Family Storytime: Polar Bears

This week's storytime theme was polar bears. I usually fit polar bears into an arctic animal theme, but there are tons of book options to give them their own storytime. 

Once we heard and moved along to our bean bag song, we read our first polar bear story. Baby Polar by Yannick Murphy is a sweet story about a young polar bear and mother. It's a bit on the long side, so we started off with this one.

 

Our first flannel board activity was Polar Bear Plays Ball, where we practiced our colors. Different colored flannel circles were handed out and each child had to wait for their color to be called so that polar bear could play. Polar Bear, Polar Bear come out to play...we have a red ball for you today...

Our next story was Polar Bear Night by Lauren Thompson. This bedtime storybook has modern illustrations as a young cub explores the star-filled sky. 

It was time to help Polar Bear get dressed. We added different color felt clothes to polar bear to make his outfit. It was more color practice for the group, which was nice because we had more younger ones in this family storytime.

I wanted some time for us as a group to release some energy so we could sit a little better for our final story, so we did the polar bear stomp. We stomped, twirled, touched our toes, and reached for the sky while The Polar Bear Stomp by The Chenille Sisters for 123 Kids was playing. The song went on just a a little too long, but we still had fun with it.

Of course we couldn't have a polar bear storytime without Bill Martin Jr.'s Polar Bear, Polar Bear What Do You Hear? I love how this book is interactive. My group was a little shy yesterday, but I still hear some animal noises being made. 

 

It was time to make our polar bear craft! We made polar bear faces out of paper plates and tissue paper. We added some color by using pom poms and pipe cleaners.

I did end up reading a short story to those who showed up a little late once they were done crafting. We read Virgil & Owen by Paulette Bogan, a story about a polar bear and penguin friendship.

Creative Writing Workshop: Power of the Pencil

A Creative Writing for Kids Introduction

I've done more than a few creative writing programs (ages 8-12) for my library and always love doing them. It allows me to use what I learned in my English and journalism courses in college and apply it to the next generation of young writers. 

After experimenting with scheduling and having a demand from patrons, I will be doing a writing program for kids every newsletter period, equivalent to four a year. It's tough because despite the comments to keep these programs around and have more of them coming up, attendance always seems to be lagging. I do notice that attendance seems to be better during the summer with my suspicion being because they don't feel overwhelmed with having writing in school. 

To give you an idea, the library had a number of requests for creative writing programs for kids, but I had five registered and two show up for yesterday's workshop. I love putting on these programs for so many reasons and I suspect that I will keep offering up these programs because helping two kids discover their love in writing is better than not being able to help any if these programs were cancelled. I also suspect that the library will continue to support my writing programs because the requests keep coming in and because these programs hardly take anything away from the budget. I literally just need pencils and paper.  

I wanted to write a little about how I prepare for these programs. I have to have my writing topic chosen much earlier than the actual date for newsletter production. I have a list of potential writing topics, conduct internet searches, and see if there's anything special that might tie-in with that particular month I'm looking at scheduling it in. 

Once I submit my topic after making sure I have enough ideas to administer the program, I do numerous searches on the subject and often times word my searches differently to get different results. Two particular sources I always seem to find helpful is ReadWriteThink.org and Novelist. ReadWriteThink.org has good lesson plan ideas and often interactive writing resources. Novelist is great for booklists. 

Once I'm satisfied with the amount of searching I've done, I gather my notes and type them up as a list. Eventually, this becomes a cleaner outline and helps me weed out what I don't want to use while reassuring me I have numerous possibilities on how I want to instruct this workshop. 

I become so engrossed in the subject of writing, I usually lose myself in more ideas that can be used for future writing workshops. It's at this point I go over my outline and make sure that my lesson plan didn't veer off course and it rings true to my description on my program flyers. 

I've seen a consistent pattern with helpful YouTube videos and clean-cut handouts being effective in both providing information and having fun with writing and the encouragement to write. 

I've found that the biggest challenge in putting on these programs is the ability to teach without making it feel like it's school, as well as the broad learning abilities among the attendees. Despite these concerns, each lesson plan has been a success in that it helped at least one child to learn more about writing at his or her own pace. 

A Persuasive Lesson Plan: Program Review

I started off this persuasive writing workshop by showing some Youtube videos on the topic. The first video, 2 minutes long, was a brief introduction/refresher to persuasive writing. (This is part of a video series that could be added to a future lesson). I asked both in the group if they had any questions on persuasion and then we moved onto the next Youtube video.

