Calendar Connection - August

August has long been one of my favorite months (because I have an intense school supply fetish) but I've always felt like it was lacking in the holiday department. This month that ushers in the most blessed of seasons (because as far as I'm concerned fall starts promptly with the onset of the school year, blistering heat or not) doesn't have a staring holiday that seems befitting such as great month. However, as I have done more research I have found more holidays that we never celebrated when I was growing up (living in the bible belt with a minister for a father had its limitations in the holiday department). I have included some holidays in this Calendar Connection that you might not have heard of, but that will add increased diversity to your program planning.

August 1: Lughnasadh or Lammas: A Gaelic festival that marks the beginning of the harvest season
August 4: Campfire Day
August 5: National Friendship Day
August 5-11: International Clown Week
August 9: Book Lover's Day
August 18: National Honeybee Awareness Day
August 19: National Aviation Day
August 24: Vesuvius Day

What special events do you celebrate in your clubs to add fun into your programs? Let me know!

Monthly Theme: Arctic Animals - Internet Scavenger Hunt

Back when I was a classroom teacher I utilized a lot of Webquests, which at this point is a pretty antiquated term (something I realized after mentioning the idea of these to our club kids and receiving only blank stares in return). BUT, our kids do understand the idea of scavenger hunts and even more importantly they completely get the idea of using our tablets to locate relevant information (if not always understanding what relevant information is, thus the need for developing the skills used in searching for internet scavenger hunts). So, webquests have become internet scavenger hunts and suddenly our kids are totally psyched about starting them.

The first internet scavenger hunt we'll attempt is over Arctic Animals. I found the ideas for the questions through a printable over at Scholastic Teachables (which is totally worth the monthly fee, I promise!) but because of the fluid nature of the internet, unfortunately, many of the websites listed on their scavenger hunt were now defunct so I have adapted some of their questions and added a few of my own along with updating the websites used to find the answers.

I made a simple printable answer form for our kids and had them access the questions along with the links on a google docs page. You could definitely do this where each group had to add their answers to a working google document, but I honestly didn't want to have to go back between groups and clear out previous answers.

If you would like to do a similar scavenger hunt with your kids, here are the questions that we used, along with the links where you can find the appropriate information. 

1. How much does a musk ox weigh?
Find the answer at National Geographic

2. Is arctic fox fur warmer than polar bear fur?
Find the answer at Athropolis

3. What swimming stroke does the polar bear use?
Find the answer at Polar Bear World

4.What color is an arctic hare in summer?
Find the answer at the Virtual Museum

5. How do seals move on land?
Find the answer at Naturally Scottish

6. When do Snowy Owls hunt?

Find the answer at National Geographic Kids

7. What is the beluga whale's nickname?

Find the answer at Sea World

8. What is a walrus tusk made of?
Find the answer at Live Science

Have you tried doing internet scavenger hunts with your kids? Do you have a special protocol in place for allowing kids to use technology in your club spaces? Let me know!

Clip art used in this post was purchased from EduClips and Creative Clips

Incorporating Themes - Polar Animals Theme

Yesterday, I shared with you our Weekly Program Guides, but what I didn't really talk too much about are our monthly themes and our focus life principle. I'll go into the life principles in a later post, but today I want to talk about one of my absolute favorite things - themes! 

I love, love, love themes! I've been writing theme units since my own kids were in their preschool years (which was longer ago than I care to admit), even though back then I had no idea I was writing theme units - I was simply putting together fun and educational activities with different children's books that my kiddos would pick out during our biweekly library trips. Fast forward twenty-or-so years (yikes!) and here we are. I've written themes for years to include the traditional, educational elements, but now as I write them for our club kids I'm also integrating often over-looked (but super important) life skills.

The first theme that we're doing at the club (that isn't part of one of our breaks) is over Polar Animals. We're keeping our themes for a few weeks (because I'm ambitious, but not crazy) and because I want our kids to have a chance to explore each theme without feeling completely overloaded - this is supposed to be fun, not draining.

