STEM: Cardboard Box Challenge

So it's about time I talk about STEM, particularly with regards to dramatic play and engineering! This blog post is especially dedicated to Caine Monroy who inspired the Cardboard Box Challenge with Caine's Arcade. Essentially, a filmmaker went to buy a door handle for his car and he met this 9 year old boy named Caine who had spent his summer building this elaborate cardboard arcade inside his dad's used auto part store. Caine invited him to play, and he couldn't pass up his "FunPass deal." The filmmaker then decided to make a short 10 minute film all about Caine's Arcade and let me tell you... this film is VERY moving. It totally brought me to tears! The video is posted below or can be viewed at the following Vimeo link: https://vimeo.com/40000072

Eventually hundreds of thousands of dollars started pouring into Caine's college fund and the Imagination Foundation was born. They then launched a "Global Day of Play" as part of their "Global Cardboard Challenge." The day takes place on the first Saturday of October (the anniversary of the 'surprise flashmob' the filmmaker & community did to make Caine's day in the Caine's Arcade short film). 

With the Cardboard Box Challenge, friends, family, co-workers and community members all over the world can come out to play at local events, celebrating the creativity and imagination of kids everywhere. Child directed play is not only fun, it's extremely powerful for self esteem and learning. Here are just a few of the benefits:

• When children pretend they are motivated and engaged in learning. 
• Pretending helps to stimulate memory and facilitate understanding of their world.
• Pretending increases their ability to use symbolic communication 
• Participating in arts like drama helps to develop analytical skills, an eye for detail, and expanded descriptive vocabulary through listening and responding. 
• Physical development is promoted as children learn to use different parts of their bodies to express themselves.

“Build anything you can dream,” is the motto behind the Cardboard Challenge.  In addition to instilling creativity within children, the Cardboard Box Challenge inspires children to become engineers for a day.  Playing with cardboard boxes and other building materials develops math and science skills too, helping children learn about gravity, balance, shapes, and problem solving. If this were a library program, you could even provide challenges for children and families to complete if they so choose:

Challenge it:

• How tall can you make a tower?
• Build a tunnel you can crawl through
• Build something as a team
• Build something in five minutes
• Build a game you can play

The other thing I love about the Cardboard Challenge is that it reminds parents that they don't have to have a lot of expensive gadgets to have a good time with their kids. Children can easily use everyday materials to make something fun, functional or beautiful! As a child, my favorite time in the world was when my parents would buy a new refrigerator or appliance because the box that it would come in was always a ginormous box that could be transformed into something magnificent. That large box could be a spaceship, a time traveling device, a submarine, or anything my mind could come up with. I am so blessed to have had parents who always allowed me time to play freely with random materials at hand.  It is probably why I am the creative individual I am to this day :) I was never afraid to take risks and be creative. 

I seriously hope to someday implement an imaginative day of play like The Cardboard Box Challenge at a library where I work! Read more about it at http://cardboardchallenge.com/

"Creativity is inventing, experimenting, growing, taking risks, breaking rules, making mistakes, and having fun." --Mary Lou Cook

Sources:
"Caine's Arcade Global Day of Play & Cardboard Challenge." Caine's Arcade. 2015. Web. 13 Sept. 2015.
"Stem Sprouts: Science Technology Engineering and Math Teaching Guide." Boston Children's Museum. Web. 10 Sept. 2015.
 "Young Children and the Arts: Making Creative Connections: A Report of the Task Force on Children’s Learning and the Arts: Birth to Age Eight." Arts Education Partnership, 1998. Web. 13 Sept. 2015. .

Make It Take It! Wire Sculpture

The arts can make you smart! Recent research demonstrates a correlation between the arts and higher academic performance. In the report, “Learning, Arts and the Brain,” seven universities presented several studies discussing how visual arts, music, and dance training and skill impact learning (The Dana Foundation, 2008). This is why I try to incorporate as much art as I can within my library programs. This blog entry talks about the Make It Take It program that I lead at 95th Street Library.  Make It Take It  is a weekly program that features a 15 minute storytime followed by a unique and fun craft. Activities are geared towards 3-5 year olds.  This craft is specifically inspired by Alexander Calder's wire sculptures: 

Alexander Calder | Ball Player (c. 1927)

Alexander Calder | Elephant (c. 1928)

The craft will be done using a styrofoam base, pipecleaners, and beads and is meant to inspire creativity within children! Here is what the craft will look like: 

Short Storytime Outline: 

Opening Song Options: 
My Energy by Laurie Berkner (Great action song to get kids moving)
I'm Me & You're You by Laurie Berkner

(This song has an excellent message about how kids are all unique individuals. Here is a snippet of the lyrics: "I'm me and you're you. I like green, you like blue. I use tape, you use glue. I stayed short and you grew. It doesn't matter what we do. 'Cause I'm still me and you're still you." I would sing this with Shakers and have lyrics on the white board)

Books:

A Day With No Crayons by Elizabeth Rusch

Lines that Wiggle by Candice Whitman

Art by Patrick McDonnel

The Straight Line Wonder by Mem Fox

Flannel Boards / Fingerplays & Songs

Clancy the Clown  - A Flannelboard Story

(This was a really fun story that was very interactive! This flannel helps children identify their colors and shapes and is also very funny!)

