I've already broken my New Years resolution. Posting on a blog, working, and taking care of a three-legged cat is proving to be very difficult.
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| All of the fun. |
I've come to find that when doing my STEAM-Powered Drop In, I want to include all ages, rather than just teens. So I decided to hold it in the library (as opposed to our programming room, which isn't connected to the main building). Well, I got the numbers I was hoping for ... but as for the chaos, it definitely ensued. By opening the program up to younger kids, I found myself being pulled every which way to show them how to use the Spheros. And some kids were a little too small to figure out how to maneuver them. I hate admitting when I need help, but if there was ever a day where help was needed, it was last Friday.
Towards the end of the program, the majority of the kids left over were invested in their Lego building and got sick of rolling the Spheros around the lobby (phew!), so I got to relax and discuss our spherical friends with a couple of fathers who were interested in them. There is a need for coding and learning how to program these little things... it's just that when it comes down to it, the kids would rather roll them around and knock them into things rather than block code.
Shout out to anyone in librarian world who can help me try to push the blockcoding agenda.
As someone who can barely do HTML (thank you LiveJournal for teaching me via layout making), introducing the patrons to programming is tough. I want to do it all myself, but I am just completely inept. Thankfully, the JavaScript program (shout out to LearnToCodeNJ) is exactly what I need. The kids get to learn from professionals and I don't have to embarrass myself pretending like I know what I'm doing.
I can finally check 'having a successful outside program' off of my list.
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