Monday, April 28, 2014

Library Treasure Hunt: Scat and Tracks

Librarian-students all had a chance to create/report out a program they developed as a final project. Each considered the goals of the program, format (active, passive), how much time/money it might take and described how it was or would be done. Suzanne from WI shared this idea.

This program is an active program designed to help new library users become familiar with the library, as well as learn how much fun the library can be!  The program will be a one time program held on site, for children grades kindergarten through third grade.  The actual program will last approximately 1 hour and will be held after school during the timeframe that the after school program is held.  This is from 4-5:30.  The program will be held in cooperation with the school staff running the after school program.  Holding it during the after school program guarantees an audience as well as built in helpers.  Program preparation time should be around 2-3 hours for set up, craft preparation, instructions for the groups to follow and finding books in the collection to use in our library treasure hunt and shopping for snacks. 

Program Detail: 
The kids will be divided up into 5 groups, each with a student or adult leader.  There are typically around 25 kids in this age group, so the groups will be ideally about 5 kids.  We are affiliated with a historical Museum, and they have a wildlife case with around 40 animals and birds in.  The program will start in the museum with a focus on the wildlife case.  Each group will be told to pick an animal from the case that they are familiar with or are interested in.   After they have their animal picked out, they will be told to find both a fiction and nonfiction book with this animal in.  The leaders of the groups will be familiar with how and where to find these materials.  The groups will be shown the online card catalog for assistance in finding their books.  After the groups have all found their books, they will be asked to “present” their books to the other groups, giving a bit of detail about what the book is about and why they chose the ones they did.  The group as a whole will pick which ones they would like to have read aloud.  This can be done by me or one of the group leaders.  How many books will be read will depend on the length of the books that they choose. 

Snack: 
A snack will be served of nuts, fruits, seeds and juice while talking about how and what animals in the woods eat. 

Craft Project:
Materials:  10 foot piece off of a roll of paper, markers, crayons, ink pads and animal foot stamps.  A nearby Natural History Museum has animal foot stamps that they loan out for projects.  The stamps are of a bear, beaver, rabbit, squirrel and raccoon.  These stamps are awesome and very realistic.  (kind of creepy in that they almost look and feel like a real animal foot!)  We have used them before and the kids love them! 

Prior to the program animal habitat and animals will be drawn on the 10 foot piece of paper to match the animals that we have tracks for.  During the craft project the kids will match the appropriate track up with the animals on the paper, which will be laid out on the floor for them to work on.  They will use the stamps to show their travels in the “woods” of the scene leading up to the animals in their habitat.  They will also draw food and additional habitat that they learned about in the books we read.  The finished mural will be hung on the wall at the library.  The kids will be given a copy of the wildlife identifier that is in the museum to assist in identifying the animals in the case, and those that don’t already have library cards will be sent home with a form to fill out to get one. 

Graphic courtesy of Pixabay



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