Science and FFL

For those interested in science concepts: from the files of the Ooey Gooey Science Lady: http://www.ooeygooey.com/mary/resources/

Any of the great books by author Janice VanCleave will promise a fantastic science adventure.


Sandy Yellenberg, from the Santa Clara County Office of Education, will always steer you to great fun with science – 453-6692

- Deborah Estreicher, San Jose

Mixing In Math

Priya Mascarenhas (Santa Clara Reads) and I attended a workshop on utilizing math in library programs. Funded in part and supported by the National Science Foundation, the objective is to have children begin thinking about math concepts at a very early age, instead of fearing or despising math as a whole in their later educational years. The staff of "Mixing in Math" is very helpful and will find a way for you to incorporate math skills into programs you would never have thought possible. For example, before we went to a performance of "Cinderella," they advised that the families estimate foot sizes and then use rulers and actually make and compare measurements. The staff will e-mail you with suggestions for whatever program you have in mind. If you can take part in a workshop, Priya and I, wholly recommend that you do.

For Halloween, I followed the following advice with slight modifications:

Many Seeds - We read the book How Many Seeds in a Pumpkin. One of the older kids first rolled his eyes, thinking it was going to be a baby book, but he ended up in the middle of the group, really drawn in by the book. It wasn't pumpkin season, so I used fruits (apples, peppers, mango, papaya, honeydew, lemon, kiwi). With the kiwi we scooped the center and estimated. We did a lot of estimating. They came up with ways to group the seeds, and multiplied by the number of groups. They first made groups of a certain number, like 50, and then they made groups that looked like they had that number of seeds. The counting wasn’t exact except for apples and mangoes. (They were surprised that the mango had only one.) I had two of each fruit and they estimated whether the larger one would have more than the smaller. We also estimated how many seeds per fruit. I’d made a chart so they put the info onto the chart. They made a bar graph with the number of seeds per fruit. Some of them had never had some of the fruits – one had never tried honeydew, and he didn’t even know what it looked like. He loved it. They loved the program and fruit is a great incentive. They estimated, divided, counted, analyzed. At the end we talked about what type of math they did. They said dividing, multiplying, etc. I mentioned graphing. The first & second graders didn’t know what a bar graph is. The older kids taught the younger kids how to do it. They showed them the line at the top and how to do the column.

A while back, we had kids estimate how much two different pumpkins weighed. Lots of pumpkin math! Kids lifted things in the room, including one kid who lifted his sister.

For additional info: http://mixinginmath.terc.edu

Parenting Coach

For a wonderful speaker/parenting coach for your FFL programs:

Susan Stone Belton has appeared several times at FFL events, conducted programs throughout the San Jose Public Library system and was even invited to conduct an SJPL, library wide inservice. She is excellent, warm and straightforward. Parents/caregivers have found her style very conducive to participation.

- Deborah Estreicher, San Jose

Holiday Book Event and Barnes & Noble

Once again the good people at Barnes & Noble at Oakland's Jack London Square are generously hosting us for a holiday book-buying extravaganza!

I invite all FFL students who have come to two or more programs over the past calendar year. We meet in the children's book section, where I read aloud several of the books on display. Promptly at the appointed hour I give everyone a shopping budget from a purchase order. Then everyone shops!

Barnes & Noble provides us a 20% discount, goodies from their cafe, a staff person to answer questions and help our families find books, a book truck to stack purchases while people are shopping, and a dedicated register for our families.

Over time, I've developed several rules. (1) No latecomers: Once I've done the math to divide up the purchase order among those present, there is no money left, and that's that. (2) No outsiders: although anyone is welcome to bring friends, family members, etc. to regular programs, this is just for students and the children I give them books for. (3) Math lesson: people are expected to keep track of their own purchases, although I'll help them before they check out to make sure that they are within their budget. (4) Watch your own children!

Sadly, Barnes & Noble is closing its Oakland store at the end of this year. But if you have a store near you, you might consider asking them to host an event like this. I'm thinking of trying Borders next year.

Our Families for Literacy Songbook

Oakland's Families for Literacy program recently held a family night about music, where we sang many of our favorite songs. Here's the cover, introduction and table of contents from the songbook containing the songs we sang. (It looks a little odd here because it's formatted to print as a booklet, with staggered pages.) If you'd like a copy of the full songbook, contact Ann (click on that link to see my profile, which has my email address). Happy singing!

In honor of Earth Day

In honor of Earth Day, here are the covers of my program booklets on Recycling: "Talking about Trash" and "Trash to Treasures." You can contact me if you want either booklet - just click the link on the side for Oakland Public Library, Second Start.

Bees, Beetles and Butterflies

Dear friends,

Here is an amazing, 166-page illustrated pdf of stories, poems and songs I got from PUBYAC, a listserv of children's and young adult librarians:

http://www.story-lovers.com/bugbookv.2.pdf

Jackie Baldwin, the creator of this magnificent book, says:
..."because of its length (166 pages, 125 stories, 32 contributors) and the number of full-color photos included, it takes 1.5 minutes to download onto my computer, but I've heard from others that it can take nearly five minutes, depending on a computer's speed. Another friend did it in 25 seconds. My suggestion: go make a cuppa tea while the download is going on! ...If you decide to print out the whole book, I've designed it without any blank pages, so you can do odd numbers 1-165, then even numbers 2-166. But I would suggest that you split it into three sections, just to be sure that the printing is going as expected. I usually split it 50, 50, 66. You'll be doing double-sided pages, so you should use a heavier paper..."

Incidentally, if you are interested in PUBYAC, here is their link:
https://mail.prairienet.org/mailman/listinfo/pubyac
If you decide to subscribe, I highly recommend you get the digest (otherwise your mailbox will be flooded with a gazillion emails every day!)

Health Literacy - a hot topic in your community?

Hello friends, We've had several family literacy programs on health topics over the past couple of years, most recently on the subject of children and other family members with asthma. It seems now that health literacy is a hotter topic than ever among hospitals, community organizations, etc. Has anyone else noticed this in their communities? Have you participated in health literacy programs, summits, etc. with community organizations, funders, or the like? Please comment and let us know what you have been doing - I think it would be interesting to share experiences.

- Ann Daniels
Second Start Adult Literacy, Oakland

Dr. Gena Lewis of Children's Hospital-Oakland talks about asthma

two of our kids make crafts while their parents discuss asthma triggers