What a fun online activity for kids (and adults!) from the New York Zoos & Aquarium.
Apparently I’m a Hiss-Bird! 
Found this site on the ALSC blog post The Latest Additions to Great Web Sites for Kids. Lots of other fun things listed there.
Kids
Build Your Wild Self
KidLib Camp 2009 – August 13
Don’t miss this unconference! KidLibCamp – for librarians interested in youth service in school & public libraries.
KidLibCamp 2009 is a place for youth services librarians to get together and talk about topics that are important to serving children in school and public libraries. KidLibCamp is an unconference that asks participants to share their work, skills, or knowledge as active participants. Unlike more traditional conferences, KidLibCamp will be highly participatory. Sessions will be determined the day of the KidLibCamp by those in attendance.
If you’ve never been to an unconference, you’re in for a treat. Sharing knowledge and collaborating are what drive an unconference. Everyone has a chance to contribute and learn. This day is being organized by Linda W. Braun or Gretchen Hams-Casserotti. The meeting is being held at Darien PL in southwest CT. If you’re in my neck of the woods (eastern NY) it’s an easy trip.
Gretchen and the Children’s Services Dept. did a really interesting reorganization of their collections when they moved to their new building in January – you can read about it at KidLit Reorg 2008 on Tame The Web. And go to the unconference and see it first hand and share your own great ideas with your colleagues.
Fun READ posters from the “If the light’s on, we’re home…” library
The kids and teens at the Stillwater (NY) Free Library have a created a great set of READ posters as part of their summer reading program. Great example of a fun, creative project on a budget! And don’t you love the libraries motto? “If the light’s on, we’re home.”
Scratch Day: May 16, 2009
Do you know kids who would like to create their own online games, stories, animations and more? Who doesn’t!
Then take a look at Scratch – a wonderful free programming tool “designed to help young people (ages 8 and up) develop 21st century learning skills. As they create Scratch projects, young people learn important mathematical and computational ideas, while also gaining a deeper understanding of the process of design.”
Get a bunch of kids together and join in Scratch Day – “a worldwide network of gatherings, where people will come together to meet other Scratchers, share projects and experiences, and learn more about Scratch.”
I heard about Scratch Day through the March 2009 Games in Libraries podcast.
For some examples, see my earlier post on Scratch.
Scratch: Imagine, Program, Share
Scratch, from the MIT Media Lab, is a programming tool “designed to help young people (ages 8 and up) develop 21st century learning skills. As they create Scratch projects, young people learn important mathematical and computational ideas, while also gaining a deeper understanding of the process of design.”
This demo video is all kinds of wonderful. It not only shows the process of designing and creating a game with Scratch, but also illustrates the thinking and learning going on while creating the game. And the narration and flow of the demo video are terrific too. Great job. I yelled hooray at the end!
An Introduction to Scratch Programming with Theo & Kyle - Feb 19, 2009
There are more than 300,000 projects on the Scratch site! I had fun playing with this one – Mi’s Puzzle Demo
Glogster: taking posters to a whole new level
Glogster for Education lets you create online posters with graphics, photos, text, video and audio. Wow, what a great tool for student projects. I can see lots of other fun uses for this in public libraries too.
Though Glogster has been around for a while, I just heard about it today in a twitter post from Buffy Hamilton. Seems the Glogster for Education service has just recently launched.
For a great example of a class project using Glogster, check out Buffy’s 11th grade lit project on Thoreau and Emerson.
