Ice-y Experiences

No frosty reception here!

This was the second of two STAR_net Clearinghouse activities which we pulled off during the same Story Time program (the other was “Simple Thermometer”). It just so happened that the day in question was the winter solstice, and our theme for the day was “Winter WAS Coming,” as we are inveterate nerds at our library. With plenty of snow on the ground and all of our area ski resorts running full steam ahead for the season, many of our kiddos were veteran experts and blazed through this activity so quickly that we had to lay a couple of extra ground rules: they couldn’t initial their own bingo sheets even if they’d been through those icy experiences themselves, and no one other person could initial more than two bingo squares.

We had to make a couple of modifications to this activity in order to suit our particular situation; for example, our library does not have a globe (although I’m totally asking for one on next year’s budget—of Mars! And Pluto!) so we pulled out “Our World,” National Geographic’s first picture atlas for children. We also had the latest edition of their world atlas for adults on hand for those kiddos with the desire to flick through more pages. Both adult and children’s atlases have sections dedicated to Antarctica, which is always a fun place to start for ice-related stories.

We discovered that even those younger kiddos who attend our Story Time programs (which are geared toward ages 3 through 5) were both fully cognizant of what it means to live with and around water in its various forms, as well as thoroughly eager to share their own snow stories. Here in Montana, you can imagine that everyone has plenty of those! The bingo sheets provide a very real and useful opportunity for these little readers to practice writing their initials (on other participants’ bingo sheets). The snowflakes touch upon another target benchmark, as folding and cutting out snowflakes requires and refines fine motor skills.

Several years back, I had the chance to take part in a training by Jeri Robinson of the Boston Children’s Museum, and she stated that two of the best indicators of kindergarten AND high school retention are whether kids know how to hold a book right side up and use scissors at around age 5. (We discussed how this may be correlation rather than causation, as there are deep connections between fine motor skill development and parental income as well.) Still, you couldn’t find an activity more perfect (and seasonally appropriate!) to help develop those skills than this one. I do, however, recommend integrating “Ice-y Experiences” with other materials and activities to keep the energy up and provide kiddos with a take-home component if you’re not able to send them home with a bunch of snowflakes. As we were hanging our snowflakes up in the children’s section of our library, that void was filled nicely by the “Simple Thermometer” activity. We framed the activities with books on water through the seasons, snow, and ice, as well as a flannel board story and song. In other words, this activity slots neatly into pre-existing programs, but might require a bit of window-dressing if acting as a stand-alone.