So, for our first theme, I'm breaking the Polar Animals into two categories, Arctic and Antarctic. I want to do this for ease of incorporation, but also so that the kids learn that there is a big difference in the areas geographically as well as zoologically. 

When you decide to start working with themes, there are a lot of things you can do that will help add to the feel around your club with very little effort. For example, try naming your groups with names that go along with the theme. When we use themes for breaks, we always use theme specific names for the groups. Here are some group names I've come up with to go along with our theme:

Gnarly Narwhals
Silly Seals
Optimistic Orcas
Brilliant Belugas
Peppy Polar Bears
Peckish Puffins
Lucky Lemmings
Happy Huskies
Wacky Walruses

Another great way to add to the feel of themes without having to change anything in your regular program day is to find theme related activities for project learn and for triple play. We will be incorporating a lot of theme-friendly fun over the course of this theme that make the kids excited to learn new games and try new activities.

It's also easy to adapt games your kids probably already play. For example, sharks and minnows can easily become seals and minnows and dodge ball can become a snowball fight. Snack ideas can be adapted as well. Our kids love polar bear pudding (which is just a vanilla pudding cup with some flaked coconut stirred in) and glacial goodness (made like a root beer float but with blue kool-aid). 

Do you use themes in your club setting? Do you have fun ideas to share? Let me know!

Program Management: Weekly Program Guides

Each week, I create a weekly program guide for our unit directors that shows just what programs we're doing and what activities they need to incorporate into each target program. On this weekly sheet I incorporate any special visitors that will be coming to the clubs as well, so that all staff know what to expect. The unit directors get the plans a week early so that they have time to assign projects to program staff for implementation. Here is a sample of our weekly program guide for this week:

Each unit director has been responsible for choosing their own project learn activity and daily triple play activity to implement along with the target program described. Our school sites only have kids on site for about 2.5 hours each day, so making the most of that time with the kids is incredibly important. Each unit director is allowed to set a schedule that works best for them and their kids as long as there is plenty of time for homework help (we do Power Hour and Project Learn at the same time - one for kids who need homework help, one for those with no homework), at least one triple play activity, and the target program is accomplished each day.

If you have ideas to share about programming or program planning, I would love to hear them!

The 52 Club - Positive Reinforcement for Attendance

Around here I'm always looking for ways to encourage kids to come to the club and to do their very best in everything they do. Recently I found out about the 52 Club and we are jumping in full force.

Basically, the 52 Club is for kiddos who come to the club at least 52 times in the span of one year. Now for a lot of our kids, making the 52 Club is going to be super, super easy. Many of our kiddos are every day attenders and I'm so very happy that we've got a way to reward them as well.

We started the 52 Club program on January 2 and if we count 52 club days forward we end up on Friday, March 16. This means we'll have our first installment of 52 Club members the Friday before Spring Break. I think this works out perfectly because that gives us a chance to reward our kids for attendance right before Spring Break.

What kind of attendance rewards do you provide for your kids? Let me know!

Thirteen Days of Halloween Day 11: Frankenstein Friday

Happy Frankenstein Friday! This holiday hoopla is celebrated the last Friday of October and pays homage to one of my favorite Halloween icons - Frankenstein's Monster (I was an English major - getting the name right is kind of a big deal to me).

What can you do to celebrate Frankenstein Friday? I'm so glad you asked!

First of all, watching the original 1931 film (featuring Boris Karloff as the monster) might be a bit over the top for some (most) kids, but luckily there's a great kid friendly adaptation by one of my very favorite freaky-family-friendly film creators - Tim Burton: Frankenweenie. I love the complete black-and-white filming of this movie and it easily lends itself to encouraging kids to explore their own mad scientist tendencies (STEM anyone?).

Of course, any good movie needs a good snack to accompany it, and there are a few fun options that tie into the Frankenstein theme. First, you can go the healthy route - here is a super simple Frankenstein apple idea from NonToy Gifts and a more complicated Frankenstein Kiwi idea from Two Healthy Kitchens.

