First ever Community Library Homeschool Hub program attendees included Xzavier, Honor, Oakley, Hunny, Masan, and Gemma holding their completed Minecraft selfies in front of Library Assistant Courtney Little’s selfie drawing example. “Is everyone familiar with Minecraft?” Asked Little. Everyone raised their hands and enthusiastically responded with, “I AM!” While some drew Minecraft self portraits, Little said that was merely a jumping-off point, so others made grid portraits of their Minecraft characters, favorite Minecraft characters, and purely creative Minecraft character symmetrical designs.
By Heather Skinner
COBLESKILL- You can find symmetry in nature, machines, art, furniture, buildings, and almost anywhere- including in the Community Library! Library Assistant, Courtney Little, pointed this fact out while reading Seeing Symmetry by Loreen Leedy to a room full of attendees at the first ever Homeschool Hub series program.
This series kicked off with a focus on learning about symmetry, then applying that knowledge to create Minecraft-inspired self portraits.
Little mentioned there are many homeschool hangout opportunities in the area currently, and The Community Library wanted to offer an option that would be different. In addition, they’ve received lots of requests for more homeschooler options both from the community surveys they conducted last year and directly from parents.
“We really haven’t done anything like this before,” explained Little, “So I’m excited to hear what the kids think about it; if it fits the need that people were asking for.” They welcomed input from attendees. After the 1st Homeschool Hub event, attendee Laura Benedict with her son Oakley, expressed how happy she is that they are doing homeschool programs in the Cobleskill Library.
Drawing on homeschool programming experience Little was a part of at a museum in Alabama, and with an intention to, “Incorporate science and math with clear art,” and the use of art to better understand science, the program had a well-thought out structure and covered a lot about the concept theme. Program objectives were laid out; students will be able to describe the concept of symmetry, identify examples of symmetry and asymmetry, and use their understanding of symmetry to help draw a Minecraft-inspired self portrait.
During the read aloud, Little opened up discussion opportunities by posing questions to the kids.and asking them to repeat important terms. Both the book pages and step-by-step drawing tutorial were projected on the TV for easy viewing with a document camera.
Little encouraged continued learning by giving all the kids an extra grid paper to be able to try another method after, and suggested continuing to think about finding symmetry while out-and-about and in their house.
This STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, & Mathematics) series is currently planned for the 3rd Friday of each month and for elementary school-aged students. They have taken into account that there will be a big age range in attendance and have left room for those younger and older than that to still be able to attend and for everyone to learn and work on projects at their own pace.
Little would like to keep pre-registration suggested instead of required for Homeschool Hub if possible, but registration will help with having supplies and seating amounts prepared. February’s Homeschool Hub theme will center around, “How do we talk about how much something is,” comparisons and if there is more than one way to understand it. They are hoping to be able to offer snacks during that event, but snacks aren’t a promised definite.
The book read aloud during the program is a part of The Community Library’s collection and Little suggested borrowing it to be able to check out the additional resources, prompts, and references in the back.
The Community Library is located at 110 Union Street. Keep your eye on their Facebook page and on the events calendar page of their website to register for the next program in this series and for their other upcoming programs, like recurring LEGO Club on February 10th from 4 PM - 5 PM.
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