I pointed out that the first video mentioned a few different ways that persuasion writing can be used, with one of them being commercials. Our second video was on different type of persuasive commercials and what they used to persuade us…which included emotion, exaggeration, the bandwagon technique, and loaded words. They seemed to have enjoyed watching the commercials and relating them to writing. We talked about each commercial and their persuasiveness and how it would get us to use their product.

Since I didn't want all of our persuasive examples to be online and wanted to make a point on how books use persuasive writing, I showed a variety of six examples and book-talked in the process. Persuasive paragraphs were read using the introductions in Chew on This, Gaia Warriors, I Have a Dream, Fabulous!, and I Dissent. I pointed out some of the words that were persuasive and what each book was trying to persuade us on and how. 

They were most passionate about MLK's I Have a Dream speech and I liked how I could use his speech as an example during the month of January. They had to be introduced to Andy Warhol and Ruth Ginsburg but it was nice to be able to inform them of two new people they should know. 

I also wanted to show them an example of a persuasive conclusion, so we read the end paragraph of Can We Save the Tiger?. I pointed out how the writer wanted us to think about what we could do to save tigers from extinction and how he used his wording to be powerful. 

I would like to mention that there are a variety of picture books that could be used as examples of persuasion in a story. Picture books can be an excellent tool in teaching both younger and older children, but this time around I felt that the books I chose were more appropriate for the age group and wouldn't get them discouraged compared to using books that they might feel is too "babyish" for them.  

Next, I wanted us, as a group, to pick a persuasive prompt to use with the online Persuasion Map tool. I handed out a worksheet with persuasive prompts and both of them agreed to persuade teachers that they should be graded too. They had fun reading through the different prompts and were quickly reminded that they need facts and examples to back up their persuasion. I think this tool was very helpful in getting them to come up with a introduction or thesis, have three reasons, three examples for each reason, and a conclusion. It setup the format easily for them.

Once we were done working together, I had them use their persuasive letter worksheet to pick another prompt to persuade each of us on. Tim chose why playing sports is important and Katie chose why video games should be played in class.

I gave them a few handouts to take home, along with the prompts in case they wanted some more writing ideas. They received a "12 Great Tips on Writing to Persuade" sheet, a persuasion map planning sheet, a list of persuasive words and phrases, writing a persuasive letter chart, a printout of the persuasion map that can be found online, and information about a creative writing contest for kids.

I mentioned to them that I would love to read some of their writing and give them any writing help when they visit the library. I also promoted the library's Tumblr page and the possibility of them writing for Youth Services.

Below you'll find some additional resources on persuasive writing, including explanation on the subject itself geared towards the 8-12 age group, additional examples of persuasion in text, and even a fictional series that uses persuasion as it's plot. For a list of persuasive picture books, search Novelist or send me a request. 

*Persuasion Informational Text Additional Sources:

Writing to Persuade Chris Nolan and Lauren Spencer

Writing to Persuade Jill Jarnow

Present What You Know: Sharing Information Christopher Forest

Writing for Children: Types of Writing (DVD)

*Additional Examples of Persuasion in Text:

Almost Astronauts Tanya Lee Stone

Citizen Scientists Loree Griffin Burns

Sit-In Andrea Davis Pinkney

The Most Amazing Creature in the Sea Brenda Z. Guiberson

Solving the Puzzle Under the Sea Robert Burleigh

Wheels of Change Sue Macy

Alex the Parrot: No Ordinary Bird Stephanie Spinner

We Will Not Be Silent Russell Freedman

A Place for Bats Melissa Stewart

Tiny Stitches Gwendolyn Hooks

*Fiction Persuasion Series

The Nora Notebooks: The Trouble with Ants, The Trouble with Babies, The Trouble with Friends by Claudia Mills

Family Storytime: Winter

Winter storytime sessions officially started today. I had some new families who were a pleasure to have added to the group. We started off storytime with a winter theme.

The kids absolutely love the bean bag song I use, so we shook our bean bag until it was time for our first winter story.

When previewing books to pick, I knew I had to read A Very Special Snowflake by Don Hoffman. It's on the longer side for my group, but I read it first and the kids enjoyed the story so much, they listened wonderfully throughout the whole text. A Very Special Snowflake is about a dog named Snowflake who goes missing. Out of all the books I read, this one had a cute storyline to go with winter. The other books are mostly explaining the season of winter so this was the most fun. I find that the shorter books I need to use for storytime sometimes lack an interesting story and is more instructional on the topic. This one did not disappoint. 

