Tips and resources to support children birth to age five
Daily Splash Summer Reading Events
A post from our partner, Chris Skaugset of Longview Library, a member of the Early Learning Public Library Partnership.
The Longview Library planned a Science Week as part of our “Make a Splash” summer reading program. One of the activities involved setting up a simple discovery center based on the Mother Goose Program’s Sink and Float science kit. We filled a large shallow tub with water and set out trays of random objects of varying buoyancy—some from the Mother Goose kit and others scavenged from around the library. When children came to the table, we’d invite them to put an item in the water after predicting whether it would sink or float.
Older kids would make their predictions, but toddlers would skip the guessing part, wanting only to put each and every thing in the water. In these cases, library staff at the table would describe what was happening as the item was placed in the water: “Oh, it sank!” Soon, the child’s parent would join in, and we’d talk about how fast some of the things sank—“Plunk!”—while others sank more slowly. It was fun to watch how even the youngest children would manipulate the items and try to find ways to sink the “unsinkable”. This simple activity required few resources, provided lots of time to explore “sink and float”, and was fun enough to keep the children busy at the table for quite some time.
We repeated this concept as part of our “H2O 4U” Summer Reading events in all four public libraries in the county. Children moved from center to center exploring water-related concepts in physics, chemistry, and fresh and salt-water biology. We used volunteers in white lab coats; some “real” scientists and some had only a high school science background. The “scientist” gave kid-friendly explanations of terms including relative density (“how tightly stuff is packed together”), hypotheses (“scientific guesses”), reproducible results (“being more sure when the same thing happens over and over”), observation (“carefully noticing”) and recording data (“like writing down what you found out”). Kids then chose four items to test and recorded the results on a sheet. This was also one of the activities at our Grand Finale Summer Reading Picnic.
The Longview Library planned a Science Week as part of our “Make a Splash” summer reading program. One of the activities involved setting up a simple discovery center based on the Mother Goose Program’s Sink and Float science kit. We filled a large shallow tub with water and set out trays of random objects of varying buoyancy—some from the Mother Goose kit and others scavenged from around the library. When children came to the table, we’d invite them to put an item in the water after predicting whether it would sink or float. Older kids would make their predictions, but toddlers would skip the guessing part, wanting only to put each and every thing in the water. In these cases, library staff at the table would describe what was happening as the item was placed in the water: “Oh, it sank!” Soon, the child’s parent would join in, and we’d talk about how fast some of the things sank—“Plunk!”—while others sank more slowly. It was fun to watch how even the youngest children would manipulate the items and try to find ways to sink the “unsinkable”. This simple activity required few resources, provided lots of time to explore “sink and float”, and was fun enough to keep the children busy at the table for quite some time.
We repeated this concept as part of our “H2O 4U” Summer Reading events in all four public libraries in the county. Children moved from center to center exploring water-related concepts in physics, chemistry, and fresh and salt-water biology. We used volunteers in white lab coats; some “real” scientists and some had only a high school science background. The “scientist” gave kid-friendly explanations of terms including relative density (“how tightly stuff is packed together”), hypotheses (“scientific guesses”), reproducible results (“being more sure when the same thing happens over and over”), observation (“carefully noticing”) and recording data (“like writing down what you found out”). Kids then chose four items to test and recorded the results on a sheet. This was also one of the activities at our Grand Finale Summer Reading Picnic.
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