Marvelous Mornings - Year 2

This year I am continuing to run the pre-care program in the library before school begins.  Each day students are allowed to be dropped off at 7:30, and school begins at 8:00.  At this early morning hour students are provided with several options.  They can go to the gym where they run around and play games, the art room is open some days for work on projects/open art studio, many students in grades 3-5 are involved in the band program, or they can come to the library where I am "on duty" each and every day (BEST DUTY EVER!  See my blog post on this very subject).  

After a year of cultivating a new idea of what these mornings in the library could be, it is finally in a place that I comfortable calling them "Marvelous Mornings" because they truly are MARVELOUS! At any given point you will see students creating, thinking and collaborating.  This is largely due in part to cultivating an environment where students can come in and explore what they are interested by presenting them with a variety of STEM challenges, guiding them towards books in the library where they can learn how to do something new (like how to draw a horse or make a paper airplane), providing organized materials to pick from for the purpose of making and creating, and last but not least, encourging innovation.

What's next for Marvelous Mornings?  This year it is a goal of mine to continue to enhance this program so I am currently enrolled in a MOOC on Coursera about the Art of Tinkering from the gurus over at the Exploritorium in California.  Here, I am getting new ideas of how to continually improve this program I have created and adding in another level of makering and tinkering. So far we have a successful makerspace with limited supplies and money - and I have gotten approval to purchase items like motors, lightbulbs, wires, etc that will help grow our Marvelous Mornings.  I am so inpsired by the "Art of Tinkering" and the course I am taking to learn what tools I can add for specific projects with the addition of an actual budget.  I will update my blog once I finish my wishlist, order the supplies, and begin to implement some of the ideas I get by engaging with the MOOC (which I already have some and it's only week one!)  

Working in a school library, which is a central part of most school communities, we have the opportunity to be changemakers, to model and showcase new ideas of learning and teaching.  Many times, a teacher/tutor/parent/administrator will walk into the library during Marvelous Mornings and comment on how engaged and excited the kids are.  They are often curious about what they are doing.  I am hoping that the marvelous time we are having is contagious and begins to infect the classrooms, or at the very least, teachers see there is a space in the library where they can bring their students for a different kind of learning - but (IMHO) the very best kind!

The zipline they have been working on and constantly improving. 

A typical Marvelous Morning!

Organized materials are the best materials!

Library Love

I am a library lover.  Always have been, always will.  I will wait a year for a book on hold at the library and get super excited about it when it finally comes in.  I download audiobooks to listen to on my commute.  My kids and I have been frequenting the public library's children's collections and have attended countless programs there for the last 12 years..  And oh yeah, I teach in one.



Just recently, a trip to the library initiated learning about specific authors with my kids - our at home "author study".  For the first one we checked out books by Eric Carle, then watched a video of him demonstrating his special technique to create his drawings.  At home we recreated his works!  It took several days of painting, drying, then cutting and collaging - but the results were worth it!  They looked amazing and the kids (and me) were so proud of recreating this technique.

The next author we studied was Dr. Seuss.  For this author we went to see a performance at the public library done by a local theater that was producing Seussical the Musical. Here they performed Horton Hears aWho.  Then at home we stretched our thinking by rewriting the ending. Which led to amazing discussions about this book.  

Finally, we checked out books by Amy Krause Rosenthal, one of my personal favorites.  The kid's fell in love with Duck! Rabbit! and argued their points about whether they thought the character in the book was a Duck or a Rabbit, then used the app My Story on our iPad to explain their thinking. We tweeted it out to the author and illustrator and Tom Lichentenheld responded!!!

Learning does not have to be complicated and hard.  You can find something to learn about it every experience you have - especially trips to the library!