STORY LAB PROGRAMS for SCHOOLS and GROUPS

 Story Labs

Story Lab features a read-a-loud book with a science lab or activity created to go along with the story.  Story Labs are developed for children preschool through 4th grade.

Lessons may be adjusted an adapted according to available time and age, grade and ability of children. 

1.         Diary of a Worm by Doreen Cronin

                Lab: Worms and Composting

Participants will be introduced to the life cycle and anatomy of a worm. Children will also learn what food and environment a worm needs to thrive and how worms are beneficial to earth.  Students will examine live worms.

After the mini-lesson, children will collectively create a mini-worm compost farm to keep in the classroom. 

For school site visit, materials provided by the museum are permanent compost box, worm bedding, several red wiggler worms, starter compost materials, lesson extensions.
*correlating Core Content Standards are given at the bottom of this page

                                                                        

2.            Snowflake Bentley by Jacqueline Briggs Martin

                Lab: Crystals in Nature

Before the story: Participants will observe an assortment of crystals found in nature.  They will be introduced to cleavage and crystal shape.  

A short video of snowflakes showing the crystal shape of snowflakes will be shown.  

v Art activity: Children will create a coffee filter snowflake.  They will make color shapes on the filter using a watercolor marker then watch the colors move through capillary action to create a new design.  

v Science Connection: After the story: participants will look at various designs that can be made by making borax crystals.  Materials will be distributed for a take home activity.

                       

3.         Mousetronaut by Mark Kelly

    Lab: Living in Space, Space Shuttle, Rockets

Participants will observe action/ reaction of a balloon rocket and make predictions.  Children will also observe an action/ reaction of a fuel/reaction in a film canister.  After the story, children will create paper rockets and make predictions and changes to their rockets to make them fly further.

4.         How Tall Was Milton? by Lawrence F. Lowery

      and Actual Size by Steve Jenki

         Lab: Measurement and comparing sizes

Imagine a real eye bigger than your head, a two-foot long tongue, or a three-foot long frog!  Measure your hand against the handprint of a gorilla. Create your own actual size booklet.

5.         Hop on Pop by Dr. Suess

               Lab: Hoppers and Poppers (Energy: Transfer, Kinetic and Potential)

After the story, participants will do a variety of activities that demonstrate transfer of energy and potential/ kinetic energy.

                       

6.         Diary of a Spider by Doreen Cronin

                  Lab:  Making an art model of a spider

                Participants will create an anatomical art model of a spider and web.

             

7.         Mossy by Jan Brett

               Lab:  Making a terrarium

After the story, participants will create a terrarium. 

 8.        Life in a Rotten Log

               and (a book on bugs)

               Lab: Investigating living creatures that live in and around logs

Participants will investigate a variety of living insects and identify them using bug charts. Children will also learn what bugs are good to add to their terrarium (if they made one in May)

                       

9.         Next Time You See a Seashell by Emily Morgan

               and a poem by e. e. cummings

               Lab: investigating seashells and sand, seashell hunt

Participants will go on a seashell hunt in Story Lab’s miniature homemade beach, then look at sand and their shell magnified.

                       

10.      Stellaluna by Janell Cannon

                   Lab: Create a picture chart comparing bats and birds

                             Mystery Smell Lab

                       

11.      Bear Has a Story to Tell by Philip C. Stead

                    Science concept: Seasons, hibernation, dormancy

12.      Leaf Man by Lois Ehlert

                Lab:  Making Art from Nature, looking at cells of a leaf

 Participants will make a leaf picture by pounding a leaf and breaking the chloroplast of the leaf to use the chlorophyll as a stain.  Children will also look at magnified leaf cells.

             

 13.      The Remarkable Farkle McBride by John Lithgow

        Lab: Sound and sound waves

Participants will observe sound waves.  Children will experiment with sound using basics musical instruments.

*correlating Core Content Standards are given at the bottom of this page

14.      That Magnetic Dog by Bruce Whatley

              and   Magnetic and Nonmagnetic by Angela Royston

                Lab: Magnetism

Participants will investigate magnets and magnetic properties of various objects.

 *correlating Core Content Standards are given at the bottom of this page
                      

15.      Imaginative Inventions by Charise Mericle Harper

              and  Leo Cockroach, Toy Tester by Kevin O’Malley

                    Lab: Inventions

According to ability, children will be guided through the invention process with opportunities built in to make independent choices.

Participants will use a variety of supplied materials to create their own invention.

16.      SNOW by Cynthia Rylant

                   Lab: Snow and Water-like polymers

                  (Tier II - $5.00 material fee per class)*

                       

17.      Bubble, Bubble by Mercer Mayer

                    Lab: Bubbles, surface tension

CORE CONTENT STANDARDS
1.  Diary of a Worm by Doreen Cronin
     End of Primary:
     SC-EP-3.4.1   Students will explain the basic needs of organisms.
     SC-EP-3.4.2   Students will understand that things in the environment are classified as 
                             living, nonliving and once living.

     SC-EP-3.4.3    Students will describe the basic structures and related functions of plants and
                             animals that contribute to growth, reproduction and survival.
     SC-EP-3.4.4    Students will describe a variety of plant and animal life cycles to understand patterns 
                            of the growth, development, reproduction and death of an organism. 
     SC-EP-2.3.1   Students will describe earth materials (solid rocks, soils, water and gases of the
                              atmosphere) using their properties.
13.      The Remarkable Farkle McBride by John Lithgow
    Fourth Grade:
    SC-04-1.2.3     Students will:
                            * explain that sound is a result of vibrations, a type of motion;
                            * describe pitch (high, low) as a difference of sounds that are produced and relate 
                               that to the rate of vibration

14.      That Magnetic Dog by Bruce Whatley

         and   Magnetic and Nonmagnetic by Angela Royston

     End of Primary:
     SC-EP-1.2.1   Students will describe and make inferences about the interactions of magnets with
                            other magnets and other matter (e.g., magnets can make some things move without 
                            touching them).
     Fifth Grade:
     SC-05-1.2.2    Students will understand that forces are pushes and pulls, and that these pushes and 
                             pulls may be invisible (e.g., gravity, magnetism) or visible forces (e.g., friction, 
                             collisions).