By: Jamie Swenson, HPL Youth Services Associate
One of my favorite moments from 2024 was challenging our Homeschool Idea Lab kids to complete the Pringles Ring Engineering Challenge. That’s right. The challenge is to create a freestanding ring using only chips – no glue, no tape, no sticky dips… just Pringles and a dream. The kids not only accepted the challenge – they succeeded brilliantly! (and deliciously!) It was more complex, funnier, and tastier than I had imagined. This challenge required a steady hand, patience, perseverance – and enough willpower not to eat all the chips before the ring was completed! (Some groups made U shapes due to the whole “don’t eat the chips” part.)
We are about to start our third year of Homeschool Idea Lab in February. I just love IDEA LAB so much. We will meet each Tuesday in February from 2-3 p.m. in the Program Room. Our weekly themes will be (in order): Contraptions, Cause & Effect, Eggcellent Ideas, and Smorgasbord. What I love most about it is: IDEAS & LAB. We get to have a ton of ideas and see what happens and how the group experiments with the sparks we provide. We encourage the kids to work at their own pace and try what they want to try, and usually end up having a ton of fun and learning something new! If you have a homeschooled student who might enjoy group and individual challenges, join us.
Last year, we received requests for a morning social time for our homeschooled families in addition to Idea Lab. We heard and hope you will join us at Homeschool Games Galore on Tuesday mornings in January from 9:30-11:30 a.m. in the Program Room. Library staff will have some games on-hand for families to play, but participants are welcome to bring their own, too. This is a drop-in, self-directed social time for families. Staff will not be leading activities (or challenges). Please come and enjoy time together playing games.
It has been so much fun getting to know our homeschool families a bit better through Idea Lab and now, I hope, through Games Galore. We are open to your ideas and would love to know how we can better serve our homeschool families.