Yo! Ho! Ho! It's Some Pirate Fun!

 

Last week we hosted our third STEM Family Night of the year. This one had a pirate theme (obviously) and was for third grade. Attendance was down some because due to snow, we had to change the date pretty much at the last minute. That never goes well. I heard from so many people, "We were planning to come until the date got changed." It's okay; the families who attended got more time to enjoy each activity and thoroughly involved.

After my own reflections from last year and the parent exit response sheets, I made some changes. Those changes made things run much more smoothly this year. I also added some new activities. Last year, the kids chose their pirate name and filled out their nametags upon arrival; this year, nametags were the first activity of each station. That kept there from being such a logjam at the check-in table.

The best activity I added was catapults. I had three choices of items to catapult and some small pirates set up at varying heights so that they could be knocked down. This was one of the favorite activities this year. Next year I am going to add a new activity -- actually making catapults. 

I also added more pirate lego kits and a second bucket of water for aluminum pirate ships with pennies to be placed in. I made some pirate treasure map activities and added a second Bee Bot treasure map with Bot. I even found a cool plastic treasure box this summer which we used for the pirate gold. When the families checked out, the kids turned in their pirate maps with the stickers from each of their activities and then got pirate gold from the treasure box. (In other words a gold covered chocolate coin!) My eighth grade pirate girls helped with check-in and check-out.

Overall I was very pleased. The pictures below give a little more information. If you still have some questions, please message me. You can also go to last year's Pirate Night post for more details.

Two months of library and one family night to go this year! I'm still loving it in the library!!