 Next up on our lightning round sessions is Joanne Mancuso, who's from our Bennington Public Library here in Bennington, Nebraska. She's going to talk about their preschool steam that they've been doing. That's an awesome idea. Go ahead, Joanne. Thank you so much, Chris, for having me. I am very excited to be here and to talk to you about our preschool steam science. It started, let me get to the next slide. It started when we closed down like everyone else with COVID and we lost that connection with our preschool kids, well, with everyone. And we did the summer reading take home kits, but when school was starting, we decided that we needed something else to reconnect with our preschoolers. We found a lot of parents were not sending their kids to preschool and they were kind of at a loss as to what to do with them. They didn't have a plan. So we started these preschool steam boxes. We started off with 20 of them. And inside were just a month's worth of activities for them to do with their child that had specific instructions on how to do it, counting, letter recognition, stacking cups with different numbers, scissor practice, all different kinds of things, a lot of shape recognition. And also we included science and what we were going to, we were trying to figure out how we could bring this online. And science was the only activity that we could think of that would be a virtual. So what we did is we made up kits and this first picture up at the top right is one of the first kits that we did after the initial four week one. And we went out to Facebook, well, each kit had items that they would not necessarily find at home. They had lard, which most people might have, pipettes. We included those, Elka Seltzer, candy canes, gummy worms, penguin erasers. We even had biodegradable packing peanuts for one of our latest science things. And so each session they would come and get a pick up a kit. And the first time we made 20, the second time we made 20 and we ran out. So we added five more. And this last session would last seven weeks. We gave out 30 and we still didn't have enough. So it was very successful. Next, we decided to do it on Facebook Live. We were doing preschool story time on Facebook Live and they were doing very well. So we chose Facebook Live as our form. And what I would do is do an event. And I would take pictures of the books we were going to be reading, all the supplies that they would need from their kits. And a lot of people didn't get kits. So this was a good way for them to see what items that they would need at home. Each session is 20 minutes long at the most. Our science experiments were very simple, very easy. If they didn't get a kit, they could find most of the products themselves. And sometimes they worked, sometimes they didn't. We used, oh, and since we were reading on Facebook Live, we did ask permission. We did go to each publisher and asked permission to use their books. Whether it was the nonfiction or the fiction. That was really important to us. And we used scientific terms. Always made sure we used scientific terms so that when the kids started school, they were familiar with a lot of the terms. And some of them I actually had to look up myself because I had forgotten what they were. So it was a learning experience for me as well. The science experiments, they've been really cool. This one where it says how to catch a snowman. That was our biodegradable packing peanuts. We made into little snowmen. This was our winter science. And that was a lot of fun. We melted it with just water. And the kids really seemed to enjoy that. And then we did a walking rainbow experiment. And that worked very, very well. That was very exciting. And the one that didn't go well was the one with the gummy franken worms. The gummy worms were very heavy. They did not float. So they were supposed to float when you mix the vinegar and the baking soda. And yeah, they did not work at all. And so I discovered that you had to cut the gummy worms in forts. And so they weren't so heavy. And then they started dancing around. And later I did put that in the comments of the video so that people doing the video later on could see that yes, it actually did work. Like I said, they were very. Not everything will be a success, especially for the kids. Yes. And that was one of the points. And we always have said that science, it's all about doing and redoing and constantly trying things again. And things fail all the time. And sometimes the failure comes up with something else. And it ends up being a success, just not the success that we were thinking it was going to be. So it's been a lot of fun. And we get a lot of feedback from it. It's been a very good success. And we have pictures sent to us, emails, comments, and how much the kids really are enjoying the simple science. Not everyone gets on live. We have a lot of families that do it later after school for their other kids, school-aged kids. And so it's a lot of fun for the whole family. And like I said, it's simple, very, very simple science experiment, most of which you could find on Pinterest. Or some that they'll do later on in school at a more difficult level. But it's basic, and it's a lot of fun. And the kids seem to really enjoy it. And it's