Making History - STEM Ideas to bring History to Life

  

Making History - STEM Ideas to bring History to Life

I was one of the participants in this NJ Makers Day Event, which brought together museum educators and librarians to share some of their ideas for interactive history.

A resource guide was compiled from those presentations - my slides are also reproduced below
(click on the Resource Guide link for full-sized slides & more info):

More info: https://carolsimonlevin.blogspot.com/search/label/Archaelogy

Ancient civilizations: 

More info: 

https://carolsimonlevin.blogspot.com/search/label/Ancient%20Egypt

https://carolsimonlevin.blogspot.com/search/label/Ancient%20Greece

https://carolsimonlevin.blogspot.com/search/label/Ancient%20Rome%20%28Pompeii%29

https://carolsimonlevin.blogspot.com/search/label/Chinese%20New%20Year

More “Picture This” program ideas:

https://carolsimonlevin.blogspot.com/search/label/Art%20%26%20Artist%20Programs

More info:

https://carolsimonlevin.blogspot.com/search/label/Architects

https://carolsimonlevin.blogspot.com/search/label/Empire%20State%20Building

https://carolsimonlevin.blogspot.com/search/label/Houses%20%20Homes%20and%20Habitats

More info: 

https://carolsimonlevin.blogspot.com/search/label/Brooklyn%20Bridge

https://tellingherstories.com/school-visits/

https://tellingherstories.com

https://carolsimonlevin.blogspot.com/search/label/Bridge-Building

https://carolsimonlevin.blogspot.com/search/label/Aviators has many other programs 

I also have several Telling Her Stories programs on female aviators, details at www.tellingherstories.com & https://tellingherstories.com/school-visits/

Details & more ideas: 

https://carolsimonlevin.blogspot.com/search/label/Engineering

https://carolsimonlevin.blogspot.com/search/label/Eggs

https://carolsimonlevin.blogspot.com/search/label/Houses%20%20Homes%20and%20Habitats

https://carolsimonlevin.blogspot.com/search/label/Recycled%20Orchestra

Many more ideas:

https://carolsimonlevin.blogspot.com/search/label/S.T.E.A.M.%20Storytime%20Surprise

https://carolsimonlevin.blogspot.com/search/label/S.T.E.A.M.

www.tellingherstories.com

Making History: A History Focused Maker Event
Brought to you by the League of Historical Societies of NJ, LibraryLinkNJ, and NJ Makers Day
10/22/2024
Piscataway Public Library, Kennedy Branch
500 Hoes Lane, Piscataway, NJ 08854

Tellebration: Soup & Thanksgiving Stories

 

Participatory Stories & Songs: Soup & Thanksgiving

Asked about everyone's favorite kinds of soup, then opened with a very strange recipe:

Book: Monkey Soup by Louis Sachar (child makes her father a special kind of soup to help get him well – silly! -- Don't try this at home! )   

Song/Flannel:  "Alphabet Soup" by Tom Chapin (another silly recipe, reinforces alphabet, lyrics here: Soup's On)

 

Book: Mean Soup by Betsy Everitt (how to handle a "bad day" - could also make "Mean Cheerios!")

Mentioned today we are celebrating the Trenton Soup Kitchen - community feeding...

Interactive story with props (pot, puppets, & veggies): Stone Soup  (Participatory storytelling, mentioned old story many variants – I use the Ann McGovern version with old lady and young man - script here: Soup's On)

Book/Cards/Song: Chicken Soup with Rice – Maurice Sendak, tune by Carole King from “Really Rosie” (audio & video available, concept: the names of the months, lyrics here: Soup's On)

Other possible books:

Growing Vegetable Soup by Lois Ehlert (vocabulary, non-fiction concepts of gardening & food prep)

“Piggy Back” Song/Action: This is the Way we… make the Soup reinforces sequencing)

Armadilly Chili by Helen Ketterman (Armadillo fails to get help from her friends in chili preparation but when they return with "sackfulls of apologies plus apple cider, cornbread, and brownies, she finds sharing dinner with friends is best of all. This is a  folktale variant of "Little Red Hen"