Since the kids had their best listening ears on, I took advantage of that and read our next book, When the Snow Falls by Linda Booth Sweeney. This was about all the things we experience during winter in poetic short sentences. 

To break up our reading, we did a matching mitten game on the flannel board. We went over all of the different colored mittens and I handed them each a color. I kept one of each of the colors to put on the flannelboard and they each had to match their colors as we labeled each color mitten. They love interacting with the flannelboard and one of my new attendees was understandably shy, but wanted to put up his flannel piece like everyone else so he bravely added his mitten to the board. 

Next, we read Into the Snow by Yuki Kaneko. What is snow like through a child's point-of-view? 

The group practiced their counting with Ten Warm Hats, a counting flannel board rhyme.

To get the group's wiggles out, we used bean bags and shook along to "I'm a Little Snowflake" on Laurie Berkner's Whaddaya Think of That children's cd. I could have came up with my own movements for this song, but shaking our bean bags along to the music worked just as well for this short song. 

I decided to read one more short story before we got to our craft. I See Winter by Charles Ghigna has adorable illustrations. This author creates perfect books for storytimes. 

For our craft, we made a winter scene using construction paper tree trunks, ripped paper for a ground covered in snow, and white paint with q-tips for snowflakes. We usually don't use paint in storytime and reserve that for other programs, but every once in a while it's a nice treat for the group. They had fun with the paint and it was good motor skills practice with the q-tips. The parents seemed to like this craft because a lot of them either wrote their child's name on their craft or had their kids practice writing their name.

It was a milder day here, but winter still came in this storytime!

Toddler Art: Winter Time

I was excited to see some new faces for Toddler Art at the beginning of this year. They made such great additions to the group! It was snowing in the morning so we had some fresh snow on the ground to go along with our snow and winter time theme!

I briefly introduced myself and went over the format for the program for those who were new. Then we started off by reading the classic The Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats. A couple of the kids were a bit antsy, but it was still a good reading time.

For the first craft, we made A Snowy Day scene using homemade puffy paint. I explained that they could leave tracks in the snow just like Peter does in the book. The puffy paint was made out of equal parts Elmer's white liquid glue and shaving cream. This is an easy way to make white paint that's a bit more interesting and sensory. The group enjoyed playing with the paint. 

For the second craft, we made a melted snowman using construction paper shapes that were cut out previously. I went over the shapes with the group and it gave the parents some incentive to practice shapes with the older kids. 
 
Most of this group was afraid of the sensory snow and didn't want to get dirty, but I did have a few young ones play with it. 

This was a fun one that went really well and I hope to see the new families at the next program in February.
 

Preschool Picasso: Winter Time

It was so nice to see all my families back for more Preschool Picasso this year. We had a winter theme complete with some real snow on the ground outside. 

After we talked a little bit about winter and the new year and everyone got settled in, we read Snowzilla by Janet Lawler. This is a rhyming picture book about a girl who with some help, builds a gigantic snowman and how the town feels about it. 

After mentioning our youth Tumblr page and asking for suggestions on content and promoting a later storytime, I explained each craft.

We started with some process art paintings. The group created winter scenes using blue and white paint, liquid glue, and Epsom salt. I explained to the group that this craft is very fun and the focus is on creating, not the end of the craft. 

Blue paint is painted onto card stock or other thick paper any way they would like and then white paint is added, making different shades of blue and our winter scene. Once they are finished painting, it's time to add a lot of glue (the kids love this part) and sprinkle Epsom salt on top to make snow. We talked about the different color blues and the texture of the salt. They had a fun time painting and sprinkling their salt onto their art.

After they were done with their process art, we let them dry and it was time to make a snowman like the snowman in our story. We had different shapes, felt scarf pieces, and white and black paint in q-tips to make snowflakes and snowman faces.

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!

 

Book of the Month: First Times

I read a few picture books before I decided on First Times by Charles Ghigna and Lori Joy Smith to be January's Book of The Month. 

The fresh look of the cover and promising goodness of the title drew me in.  

Summary: Experience the adorable first adventures of childhood with this picture book from best-selling author Charles Ghigna and celebrated illustrator Lori Joy Smith. From the first slip down a slide to the first time picking out a book to read, this rollicking narrative takes readers on a journey of discovery into the memorable firsts in a child's world.  

Age Range: 5-6 years

"The first time I pick a book from the shelf. The first time I read it all by myself."

This is a great book for parents and children to read together. It is also a good one for storytime.


 

Smitten with Books in 2018!