been very successful. And here are some of the pictures of our kids enjoying it. At the top right, you'll see this little guy. This is the original steam box that we gave out. We decided to just end it after about four weeks. We were not going to give out all of those items again. And we just strictly went with the science. But that's some of the items that we included. Simple things, candy, fruit loops, sacking cups. It was a lot of fun. And then over on the left, we have a little boy, one of our patrons who decided to become a real scientist. And he had his little goggles and everything. And that one was, we were doing, trying to make the ice crack like it does in the Arctic. And so you just put ice cubes in and then cover it with baking soda, freeze it again, and then you take vinegar. Anything that's vinegar and baking soda, the kids go nuts over. So that was a good one. And the middle one was one of our first experiments that was in that original box. And we did a comparison between pop rocks and nerves, candy. And so they had to provide their own coke bottles, but we provided the balloons in the candy. And they dropped them in there, put the balloons on top, and we needed to see which balloon would get bigger with which candy, whichever one worked. Nerds definitely worked better, surprisingly. We thought it was going to be the pop rocks, but it was the nerds. I'm guessing that's good too. All right, yo, it learned something new. Science. That's right. Yeah, it was, it's right. And at first I started to practice the science experiments numerous times before I would do it online with the kids. And then I decided, no, I needed to just do it for the first time with the kids so that they can see that mistakes really do happen. And some funny things have really happened online. The kids are used to seeing me, you know, making mistakes online. So, and then the bottom right is that was to our two little guys, actually two kids of our staff. And they were melting the snowmen. So they had a really good time. Those biodegradable packing peanuts, that was a really neat, that was a neat one. And the little faces, so they would melt and you would just see a tiny bit of the white packing material, but you could still see the sharpie face. So that was a lot of fun. And then we also expanded that one where I brought an extra, well, besides water, different liquids. And one was hand sanitizer since we have so much everywhere. And I had dipped the hand sanitizer onto one of those packing peanuts. And what happened, it didn't dissolve. It just shrunk in on itself and made this tiny, tiny little snowman when you still see the face. But it just shrunk all the moisture out of it and it was hard and a little. So the kids got a kick out of that. But I do encourage them to keep going at home and finding other things that will work on the science experiments. So this is my information. If anyone has any questions, feel free to contact my library. Great, yes. Thank you, Duanne. I do have a couple of questions that we'll do here quickly. How did you distribute the colors, your colors for your walking rainbow? How did that? Well, I did not. We just assumed that most people had markers. So we did give them, well, actually, I don't think I gave them anything for that one. I just told them to make sure they had good working washable markers and then paper towel and a water. And that's all they really needed. And did you have any limit to the number of kids per family? Did you have any sort of like one kid per family or anything like that or? It was one kid per family. It was one kid per family. And some, they just shared everything. It didn't seem to be an issue. There's multiple kids that all do it together. And then a question here, which we'll see about the answer. What about the copyright laws of reading the books and then posting them for watching later? So at the moment, we know that many publishers have relaxed their restrictions on copyright and reading and recording and doing all these live things because of COVID. Right now it's actually just looking at extended through June 30th, the last time I saw. But I know it does depend on publisher, whether or not you can save the videos or not or if it's live only, it varies. But it has been relaxed at the moment because of COVID. Now I don't know, you looked into that as well, Joanne. Yeah, since I had been doing storytime on Facebook Live, I'm always very careful to make sure I ask for permission. I've only had, I think once since COVID began, so in about a year, I've only had one publisher not letting me use their book and that was at the very beginning. But I do follow what they ask and we usually take down the storytime we took down after a month. But the science videos, we ask to make sure that they know they will stay on our Facebook and it hasn't been a problem yet. Yeah, they're being very helpful. If you just look up, I just Googled, I know School Library Journal has been keeping track of this. So look up School Library Journal, Publishers, COVID, whatever, you'll find articles about it and about just trying to gather what all the different publishers are saying or permissions they're giving. All right, thank you so much, Joanne. We're gonna get right into our last.