A Week of Imagination

Week Three in Region 27

Greetings from Region 27 (Southeast Iowa)! It has been another crazy week, but I love it! On Tuesday, I went to Mediapolis City Hall to help Mary Steffener, Des Moines county youth coordinator, to help with the Mediapolis Library Summer Program. The lesson for this week was on mistakes. We showed the kids items that were accidentally made, such as post-it notes, potato chips, slinkies, and more! We then read a book about beautiful mistakes to the kids. Then the children were given time to make their own beautiful masterpieces out of recycled materials. These kids’ imaginations blew me away! We ended the program by giving the kids popsicles which were in fact also made by accident! Fun was had by all! Tuesday afternoon, Morgan Hoenig and I created a fun video demonstration of myself cooking turnips that we bought at the farmers’ market. This was a lot of fun to make and was a new experience for me as I had never tried turnips before. I really enjoyed them! Be on the lookout for my video soon!

Wednesday, I spent the morning at the Henry County Extension office. Children from the Rec Center in Mount Pleasant came for us to do the summer reading program with them. We showed the kids an item that was accidentally made, post-it notes. We then read a book about beautiful mistakes to the kids. Kids were able to make bookmarks that had “mistakes”. Then the children were given time to make their own beautiful masterpieces out of recycled materials. These kids have wild imaginations and are so creative! We then read another book about not letting a pigeon drive a bus. The kids LOVED this book and interacted in this story time a lot. Next, their imaginations were put to the test again as they were given the task of drawing their own towns. Overall, it was a great experience for the kids and I hope that they learned from it! Wednesday afternoon, I did some planning for fun activities to provide at the farmers’ markets in Lee County. I can’t wait to see kids (and adults) having fun!

On Friday, I spent the day at Louisa County’s Fizz, Bubble, Goo camp in Grandview. It was such a fun day! We had numerous experiments teaching the kids about physical and chemical changes. My favorite experiment was blowing up balloons by filling bottles with vinegar and baking soda! It was a great learning experience for the kids and it was a lot of fun too! 

It was a great week! Check back next week to see what I do week 4!

Catie