Drop-In and Get Crafty: Christmas

This year's Drop-In and Get Crafty: Christmas was a success all thanks to Santa! Santa visited the library during the same time the program was being held so I had a lot of Santa's little visitors come to craft time. We usually pair these two programs together so it becomes a big event.

It's also a great opportunity for me to reflect on the year here at the library and see all the faces that come throughout the year.

For this year's craft, we made a Santa ornament. I used die-cut pieces, googly eyes, and cotton balls to have them create a cute, homemade ornament to put on their tree.

Holiday coloring pages, stickers, and candy canes were put out as well.

Merry Christmas!

Toddler Art: Merry Grinchmas!

I had a couple new faces for this month's Toddler Art and they made great additions to the group. We read a board book Grinch story for our theme and then we made two Grinch inspired crafts.

In I Am Max by Astrid Holm, the book explains the Grinch and his dog Max in Dr. Seuss rhyming fashion. The toddlers listened very well to the book and enjoyed the familiar illustrations.

For our first craft, we just had to make a simple Grinch face. I used light green paper plates and cut-out pieces. The kids got their motor skills practice in with the help of a parent.

Our last craft was well-appreciated by parents. The toddlers used tissue paper and a heart to make the Grinch's big heart. The toddlers were able to do this craft practically on their own and all of them turned out cute.

I try to find a balance of a cute craft and toddler ability for this program and it's always a plus when I come across a number of craft ideas that fit this criteria.

Merry Grinchmas!

Preschool Picasso: Merry Grinchmas!

I was really excited to put on my first Grinch program and am happy that it went so well and was a part of the Preschool Picasso program. There were so many cute Grinch crafts and ideas, but I knew I wanted to keep the reoccurring theme of one craft using paint and the other being somewhat unique to the other. We read a Grinch book and did our two crafts.

For our book, I read I'm the Grinch by Dennis Shealy. This is one of the newer Grinch books that are out and was a perfect length for a quick story for preschoolers. We talked a little bit about the Grinch and Dr. Seuss and of our favorite characters. This book told us about the Grinch and how he doesn't like Christmas, but of course it ends cute.

Our first Grinch craft was making a happy Grinch using a pre-cut paper plate and shapes. They enjoyed painting his face and I added some white paint to the green so they could color blend and get a lighter green color for our favorite holiday character.

Our second craft was making a grumpy Grinch mask. We colored our masks and added a Popsicle stick so we could pretend to be him. I was pleased to see parents taking pictures of the kids holding up their masks and other project.

Merry Grinchmas!

Family Storytime: New Picture Books

For this final week's storytime before winter break, we decided to use this as an opportunity to use some of the library's newer picture books. I took some time to look through our new picture book display and chose a few that I thought would be entertaining enough for storytime. I settled on a Pete the Cat book, a dinosaur story, and a cat story.

We got some wiggles out by following along to the bean bag song and then we read our first book, Pete the Kitty and the Groovy Playdate by Kimberly and James Dean. Pete the Cat is always a hit with the storytime crowd and this book was exciting for them because it was one that they haven't read yet.

Since we read a story about a cat, I pulled out our colored cats flannel and we went over colors and how many were on the board.

Our next book really captivated the group and it's no surprise because of the author. That's What Dinosaurs Do by Jory John was a silly story about a dinosaur who was told not to roar.

Since it was time for another flannel board story and the holidays are right around the corner, I thought it was perfect for us to decorate our own storytime holiday tree. I put up a bare flannel tree on the board and everyone had a couple chances to put their ornaments on the tree. We talked about colors and how many were on the tree and even did some adding since I had a few older kids.

Our final book was a rhyming book about cats and hats…no, not that Dr. Seuss book. This story was Hats are Not for Cats by Jacqueline K. Rayner. This was another book that the group thought was so funny.

I could really tell these books were a hit because all these books were equally well-received with probably Jory John's book being the favorite.

For our craft, we made our own bookmarks using die-cuts and Popsicle sticks.

Seasons Readings!

Book of the Month: Hair Love

I seen a short, animated YouTube video on Hair Love and loved it so I thought I would check-out the book.

Summary: A little girl's daddy steps in to help her arrange her curly, coiling, wild hair into styles that allow her to be her natural, beautiful self.

Ages: 4-8 years

 "Daddy tells me it is beautiful. That makes me proud. I love that my hair lets me be me!"

There's so much heart into this book that makes it incredibly touching and makes a great pairing with the video. 