Looking for some more crowd friendly, but still healthy, ideas that you can whip up and snap but will definitely be show stoppers? Here's a super cute (and super easy) idea from Blue Skies Ahead to make a Frankenstein veggie platter and a Bride of Frankenstein (he can't have all the fun, can he?) dip platter that looks amazing from Fork and Beans.

Now, with the snack options covered (not that there aren't a million more, remember, Pintrest is your friend). We can take a look at some fun craft ideas to keep hands busy. Our kids LOVE legos and I found this cool diagram (sorry, no instructions) for making a Frankenstein's monster out of legos that was part of the build together network (not absorbed by lego.com).We're going to expand the idea and have the kid create mad scientist labs to house their Frankenstein's monsters. I also found a fun game from House a Forest called Roll a Frankenstein. I personally love dice games because I happen to have quite a collection in various colors and shapes (I might be a self-proclaimed nerd).

Want something a little more crafty for your little hands to do? Here's a really cute Frankenstein sun catcher idea found at From ABCs to ACTs and and Frankenstein Foldable Craft from Artists Helping Children.

I love themed days like this because it lets me pull out all the stops for a special Thirteen Days of Halloween. Do you have any fun Frankenstein's Monster themed ideas? Are you celebrating Frankenstein Friday? Let me know!

Thirteen Days of Halloween Day 10 - Pumpkin Day

I love, love, love pumpkins. I don't think it's healthy, actually. I go crazy for pumpkin spice anything, I can't get a cactus to live yet I muddle through an attempt at a pumpkin patch at least every five years (just long enough to forget just how bad I am at growing things), a visit to my favorite local pumpkin patch (shout out to Fredrickson Farms in Carl Junction, MO) is a necessity, and I have pumpkins everywhere! Imagine my delight when I discovered that there is actually a National Pumpkin Day!

So what does a devoted pumpkin-lover do to celebrate National Pumpkin Day? Um, can you say ALL THE THINGS?!? Okay, so I understand that the kids might not share my extreme love of all things pumpkin and so I turn down my pumpkin-meter just a smidge when I'm preparing activities for the club. First, we need a pumpkin themed snack. The kids are always excited when we have food, and even the big kids get happy with themed food (even if they are too cool to admit it most of the time). For our super cute snack we're having Tangerine Pumpkins found over at Bren Did. 

After we enjoy a healthy and super cute snack it's time for daily programs! First program is triple play where we often do games in the gym. For National Pumpkin Day, we are playing a pumpkin broom race that is super simple from One Charming Party. If your group doesn't have real pumpkins, some other options are to use orange balloons or foam pumpkins (I was able to find very inexpensive ones at Dollar Tree this year).

After our game in the gym, we move to Power Hour and Project Learn. Power Hour is pretty basic - it's homework time, but for Project Learn we do a fun learning activity each day. For National Pumpkin Day, it's a great opportunity to incorporate some pumpkin science. I found a fun idea over at Little Bins for Little Hands I was surprised to find how many of our kids don't get the opportunity to actually experience "pumpkin guts" because so many families no longer carve pumpkins. Well, I felt like that was a kid experience that everyone should have, so the first step of pumpkin science is actually a bit of pumpkin dissection. I cut the top off our pumpkin and let the kid take the opportunity to feel the pumpkin guts and pull some out. Don't throw those guts away - clean the seeds off and roast them for kids to try. After the pumpkin is cleaned out, it's time to carve a simple face. As this uses sharp objects, it's an adult demonstration activity. If you want, you can do this in a two pumpkin-process so that you have one already carved and ready for the volcanic effect. Make sure if you're using a carved pumpkin, make sure you've got it placed on a large sheet pan or a hotel pan so that you don't have such a mess to clean up at the end.

Do you have favorite pumpkin themed activities? What does your club to do incorporate pumpkin science? Do you share my ultimate love of pumpkins? Let me know!