When you ask a children's librarian to contribute to a blog, chances are you are going to get a story. Well, today is no exception. You are going to get several, in fact. In the library, there are very few opportunities for students to engage in a complete Design Thinking activity, so we use literature to teach mini lessons highlighting the various elements of the Design Thinking process. These stories show great examples of the "design, create, test" loop, offer opportunities to teach brainstorming techniques, show the importance of empathy in the design process, and highlight the importance of collaboration and persistence. Most importantly, however, they are all excellent and engaging read aloud stories that exemplify the Design Thinking process in a kid friendly way.
Here are some of my favorites...
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| Queen Victoria's Bathing Machine by Gloria Wheelan
Poor Queen Victoria! She loves to swim, but can't quite figure out how
to get to the water without her devoted subjects glimpsing her swimming
suit. (Because, of course, such a sight would compromise her regal
dignity.) Fortunately for the water-loving monarch, it's Prince Albert
to the rescue with an invention fit for a queen!
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| What Floats in a Moat? by Lynne Berry
Archie the Goat has a delivery to make. He has several barrels of
buttermilk that the queen needs, but in order to get them to her, he
needs to cross the moat. Testing several different theories to
find out what will float and what will sink, Archie and his friend
Skinny the Hen don't succeed at first, but they do try, try, try again
(and again). And with reason and persistence, they'll get that
buttermilk where it needs to be!
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| Spic-and-Span! Lillian Gilbreth's Wonder Kitchen by Monica Kulling
Born into a life of privilege in 1878, Lillian Moller Gilbreth put her
pampered life aside for one of adventure and challenge. She and her
husband, Frank, became efficiency experts by studying the actions of
factory workers. They ran their home efficiently, too. When Frank
suddenly died, Lillian was left to her own devices to raise their eleven
children. Eventually, she was hired by the Brooklyn Borough Gas Company
to improve kitchen design, which was only the beginning.
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| Pop! The invention of Bubble Gum by Meghan McCarthy
Gum. It's been around for centuries—from the ancient Greeks to the
American Indians, everyone's chewed it. But the best kind of gum—bubble
gum!—wasn't invented until 1928, when an enterprising young accountant
at Fleer Gum and Candy used his spare time to experiment with different
recipes.
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| The Most Magnificent Thing by Ashley Spires
A little girl has a wonderful idea. With the
help of her canine assistant, she is going to make the most magnificent
thing! She knows just how it will look. She knows just how it will work.
But making the most magnificent thing turns out to be harder than she
thinks.
A biography of Nobel Peace Prize winner
Muhammad Yunus, who from a young age was determined to make difference
in the world and eventually revolutionized global antipoverty efforts by
developing the innovative economic concept of micro-lending.
This is the story of one brilliant idea and the child who helps bring it into the world
Rosie may seem quiet during the day, but at night she's a brilliant
inventor of gizmos and gadgets who dreams of becoming a great engineer.
When her great-great-aunt Rose (Rosie the Riveter) comes for a visit and
mentions her one unfinished goal--to fly--Rosie sets to work building a
contraption to make her aunt's dream come true. But when her
contraption doesn't fly but rather hovers for a moment and then crashes,
Rosie deems the invention a failure. On the contrary, Aunt Rose insists
that Rosie's contraption was a raging success: you can only truly fail,
she explains, if you quit.
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