It was interesting to find out that they didn't touch upon Zuri's mother having cancer and being in the hospital like in the video, but the message and modern feel of the video was there in the book. 

This is a worth-while book for teaching the lesson of acceptance, understanding, and love. I would introduce children to the book first and then the video to talk about the heavier topics presented in animation. 

Family Storytime: Be Thankful

Because of Thanksgiving week, we definitely had a small turnout for storytime but we still had some fun. We were able to fit two books and a flannel board into storytime, as well as our bean bag song.

For our first book, we read Bear Says Thanks by Karma Wilson. I love books by Wilson and this is one of my favorites to read around this time of year.

We took a break from reading and went over our colors and numbers using a turkey flannel board activity. We each took turns putting up some feathers on the bare turkey. They really enjoyed this.

Our last book was The Thank You Book by Mo Willems. This was cut off a little short because the kids were more interested in getting to the craft.

We made a thankful tree using diecut leaves and writing what we are thankful for on each leaf.

Happy Thanksgiving!   

Other Books:

The Thank You Book Mary Lyn Ray

The Thankful Book Todd Parr

Thanks from The Very Hungry Caterpillar

The Thank You Letter Jane Cabrera

Last Stop on Market Street Matt De La Pena

Thank You, Omu! Oge Mora

Those Shoes Maribeth Boelts

There, There Tim Beiser

Splat Says Thank You! Rob Scotton

Being Grateful Bullfrog Books

Grateful: A Song of Giving Thanks John Bucchino

The Thank You Dish Trace Balla

All The World Liz Gartn Scanlon

Thankful Archie Preston

10 Turkeys In the Road Brenda Reeves Sturgis

Other Activities:

Five Fat Turkey Flannel

H.U.M. All Year Long Track 23 The Turkey Hop

Family Storytime: Birthdays

Having a birthday themed storytime was such a great idea! It made everyone excited and was a very fun topic!

The first book I read was Hide and Seek BirthdayTreat by Linda Jennings. This book featured jungle animals who through a surprise birthday party for one of their friends. The pictures were cute and the animals introduced was also a good learning opportunity.

Our first activity was counting candles on our flannel board cake. We went over numbers, counting, and the colors.

The next book I read was Let's Have a Dog Party! by Mikela Prevost. This is a very energetic and chaotic book to read and kept everyone's attention. A little girl wants to have a party for her dog, but her dog just wants quiet. A very adorable picture book.

For our next activity, I handed out color balloons and we each had a turn to put our color on the flannel board. We counted the balloons and then they floated away.

The last book I read was Cupcake by Charise Mericle Harper. The kids loved this book about a cupcake who didn't feel special. The candle's suggestions on what to put on top of cupcake make this book so funny!

We did one more activity and used The Freeze Song off of The Birthday Party CD we have here at the library. We hopped, danced, and tip-toed to the song and froze when their was no music. The kids had a ball!

For our craft, we each made our own cakes and added our age number and the number of candles we need.

This is one of my favorite themes!

Other Books:

Happy Birthday, Moon Frank Asch

A Birthday for Cow! Jan Thomas

Baby Day Jane Godwin & Davina Bell

Happy Birthday, Biscuit!

Messy Besey and the Birthday Overnight Patricia and Fredrick McKissack

Birthday Monsters! Sandra Boynton

Surprise! Sally Noll

Monster's Birthday Hiccups Virginia Mueller

Toddler Art: Yarn

I had two new families join our group for Toddler Art: Yarn so that was definitely a great start to the program. 

I started off by reading our story, Cat Knit, by Jacob Grant. This story is about a cat who loves his ball of yarn, but his owner ends up making him a sweater with it and his yarn isn't so fun anymore. This is a cute story that was simple enough for the toddlers.

Our first craft was using yarn, paint, and glue. We made some process art by first painting using pom poms attached to clothespins, added some glue, and then added some cut up yarn. They had a lot of fun with this and liked playing with the materials.

Our second craft was coloring a cat with yarn just like in our story. We used long pieces of yarn to glue onto the paper and this was simple enough for the toddlers to practice getting used to coloring before some playtime.

Family Storytime: Animals at Night

We started off storytime by doing our bean bag dance and then we talked a little bit about night animals and nocturnal animals.

The first book I read was Secret Pizza Party by Daniel Salmieri. This book was fun and really kept their attention.

Next, we did a flannel board activity using animals and making their sounds. The group was a little shy, but the older boys in the group helped us out.

