Encouraging STEM with Block Parties

There's been a lot of buzz lately about how to best encourage science, technology, engineering, and math (aka S.T.E.M.) in children.

As it turns out, you have to look  no further than your local library.

All week long tables are set out with an assortment of crafts and experiments for our S.T.E.A.M. Friday endeavors (STEM, with the add on of Art as well).

In addition to this, we host programs especially focused on these subjects in a fun time play environment. Block Parties are movable parties in a box provided by the Purdue Extension, which handily also provides a real life tip giving spokesperson to lead the program.

 So what do you have to do? Just bring yourself and your kids and have fun! All blocks are provided and your child can build anything they want, knock it down, and start again. Our next Block Party is scheduled for July 14th. For more information please go to our library calendar or contact the library by phone. We hope to see you there!

Science Fun with Snow & Ice!

We've been having lots of fun with snow & ice @ the library--and learning important early literacy skills along the way!

Toddlers painted blocks of ice using watercolors in only the primary colors. They saw first hand what happens when these colors mix--and they observed what happens to ice at room temperature. They also made many prints of their work--just pressed white paper down on top of the painted ice. The ice kept changing as they painted and it melted--so many made lots of prints. Later older kids--and teens--had a great time painting and printing blocks of ice.

 

 Just freeze blocks of ice in containers for several hours. Turn the containers upside down and run them under warm water for a few seconds. The ice block pops right out--and the fun & learning can begin!

While there is still so much snow, explore some its properties. Make a small snowball and ask--will it float or sink? Then try it. There were many surprised scientists at the library when we offered this activity for STEAM Friday. (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, Math--every Fri. @ the library!)

Which takes up more space--snow or water--or are they the same? Make a prediction (your hypothesis) and then conduct the experiment. Fill two identical cups to the same level--one with water and one with snow. Once the snow has melted, what do you observe? Was your hypothesis correct? It doesn't matter--what matters is that you followed the Scientific Method--make a hypothesis, conduct the experiment, observe, draw a conclusion.

Have fun with The Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats. This year is the 53rd anniversary of this sweet award winning classic for young children. We made snow tracks on dark paper using 'snow paint' we made. It just takes equal parts flour, salt, and water. Mix it together and then paint tracks in the snow like the ones in the book. When it dries, it glitters and really does look like snow! So easy--and a great measuring activity! Check out some more ideas to use with this fantastic book at Ready-Set-Read, http://www.ready-set-read.com/2013/01/the-snowy-day-book-activities.html

 When you explore science, math and the world all around, you are helping your child get ready to read. Studies show that the more your child knows about his world--and the more vocabulary he learns as a result, the more successful he or she will be when he begins to read!

Preschool STEAM: Windy Days @ the Library

The weather is finally starting to look up a little, but with that comes the windy days of March! Last week our 4 and 5 year olds enjoyed stories and activities about wind. Here are 2 of the books we enjoyed:

Huff & puff  by Claudia Rueda
Children play the part of the Big, Bad Wolf in this fun book. They enjoy the surprise ending!

The wind blew by Pat Hutchins
The wind creates a mess as it blows away all sorts of items!

Instead of our normal movie and craft, the children were able to choose from several STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art and Math) activities.

This was probably the most popular station. We had 2 buckets set up, one with icy water and one with hot tap water. The children placed a small plastic pop bottle with a balloon on top into the cold water and then into the hot water to see what would happen. They were amazed when the balloon would stand up in the hot water and collapse in the cold. I think they would have stayed at this one the whole time if we hadn't encouraged them to try the other activities.



A couple of thoughts if you want to do this at home: The more extreme the hot and cold are, the better it seems to work.

If you blow up the balloon, or really stretch it out, before you put it on the bottle, it seems to work better.

 A simple one: We had a bowl full of water and some foam cut out shapes for the children to float like little boats. Then we had them blow with straws to create wind on their "lake." It didn't take long before they were blowing into the water as hard as they could. But then, that's just more experimenting with wind, right?



We did have a garbage can right next to this one so that they could throw away the straws as soon as they were finished.

We made pinwheels for our art activity. I had a fan set up on one of the tables that the children could use to test out the pinwheels. We also had streamer sticks, feathers and scarves that they could use. Again we saw amazement when the children watched the pinwheels spin wildly.

It took a little experimenting to find the spots that would blow best and how far to stand from the fan. There were some spots that didn't blow at all, where some would go crazy. And yes, I did tell the children not to touch the fan. I also had it set back far enough on the table that they couldn't touch it easily.

National Library Card Month!

The library has been a busy place this month! This month we've started focusing more on STEAM, which is Science, Technology, Engineering, Art and Math. Every Friday we've had activities relating to the Giant Squid and the ocean. And we did some experimenting with our Preschoolers with sinking and floating.

Here's a little peek at what's been happening:

Have you visited the library this month? Has your child showed us his or her library card? Remember... children can pick a prize and be entered into a drawing for a Target gift card through the end of September - just by showing that they're cool kids with a library card!