That is NOT a Good Idea by Mo Willems

Soup Day by Melissa Iwai

Dumpling Soup by Jama Kin Rattigan

Last Stop on Market Street – Matt de la Pena -- grandmother & child travel on a bus to serve at a soup kitchen

More ideas & lyrics: https://carolsimonlevin.blogspot.com/search?q=soup

Thanksgiving

Book: Duck for Turkey Day by Jacqueline Jules

Discussion: who came from a different country? parents? grandparents? – all of us came to this country at some time unless we are Native Americans)

Towel Folding Story: The Case of the Missing Turkey -- Rhonda Turley   Piedmont, OK via PUBYAC. Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tq4eojAsNlY  (or search youtube for towel and chicken).  Story & directions here: https://carolsimonlevin.blogspot.com/2021/12/something-special-for-holidays.html

Flannel/Song: The Turkey Ran Away 

Song/Prop: I Know an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Pie (based on the book by Alison Jackson – cut out mounted woman below) Story & directions here: https://carolsimonlevin.blogspot.com/2021/12/something-special-for-holidays.html

Action Song: The Turkey Shot Out of the Oven – based on the poem by Jack Prelutsky (lyrics here: https://carolsimonlevin.blogspot.com/2021/12/something-special-for-holidays.html)

Forgot to do:

Glove Puppets : Uno, Dos, Tres Amigos (reinforces idea that we all have come from different places but celebrate together; enumeration practice, learn/reinforce Spanish language numbers)
Diez Amigos "10 Friends" (glove puppets)Tune: “10 Little Indians” 
Uno, dos, tres amigos,
Quatro, cinco, seis amigos,
Siete, Ocho, Nueve amigos,
Diez amigos son.
One, two, three friends,
Four, five, six friends,
Seven, Eight, Nine friends,
Ten friends are we. 

More Thanksgiving book and song ideas: https://carolsimonlevin.blogspot.com/search/label/Thanksgiving

School Age Storytime: Apples & Pumpkins

 

A storytime for K-2nd grade celebrating the season

emphasizing empathy & compassion 

Participatory Storytelling/Props:  The Little Red House with No Doors & No Windows, a Chimney On Top & a Star in the Middle (Tip: instantly turn flannel pieces into hanging signs for kids to wear using plastic paper protector sleeves with stiff paper inserts & yarn ribbon to hang around each child's neck, act out the wind blowing the trees and the “plop” of an apple falling in the farmer’s backyard. Prop: real apple & knife to slice horizontally.)

Book: One Green Apple by Eve Bunting --This beautiful (and beautifully illustrated) story emphasizes understanding and compassion as Farah, a new student from an unnamed country, goes with her class on a field trip to an apple orchard (defined) and finds that though she is different and doesn’t know the language, she can be accepted and will find friends here.

Participatory Storytelling/Props: Big Pumpkin – from the book by Erica Silverman -- In this variant on the folktale, “The Great Big Enormous Turnip,” the witch, ghost, skeleton, and vampire are unable to pull up the pumpkin until a tiny bat ignores their derisive laughter and suggests they all work together.  I sing/chant this to a tune from an old Scholastic recording – feel free to contact me if you want to learn the tune.

Book: Pumpkins: A Story for a Field by Mary Lyn Ray – A splendid modern environmental myth in which a man, saddened by the thought that the field across from his house is about to be sold, sells everything he has, buys seeds, grows pumpkins, and then sends them all around the world (by planes, trucks, ships, and even flying carpets) to get enough money to buy the field and save it.  

