Create @ Hannon's Hub

CREATE stations have been a great way to integrate library stations with the curriculum. Each letter in the acronym stands for a different activity. Students rotate through their activities once a week when they visit the library.

Here is what CREATE stands for:

C - Computer Choice Board
R - Robots
E - Engineering
A - Art
T - Thinking Lab
E - Explore and Research

You can check out the structure and explanation HERE from one of my previous blog posts.

In fact, in previous blog articles, I have focused on each CREATE letter and broke the station down by grade level. Currently, I am compiling my lessons with a focus on the grade level and the theme.

This thematic unit can be completed in the library with grades 3-8!

READ-ALOUD OPTIONS:

Space:

Zathura (picture book)

Hidden Figures (Biography)

Race to the Moon (Fiction, choose your own adventure)

Gravity by Jason Chin (picture book)

Ocean:

Shipwreck by Gordon Korman (fiction) is found on the EPIC app and students can listen to the audiobook. This is an action-packed ocean survival novel that will appeal to fifth graders.

Lifeboat 12 is an amazing verse poetry book that takes place during WW2. Another great survival story where the characters are stuck out to sea trying to escape Hitler's invasion.

Corresponding Stations and Choice Board:

COMPUTER

Our computer choice board combines the ocean and space theme with these digital CREATE activities. The activities include videos, art tutorials, and coding. They can be done independently.

You can view the choice board HERE.

If you would like to edit the choice board, click HERE.

ROBOTS

Ozobots are perfect robots for students to code while learning about space. We code our robots to follow the path around the sun for a fun and educational space-themed activity. You can find the link to the article HERE.

ENGINEERING

Space connectagons are an excellent way for students to create and engineer while studying space. If these are no longer available, the geometric connectagons or brainflakes can also be used to create solar systems.

Legos are also the perfect tool for engineering and creating both ocean and space challenges.

ART

For our art station, we have our Quivervision station where we can go in-depth with both themes. To focus on the ocean, there are several coloring sheets:

Orca
Shark
Sea turtle

For the space theme, we have the moon coloring sheet and the space comparison coloring sheet. These are outlined in this blog post HERE.

Looking to use Quivervision as an art library station? Here is a tutorial on how you can get started: watch the video. There is also a great slideshow to get you started that you can access here.

THINKING LAB:

There are a couple of really fun activities and thinking games that help students understand the concept of gravity that can relate back to our space theme.

EXPLORE:

Explore station allows students to research the topics in small bites with a meaningful impact. Here is a worksheet we used to locate an article about the planets in the print encyclopedia:

We also used a Britannica Resource Pack to look up the keyword, planets. This allowed us to get an overview and general information to support the classroom teachers.

You can access these worksheets through TPT (free download):