Its' back to afterschool and Prime Time celebrated the start of the new year by facilitating a STEAM Family Night at New Hope Charities in Pahokee. The event hosted 56 attendees from 15 different families coming together and creating new memories while working on fun STEAM activities.
New Hope Charities welcomed the families of the children and youth in their program to take an inside look at the hands-on learning experiences their children are offered in their afterschool program. As these families filed in and were greeted by Prime Time staff and the OST professionals at New Hope Charities, Patricia Sasson - Prime Time’s STEAM professional development specialist – spoke with the expanded learning opportunity (ELO) providers who would be providing the night’s experiences.
Green Mouse Academy brought their stop-motion animation experience with them so youth could create their own animated creature called “Dot-Bot.” Dot Bot, a clay and googly eye creature that utilizes a stop-motion application on provided i-pads to bring them to life. They learn about animation basics and how motion is created utilizing different combinations of frames-per-second (f.p.s.), the movement of “Dot-Bot" between these frames and their own creativity. After completing the basic animation exercises the families at New Hope Charities were inspired to create further and more complex animations. In a short period, they created animations that showed two figures flying around the screen, their “Dot-Bot” meeting other groups “Dot-Bot” and so many more ideas that they created themselves after learning only the very basics.
Many children discussed how they couldn’t wait to expand their animations at home describing their future films to their parents and guardians at the end of the night. One child described using his legos at home to make a stop-motion video.
“I want to make a building animation,” he said, “and test [different] f.p.s.”
Youth Environmental Alliance brought a native seed activity as well as preserved butterflies at different life stages. Families had the opportunity to create “seed pillows” out of seeds native to South Florida, nutrient rich compost dirt and carboard tubes. These “pillows” were able to be placed directly into the ground to begin a native plant garden at home. The preserved butterflies allowed families to work together as butterfly detectives. Identifying the different life stages with magnifying glasses while together brought parents right into the kind of exciting work their children get to participate in during their afterschool program.
Children were excitedly sharing the company motto of Youth Environmental Alliance with their parents – and the accompanying hand motions of course.
“We’re all connected so we’re all affected.”
As the night began to wrap up, each family was able to take a home a STEAM activity bag from Prime Time so the STEAM experiments could continue at home. Families were grateful for the opportunity to participate in their children’s afterschool program.
“I pick him up but I’ve never really gotten the chance to see the inside of the building,” one father told Prime Time at the end of the night, “It was neat to see what all goes on here and how much love he gets.”
To learn more about STEAM offerings from Prime Time click here and to view the full gallery from STEAM Family Night click here.
