So this week wraps up our Strange ... But True? Summer Reading Club 2012, yesterday we went out with a bang at the Montrose Park! We had a bouncy castle and carnival games from BV Tool Rentals, a refreshing water park for the kids to frolic in, our tie-dye-ing station all set up, and I had my camera at the ready!
I'll be posting my official post later this week or at the start of next week! I still have to post about our Monster Week with the Little Einsteins and Young Professors and Guest Wednesday with Les Anderson. And plus, I took about 250 pictures at the party! So it's going to take me a while to go through them all, pick out the good ones, and edit them! So please bear (pun! .... get it? no probably not, but Les Anderson talked a bit about bears during his Guest Wednesday visit, no? not funny? ok) - bare with me!
Until then here's a teaser picture from our Party from yesterday! This is a shot of some of the kids in the water park. Just before we started our water balloon fight we got a group picture, here the kids threw the water balloons up high and screamed as they were bombarded by rogue balloons!
Anyways, I just wanted to thank all the kids, Rhonda, the Beaver Valley Public Library, all our fantastic Guests for out Guest Wednesdays, the Trail Daily Times (for putting up with my constant emails and for sending the lovely Breanne Massey to the party to take some pictures and ask questions for the paper!), parents, and everyone for making this such a fun job for me! Thank you, Thank you, Thank you!
Today for out theme I thought science is awesome and so far this summer we've had lots of fun looking at science themed stuff, from biology, zoology, chemistry to math, so I thought more science is always a good thing!
Voila! You see? A simple piece of paper, one loop with a twist (Mobius Strip) and a circular loop!
So, the day before I practised my Möbius strip making and paper loop making! The above and below pictures are the before and after of my loops! The fascinating thing about Möbius strips is how simple, yet complex they are! All a Möbius strip is a loop that has a twist through it! (see above picture on the left!)
Tada!
The Strange ... But True? fact about a Mobius strip that makes it so weird, is that it is characterized as a surface with only one side and one edge, WHA- what!?!! right?
But its true and you can totally try it out for yourself its easy! Cut out a strip of paper and give it a twist before you tape your loop! Then with a pen or pencil start in the middle at a point in our loop and draw a continuous straight line down the middle until you connect the line. :O
The Möbius strip was found by two great German mathematicians, August Ferdinand Möbius (for whom the Möbius strip is named for) and Johann Benedict Listing in 1958.
I'm probably not it explaining it right, but there is this great story on YouTube, that introduced me to Möbius Strips! It's a video done by Vihart, who calls herself a Mathmusician and has a YouTube channel full of crazy, awesome math and music related videos that will blow your mind!
Anyways, I played the story of Wind and Mr. Ug for the Mad Scientists, its a good story that may make you cry :( its a little sad but also well told! I'll post the video here for you to watch! Let me know your thoughts!
After watching our YouTube story I laid out a bunch of pre-made Möbius Strips, construction paper, glue, tape, and scissors for the Mad Scientists to make their own Möbius Strips! Some of the Mad Scientists also went ahead and made some "get better" cards for Sara, who missed the Club because she broke her finger! :O ouch!
Here's some pictures of the Mad Scientists going crazy with making, decorating and constructing some Möbius Strips!
Kyleen made a crazy awesome Möbius Loop, where instead of having 1 twist, she made a loop of about 3-4 twists - as much as she could without ripping her paper!
She then cut down the middle all the way through her loop and it ended up becoming 3 interlocked loops with twists in them! Awesome!
Ha! I love the pictures of the Human Knot game! It kinda looks like a big awkward group dance! Although in well life it wasn't quiet as graceful.
After a few rounds of the Human Knot game, we carried on to another game, one that I call the Prisoner's Trick! All you need is some string!
Here's how it works!
Get everyone to get paired off into groups of 2! Or picked out the pairs yourself!
Tie up a piece of string that is about an arms length in length and at each end knot off a loop that's big or small enough for people to put their hands through and wear like bracelets
Get one person of the pair to put on their "handcuffs" and then attach their partners to one wrist, and loop their handcuffs through their partners so that they are attached! If that makes no sense, then look at this picture!
Then state some rules!
No taking off your handcuffs!
No using friction to escape (a lesson I learned from Jillian and Alicen!)
Be careful!
Then tell the kids that they have to escape from their fellow partner! Tell them that they must untangle their handcuffs from each other to escape!
Here's a look at how the Mad Scientists tried to escape!
Now, I remember the first time I played this game, and its crazy fun and crazy frustrating!! You end up just stepping through the string and coming up still tangled! And even just looking at your interlocking handcuffs, I thought "THIS IS IMPOSSIBLE!!!!"
But let me tell you! There is a trick!
Smarties, Miss Jillian and Alicen thought they could get it! They used some science to decode of the mystery! They used the power of friction!!! - which if you refer to the rules! - is illegal! Please refer to Rule 2!
Here's the proof of Jillian and Alicen breaking out of their prison!
Success!
Now, you probably are squirming in your seats in wonder as how to escape the clenches of this masterful trap! Here are two pictures of how to untangle yourself from the Prisoner's Escape!
Voila!
Crazy right?
I showed Serena and Caleb the way out of there entanglement and they quickly hurrayed and danced in their newfound freedom!
Then they went on to pass on their wisdom to Alicen and Jillian, who then went on to teach Emily and Kyleen!
After we were all free from our handcuffs, I quickly reviewed what we learnt today about Möbius Strips and then posed a question ... what if you could make an edible Möbius Strip!?!?!?
AWWWW YEAH! FRUIT BY THE FOOT!!! WHEEEEEEEEW!
Goodness me, this was another awesome idea from Vihart on her YouTube videos. The kids had a blast! Caleb made a giant Möbius Strip!
Alicen made a Möbius Strip and then patiently ripped down its middle and it became a larger skinnier loop!
Jillian made a teeny tiny Möbius Strip! Cute!
Here's Serena with her interlocked loops!
Kyleen ended up with some interlocked loops too!
So that was our last Mad Scientist meeting :( it was so much fun and I'm looking forward to our party!
PA-PA-PAR-PAR-PARTY!!! (P.S. this picture was featured on the second page in the Trail Daily Times today! Much better in colour, though, no?)
So, from all of us at the Beaver Valley Public Library, you are invited to ...
Our Flyer for the Event!
Yay! I'm so excited, yet also a little sad, since this marks our last week of the Summer Reading Club and therefore drawing to a close my time this summer at the Beaver Valley Public Library! :(
Sara, Zoe, Michael and Sam are getting excited for our party this Thursday!
In the meantime though, I am looking forward to the bouncy castle!!!, the tie-dye-ing!!!, and games and just EVERYTHING coming up for the party at the Montrose Park this week! I hope to see you there!
Today, Susan and Stephanie joined me to practise some tie-dye-ing at my house, since we are planning to have a section at the party this Thursday devoted to tie-dye-ing capes! We shall indeed be assembling some super heroes at the party!
Our materials and finished product!
Here's some pictures of us assembling our capes! Although I did screw up my iron-on logo on my cape! Whoops!
Our twist-tied, tie-dye-ed abominations!
Me posing with Stephanie's super Twist-tied cape!
Ta da! Susan with her cape!
We definitely had a blast making our capes! So fun and easy with this spray kit Rhonda had in the craft room of the Library! It only came with 3 colours: purple, black, and gray - and really I saw no difference between the gray and black, so 2 colours really!
Super Susan! To the rescue!
I'm thinking that tomorrow, or rather today, at work that I'll be doing some further embellishing on our capes! If only we had a be-dazzler at the library! ... maybe Rhonda has one!
Anyways, these capes were fun, they'll make a hero out of all of us, definite superheroes!
BANANANANNANANANANAAAASUSAN!
Happy Reading guys! Hope to see you at the library this week, or if not there at the Montrose Park this Thursday for some games, a picnic, fun, bouncy castle, prizes, just everything really! It's going to be sooooo fun!
Story time with Mrs. Giles! These kids are absolutely adorable!
So this Tuesday the Little Einsteins had lots of fun stretching their imaginations as the theme this week for the little ones was DRAGONS!!!!
Rhonda started things off as per usual with the Name Box and some classic songs!
For stories she read through some dragon books! She also read "Sophie and the Sea Monster" by Don Gillmor and illustrated by Michael Martchenko (known to me as the awesome guy who illustrates a lot of Robert Munsch books!
This is such a cute story and hearing Rhonda read it in such an animated and fun way was awesome! The kids enjoyed it immensely - as did I! It has become a favourite of mine this week, as I took it out to read to the Young Professors and Mad Scientists - who loved it just the same!
Along with that, Rhonda had set up her felt board and did a lovely rendition of 5 little monkeys, re-warped into 5 little dragons! The kids sand along and had a blast!
Even our Mini Einsteins had fun! Rhonda even read the classic Paper Bag Princess! AWESOME! The kids really enjoyed that, I mean, who won't!??!
Rhonda came up with an awesome craft for the kids today! And accordion-like Dragon that the kids got to colour in and then glue onto the popsicle-accordion contraptions that Rhonda pre-prepped for the kids!
The kids - and parents - had fun colouring in their dragons, they added some stickers and tissue paper to adorn their dragons and make them colourfully ferocious!
Rhonda managed to snag herself a little baby Einstein whilst the crafty kids crafted away!
And I managed to get an impromptu photo shoot with brothers Ben and Tim, who proudly showed off their finished masterpieces!
I love this picture!
Some Mini Einsteins! - Veronica managed to make her own dragon!
I was surprised to see an old family friend! Kiara's (see above picture!) grandma has known me since I was a baby! Shockingly, her great-grandmother, was one of my mom's first friends when see moved to Trail ages ago from the Philippines, and she taught my mom how to drive! So I used to babysit Kiara since she was young, and now I feel awfully old!!! Goodness me! But as always, it was nice to see her in our library!
With their newly crafted dragons, the kids joined Rhonda for some more stories and songs!
Brothers Chesney and Corbin!
And that was the day for the Little Einsteins! They left the library full of books and with their new dragon friends!
I also managed to snap some of the most adorable pictures of Miss Veronica as she waited for her mom and brother to check out some books!
Adorable! I mean really! Such a cutie!
Well as for that, happy reading friends! And don't forget that next week, sadly, will be our last week! GAH! And to end our Summer Reading Club we will be having a party to celebrate! All ages, young and old, come and join us at the Montrose Park on Thursday from 10-1!
Here's the poster for the event! I hope I see you there! Although, if you can please RSVP by phoning us at the library, or telling us beforehand! We'd love to know how many people we will be expecting!