Participatory Storytelling/Props: The Little Old Lady Who Was Not Afraid of Anything based on the story by Linda Williams (1st grade only, Kdg no time)  props for children to use - shoes, pants, shirt, hat, gloves, pumpkin head, scarecrow)

Booktalked:

Non-Fiction Book: Rotten Pumpkin: A Rotten Tale in 15 Voices* – 577.16 SCHWARTZ – “UnCommon Core” at its best!  -- Told in the first person by the pumpkin, mouse, squirrel, slug, fly, black rot, bread mold, sow bug, Penicillium, earthworm, yeast cell, slime mold, soil, and seed, this is science “on the hoof.”  Wonderful writing & delightfully yucky photographs complete this unforgettable tour through the life cycle of a pumpkin that kids will find completely enGROSSing!  (Pumpkin Jack by Will Hubbell is a less-detailed version for a younger crowd. Sophie’s Squash by Pat Zietlow Miller makes a great fictional companion story.)

Book (K-2): Bear’s Bargain – Frank Asch (also published as Moonbear’s Bargain)  Bear wants to fly & Little Bird wishes he was big -- clever problem solving).

See more ideas at: 

https://carolsimonlevin.blogspot.com/search/label/Apples

https://carolsimonlevin.blogspot.com/search/label/Pumpkins

Bedm K-1 11/1/2024

Memory Cafe (YMCA) - Apples

 I was invited as a storyteller for the Basking Ridge YMCA "Memory Cafe"  - a place of respite for adults with dementia & their caregivers. 

Opened by discussion of the embellishment of the story of Johnny Appleseed - mentioned that he was a real person (John Chapman) but that apples don't grow true from seeds - you don't get the same variety, sweetness etc. - instead they grow from grafting a branch of a tree that produces tasty apples. Johnny Appleseed's seed trees were used for hard cider - alcoholic drinks were drunk by all ages because water and milk were unsafe -- might contain disease producing organisms.  Read: Johnny Appleseed by Reeve Lindbergh, illustrated with the folk-art styled paintings by Kathy Jacobson. 

Followed with the rollicking "tall tale" Apples to Oregon: Being the (Slightly) True Narrative of How a Brave Pioneer Father Brought Apples, Peaches, Pears, Plums, Grapes and Cherries (and Children) Across the Plains by Deborah Hopkinson.  

Crafts: 

https://www.thrive.org.uk/get-gardening/simple-homemade-apple-bird-feeder#

Mentioned the book Night Tree by Eve Bunting - every Christmas Eve, a family decorates a tree in the woods with edible items for the wildlife there.

9/25/24

Read Across America Day - Changemakers

 A storytime celebrating brave and determined people who have worked to change the status quo....

• Steadfast : Frances Perkins, champion of workers' rights by Jennifer J. Merz.
• Frances Perkins witnessed NYC's Triangle Fire and made it her life's mission to aid workers -- she championed worker safety laws in NY then become FDR's secretary of labor - the 1st woman US Cabinet Member and the force behind the New Deal.

You don't need to be a grownup to make a difference:

I am Ruby Bridges by Ruby Bridges
When Ruby Bridges was aged just six, she became the first African American student to integrate an elementary school in the South. Based on the pivotal events of 1960 and told from her own point of view for the first time, this is a poetic reflection on her experience that changed the face of history and the trajectory of the Civil Rights movement. Also showed pages from The story of Ruby Bridges by Robert Coles
Received too late to share but a great teacher resource: Dear Ruby, hear our hearts : letters to civil rights activist Ruby Bridges by Ruby Bridges

Booktalked: Sit-in : how four friends stood up by sitting down by Andrea Davis Pinkney and Opening the road : Victor Hugo Green and his Green Book by Keila V. Dawson

Greta Thunberg by Maria Isabel Sanchez Vegara ; illustrated by Anke Weckmann
The inspiring true story of Greta Thunberg, the environmental activist. When young Greta learned of the climate crisis, she stopped talking. She couldn't understand why people in power were not doing anything to save our Earth. One day she started protesting outside the Swedish Parliament, creating the "School Strike for Climate." Soon, lots more young people joined her in a global movement that shook adults and politicians alike. She had found her voice and uses it to inspire humans to action with her powerful message: "No one is too small to make a difference."  (Didn't discover until afterwards: Greta and the Giants : Inspired by Greta Thunberg's stand to save the world by Zoë Tucker - a fictionalized but tells true story at the end - would make a good readaloud) or consider Our house is on fire : Greta Thunberg's call to save the planet by Jeanette Winter

