Magnets

To allow children to explore the how magnets attract and repel.

I have fond memories of playing with magnets at my grandmother's house.  She had two dog figurines, one white and one black and they had magnets on the bottom.  No matter how I tried they would never join face to face.  When I tried to do it, one or the other would spin around and they would join nose to tail, it was the opposites that attract. It created hours of entertainment.

The science of magnets:

To introduce the idea of magnets first I read Pearl Barley and Charlie Parsley by Aaron Blabbey which discusses how opposite friends attract. 
I then showed the children how magnets are similar explaining that magnets have 'poles' or sides one that is called 'positive' and one that is called 'negative'.  What happens with these sides is that the opposites attract - that they pull together.  Whereas if you put the two postive or the two negative sides together they would 'repel' or push away from each other. 

The Magnetic dog by Bruce Whatley is about a dog who is magnetic, in that he attracts food.  After the story we looked at magnets as magnetic and they can attract certain things like iron and aluminium.  We used the magnet to see what it could attract.  Things like paperclips, staples, pins but not things like apples, paper or fabric.  We also discovered that a strong magnet to pick up a whole chain of paperclips.

The last book Stuck by Oliver Jeffers is about objects getting stuck on a tree.  I made up a laminated model of the tree and the items that got stuck in the tree and put magnets on the back.  I used a magnetic board and put the tree on the board and the children had to remember the items that got stuck and one by one we stuck them to the tree. 

As with most of my demonstrations after the storytime session children came up and explored the magnets making them attract and repel and finding what items were attracted to the magnets.

Book suggestions:  

 

Pearl Barley and Charlie Parsley – Aaron Blabbey
That magnetic dog – Bruce Whatley
Stuck – Charlotte Calder and Mark Jackson

Craft suggestions:

I decided to use magnetism in the craft so children made and cut our paper fish.  We then placed paperclips on them.  I had pre-made some fishing rods with a chopstick, wool and a magnet.  I then had a pretend pond and children could go fishing for their fish.  I showed parents how easy it was to make a fishing rod with a fridge magnet at home.

Snails and Slugs - locomotion

To introduce children to snails and how they move.

This is one of the first STEAM storytime sessions that I ran. I thought it would be interesting to bring in some snails for the children to watch.  I love seeing snails come out of their shells and then it looks like their eye stalks grow.
I decided to have a snail race with them an look out 4 feisty looking snails.  I placed them in the middle of a set of enlarging circles.  Whichever snail got to the outermost circle edge won.  I was thinking I would have plenty of time and prepared to read another story.  However, I must have had a 'turbo' snail because within 30 seconds one of my snails was at the finish line. I had a few slow pokes too, who hadn't even bothered to come out of their shells!

The children had seen how the snails moved so I started to discuss their silvery trails. 

Preparation:

Have a black piece of paper that you have allowed snails to slide across to reveal their silvery trail.

Science Concepts:

Slugs and snails have soft bodies so how do they slide across the ground with out getting hurt. 
They snail trails.  Show children the black paper with snail trails. This is 'slime' that snail produce when they move.
What does the snail slime do?
It make is easier to slide across hard surfaces like rocks and concrete.
Find more information about how snails move here

Experiment:

Snail slime is a bit like egg white.  Show children how egg white makes sandpaper less rough.

Equipment: 

2 pieces of sandpaper, egg white.
Get children to feel the sand paper, how rough it is, how hard it is to slide your finger along
Put some egg white onto the other piece of paper and get children to slide finger along. 
Get them to notice how much easier it is to slide their finger along. 
That is how snail slime works for snails

Book suggestions:

Snail brings the mail – Russell Punter
Slug need a hug - Jeanne Willis
Turtle and snail are friends - Stephen Michael King
Snails : why do they make slime trails? - Jeannette Rowe (Smarty cats series)
Snail and the Whale – Julia Donaldson
Norman the slug with the funny shell - Sue Hendra

Craft suggestions:

Snail colouring page and making a mosaic on the snails shell
Coiled paper snails
Paper plate snail

Extra learning:

I found the children wanted to interact with the snails and I encouraged their curiosity. I notice they 'pretend' played Mummies and Daddies with the snails.
This made the snails create bubbles/froth.  We discovered is what they do when they feel threatened.
Lots of children took snails home with then in egg cartons that I supplied.  This wasn’t planned, but one child asked and it cascaded from there.