Clancy was a clown in a circus.  Every day he put on a funny face that made the children clap and laugh.  Then he did somersaults and rode a pig.  Clancy blew a trumpet and that made the children clap and laugh too.

One day Clancy went to put on his funny face.  He put on his silly eyes (place eyes).  He put on his happy mouth (place mouth).  He put on his crazy hair (place hair).  But Clancy Clown couldn't find his funny nose. "I know my nose", said Clancy.  "My nose is round and red.  Where is my funny nose?"

Clancy found a nose that looked like this  (put on a blue square nose). It was a blue square nose. Was this Clancy Clown's nose? (The kids scream out, "NO!") "No", said Clancy Clown. "This is not my nose. This is a blue square nose. My name is round and red. (remove blue square) I know my nose!" 

Clancy found a nose that looked like this. (Put on a green triangle nose). It was a green triangle nose. Was this Clancy Clown's nose? "No" said Clancy Clown. "This is not my nose. This is a green triangle nose. My nose is round and red.  (Remove green triangle) I know my nose!"

Clancy found a nose that looked like this (Put on a big yellow circle) . It was a big yellow round nose. Was this Clancy Clowns's nose? (Children scream out, "NO!") ,  "No." said Clancy Clown. "This is  a round nose, but it is big and yellow. My nose is round and red. (Remove yellow circle) I know my nose!" 

Clancy found  another nose that looked like this (Put on a tiny purple circle).  It was a tiny purple circle. Was this Clancy Clown's nose? (Children scream out, "NO!") "No" , said Clancy Clown. "This is not my nose. This is a round nose but it's tiny and purple. My nose is round and red. (Remove purple circle) I know my nose!" 

Then Clancy found a nose that looked like this (Use red circle). It was a round nose. It was a red nose. Was this Clancy Clown's nose? (let audience scream "YES!"). 


Clancy Clown put on his funny nose and went out to turn somersaults and ride a pig and blow his trumpet so the children would clap and laugh. Clancy Clown knows his nose... and now so do you!

Rainbow Colors

Tune: Hush, Little Baby

Rainbow purple, rainbow blue
Rainbow green and yellow, too
Rainbow orange, rainbow red
Rainbow smiling overhead.
Come and count the colors with me
How many colors can you see?
One, two, three, down to green,
Four, five, six can be seen
Rainbow purple, rainbow blue,
Rainbow green and yellow, too.
Rainbow orange, rainbow red,
Rainbow smiling overhead.

Source: King County Library System

Rainbow Colors
Tune: Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star

Start by putting all the rainbow shapes out on the flannel board - as you sing the song, point to each colored rainbow. (Center the red rainbow in the middle of the board). Build the rainbow starting with red on the outside working into purple as you sing the line "Rainbow smiling overhead." Pause until the rainbow is assembled then continue singing. 

Rainbow purple, rainbow blue,

Rainbow green and yellow too

Rainbow orange, rainbow red

Rainbow smiling overhead.
(Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple... assemble rainbow at this time)

Come and count the colors with me

How many colors can you see?
One, two, three, down to green,

Four, five, six can be seen

Rainbow purple, rainbow blue,

Rainbow green and yellow too

Rainbow orange, rainbow red

Rainbow smiling overhead. 

You have counted the colors with me
All of the colors that we see. 

Our Shapes 

Tune: “Did You Ever See a Lassie?”

Did you ever see a circle, a circle, a circle? 

Did you ever see a circle? 

It looks like a ball.

Did you ever see a rectangle, 

Rectangle, rectangle? 

Did you ever see a rectangle? 

It looks like a door.

Did you ever see a triangle, 

Triangle, triangle? 

Did you ever see a triangle? 

It looks like a sail.

Did you ever see a square, 

A square, a square? 

Did you ever see a square? 

It looks like a box.

Source: Addison Library

Wire Sculpture Craft Instructions: 

Materials:

·        Styrofoam Base

·        Multicolored Pipe Cleaners 

·        Multicolored Pony Beads / Assorted Beads

Instructions:
1) Put as many or as little beads of any color onto a pipe cleaner
2) Bend, curl, and twist pipe cleaners into any shape you like. Poke each end of the pipe cleaner into the Styrofoam base.
3) Intersect the pipe cleaners and make them tall or short and twist them into whatever funky shape you like! The purpose of this craft is to be creative. No two sculptures should look alike.

Early literacy tips:
By encouraging the child to use their fine motor skills to put pony beads on the pipe cleaner and bend it, they are developing the muscle strength needed to be able to write successfully someday. The children will also feel that the art is more their own when they are completing it themselves. Instruct children to bend pipe cleaners into different shapes. Parents could help children make more complex shapes. Older children may want to make people, animals, trucks, or anything they’d like, or they can just make an abstract work of art.

Coloring Sheet:

Pass out an art-themed coloring sheet inspired by famous artists after the activity! There are free printable sheets here:

http://makingartfun.com/htm/art-masterpiece-coloring-pages-index.htm

Display:

Since it is Fall, I also have a display of art books in the J Non-fiction section. Here is my display: