids figured out how to make pyramids to sit atop their structures. After a while, it looked like lots of tall buildings in a glow-in-the-dark city.                                                         
Who knew math could be so much fun?