Sang the inspiring words with the book: 

This little light of mine  illustrated by E.B. Lewis

Through the words of a well-known African-American spiritual dating back to the days of slavery, a little boy finds that through simple, kind acts he has the power to let his light shine and warm the world around him

Finished with the wise advice from: 

• Be a king : Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s dream and you by Carole Boston Weatherford ; illustrated by James Ransome   "You can be a King. Stamp out hatred. Put your foot down and walk tall. You can be a King. Beat the drum for justice. March to your own conscience. Featuring a dual narrative of the key moments of Dr. King's life alongside a modern class as the students learn about him, Carole Weatherfor's poetic text encapsulates the moments that readers today can reenact in their own lives.

And asked the kids what they could do to make the world better...today & in the future

Bedminster School 2nd Grade 2/28/24

Memory Cafe (YMCA) - Changemakers/Black History Month

I was invited as a storyteller for the Basking Ridge YMCA "Memory Cafe"  - a place of respite for adults with dementia & their caregivers. 

Read Sit In: How Four Friends Stood Up by Sitting Down by Andrea Davis Pinkney  323.1196 PIN – Splendid writing filled with food metaphors telling the story of the  4 college students who inspired a movement with their patient wait at a Woolworth’s lunch counter for their order of “doughnuts & coffee & cream on the side.

Followed with us all singing together this beautifully-illustrated and affirming book - a good song for young and old to have in our hearts and minds for tough days... 

Book/Song: This Little Light of Mine illustrated by E.B. Lewis

Also talked about possible handprint art project - showed how they could trace a grandchild's hands on a piece of  of plain paper and have them decorate it - possibly including a note of something/someone that they are thankful or grateful for in the center heart section - great for Valentine's Day or Thanksgiving or really, any time...

Literacy Volunteers - Middle Earth "Snow" Storytime/Craft

 

Read: Snow by Uri Shulewitz (discussed Caldecott Medal – what it means)

Acted Out: The Mitten by Jan Brett (did with a large tablecloth mitten & sign/masks from janbrett.com details: http://carolsimonlevin.blogspot.com/2014/12/winter-storytimetheatercraft-jan-bretts.html)

• Talked about folktale (story retold over generations/centuries (define), then read Jan Brett’s  book with kids holding tablecloth and masks from www.janbrett.com at the “aachoo”, I grabbed the tablecloth and the kids scattered. Another possibility is to have two kids (or grown ups) hold hands and become each side of the mitten, then let the kids crowd in between. (from http://lalalalibrary.blogspot.com/2014/12/flannel-friday-mitten.html)

Singable Book: Frosty
Booktalked: Raymond Brigg’s The Snowman (wonderful video available on Youtube) 

Snowflake Bentley by Jacqueline Briggs Martin, illustrated by Mary Azarian (talked about Caldecott Gold woodcut illustrations, true book – would find in the Biography (bio=life, graphy =writing,stories section)

Singable/flannel: “In the Freezer” by Joe Scruggs – lyrics here.

Snowballs by Lois Ehlert (had kids look at the collage art –> art project)

Snow creatures (inspired by Ehlert’s book) – Materials: White & colored construction paper, markers, scissors, glue, pompoms, buttons, feathers, etc.

Finished with: Snowball fight using plastic bag snowballs, to the music “Sleigh Ride” by Leroy Anderson (on album Season’s Greetings)
Making snowballs:
1) Gather a white plastic grocery bag into a long, skinny tube-like length with the handles on one end.
2) Fold the length in half, then in half again.
3) Wind a rubber band around the middle until it is tight.
4) Cut open both ends to remove any folded areas.
5) Then fluff out pieces
Idea courtesy of:  Susan Dailey, librarian, speaker and author of "A Storytime Year"

Optional Additional Craft : Cut out paper snowflakes http://thechocolatemuffintree.blogspot.com/2012/12/making-giant-snowflakes.html (could use large tissue paper) (booktalked Snowflake Bentley – another Caldecott)

1/24/24