May is National Inventors Month!
National Inventors Month, first recognized in August 1998 and now observed every May, celebrates creativity, ingenuity, curiosity, and the courage to experiment. By celebrating National Inventors Month in your library you can honor talented people who have changed history with their inventions, encourage innovation and creativity in your students, bring new activities into your Makerspace, and focus on your collection of STEAM books.
Activities to try this month for both you and your students:
- Read a book about an inventor, inventions, and or the inventing process (see Bitmoji library below).
- Take a virtual tour of a museum.
- Work on your own creation.
- Visit an SDSL Database to research an inventor and complete a project about him/her.
- Visit an SDSL Database to find STEAM lesson plans (try Explora Educator's Edition!).
- Guide your students through a Shark Tank project (see link below).
- Create a book display of your STEAM books and/or a bulletin board display of inventors and their inventions.
- Look up fun facts about inventors and post them in your daily announcements for the month of May. Get started HERE.
- Find a documentary or film about an inventor, inventions, or the inventing process on Swank K-12 Streaming (found on the SDSL Database page) to share with your class.
1 Fun Project for your Students
Check out this fun unit plan from Scholastic that will get your students thinking like inventors! These resources support ELA and SEL standards to encourage students to map out their business ideas—and gain a deeper understanding of how their favorite companies and CEOs became household names.
..from SDSL School Library Services
The Weekly Update is a correspondence from the South Dakota State Library focusing on current topics in school libraries, best practices, resources, professional development, and more.
Email: scottie.bruch@state.sd.us
Website: library.sd.gov/LIB/SLC
Location: 800 Governors Drive, Pierre, SD, USA
Phone: 605-295-3152
