literacy | Friends and Volunteers

At the Intersection of Joy and Learning

A grape stem, a carrot, a metal jar lid and a ballerina sprite, a floating ghost sprite accompanied by classical music, a selfie & a sprite, a sprite falling through the black hole—what do these have to do with creativity & learning? Each of these items was integral to the projects designed by parents and children in Session 2 of the Family Creative Learning Workshop.

About the Learning

You HAD to be there. Just imagine the cooperation and collaboration & creativity as parents designed with parents and children designed with children—programming sprites from Scratch and controlling those sprites through the connection to MakeyMakey kits. Problem solving, trial and error, if-then, risk taking, critical and computational skills, pride in accomplishment, and the aforementioned cooperation and collaboration were needed and evident in the projects presented. And, most importantly, the gift of time parents are giving to children as they learn and work together on something new…it’s Priceless!

Up Next…

At the October 7 session families will brainstorm their final projects that will be on display at the October 21 Community Showcase. All are invited. Details to follow.

View pictures and a video of Session 2 by scrolling to the bottom of this page to <Flickr Photos> and clicking on <More Photos>.

Meet us…

At the Intersection of Joy and Learning

FIRST DAY OF KINDERGARTEN

Annually, The Friends and Volunteers present a gift bag to each kindergarten child in the Ocean City School system. The Friends and Volunteers purchase the materials, assemble the bags, and deliver them to the primary school at the beginning of each school year. Each bag contains an age-appropriate book, a box of crayons, a pencil, a sketch or note pad, a bookmark, and tissues. Our goal is to encourage young students to enjoy reading. What better way than to have a book of their own!

FAMILY CREATIVE LEARNING

NEW THIS YEAR—The Friends and Volunteers of the Ocean City Free Public Library in collaboration with the Ocean City Public School District and the Ocean City Free Public Library will work with families in a 5 week workshop series designed by the Lifelong Kindergarten Group at the MIT Media Lab.

In Family Creative Learning, we engage parents and children [ages 6 to 12] in workshops to design and learn together with creative technologies, like the Scratch programming language and the MaKey MaKey invention kit. Just as children’s literacy can be supported by parents reading with them, children’s creativity can be supported by parents creating with them.

Look for more information and follow the learning journey mid-September.