I read The Very Lonely Firefly by Eric Carle and they really enjoyed seeing the surprise ending with the book lighting up.

For our next activity, I used the book Moonlight Animals by Elizabeth Golding. This book used a really fun effect of using a flashlight piece and lighting up the animals in the pictures. We talked about each animal and the kids thought it was really fun how the book worked.

Our last story was titled Night Animals by Gianna Marino. It was perfect for this theme and had a funny ending.

Our craft was coloring an animal forest wheel and then adding a brad and a flashlight piece on top so that the kids could rotate which animal their flashlight shined on.

I thought this was a good theme, but would have liked to see more flannel boards in our collection that could have been used for it.

Other Books:

Whooo's There? Mary Serfozo

I'm Not Scared! Jonathan Allen

Night Creepers Linda Stanek

The Night World Mordicai Gerstein

Daylight Starlight Wildlife Wendell Minor

Sweet Dreams, Wild Animals! A Story of Sleep Eileen R. Meyer

Creative Writing Workshop: Roll-a-Story

I started off the program by introducing Rory's Story Cubes and explained how they inspire writers and give writers ideas and that there are many ways to use and play with these story cubes.

Once we talked a little bit about the dice, we rolled our dice and started writing. The group had no problem writing and it was great that they took most of the program to write out their stories. I could really see how these cubes helped them come up with what was going to happen in their writing and we all wrote stories together.

We also did some sharing on our stories and rolled our dice a few more times.

About half way through the program, we stopped writing to make our dice. First we made a standard 1 through 6 dice for our roll-a-story blank worksheets and then we made our own story cubes using stickers, diecut pieces, and colored pencils. I think they liked the variety of writing and an art related project.

I told them when the next writing program will be and what that will be about and then I book-talked Brave the Page by Rebecca Stern and Grant Faulkner because this is a great book that will help any young writer.

Favorites, Favorites, Favorites!

I just wanted to write a quick post on some of my favorite books for fall, winter, and just all-time favorites. 

This was a very tough endeavor because there's so many good choices and the possibilities are endless, but I settled on my top five fall picture books, top five winter picture books, and top five all-time favorite books when I was a child.

Top Five Fall Picture Books
Bear Says Thanks by Karma Wilson
We're Going On a Leaf Hunt by Steve Metzger
Turkey Trouble by Wendi Silvano
Leaves by David Ezra Stein
Mouse's First Fall by Lauren Thompson

I picked these five books because they are wonderful storytime books for fall with beautiful pictures and great messages or silliness. I almost always read these every season for storytimes and they never disappoint. 

Top Five Winter Picture Books
Snowmen at Night by Caralyn Buehner
The Biggest Snowman Ever by Steven Kroll
How the Grinch Stole Christmas! by Dr. Seuss
Bunny Slopes by Claudia Rueda
Let It Snow by Maryann Cocca-Leffler

I picked these five books because they are cute, enjoyable stories to read that are also perfect for storytimes. The Grinch is also one of my all-time favorite children's books.

All-Time Favorite Books (When I was a Child)
Any Garfield comic by Jim Davis
American Girl Books, especially Meet Addy
The Secret World of Alex Mack series
Dear America Series
Goosebumps

These five series were picked because I remember gobbling these books all up as a kid. I'm a huge fan of Garfield and would collect anything Garfield as a kid and would have to keep up with every comic book so I wouldn't miss an issue. I just loved his cattitude!

American Girl books were always a favorite because I could relate to them as a girl and I remember first reading Meet Addy and feeling so much sympathy and emotion for her. Great books to put girls in other girls' shoes and I remember just reading these and feeling like I was there with each character.

The Secret World of Alex Mack was a TV series on Nickelodeon that I loved as a child. She was into science and had magical powers because of it! I of course wanted to read every book. Another character that I could relate to and really pulled me in.

Dear America was one of my favorite series because I enjoyed the idea of reading someone else's diary and all these young girls had journeys and hardships that made their diaries interesting. It was because of this series that I enjoy reading any diary-format books and it also helped instill a love of history as a child.

Goosebumps were a favorite because they were so popular. The feeling of being scared while reading them is what really brought an interest of wanting to read more.

Preschool Picasso: Yarn

I was excited to do this yarn-themed program because I've seen so many good yarn craft ideas for kids online. I based my crafts on the books I've read and we ended up reading two books, one at the beginning of the program and one after our crafts, because we had a smaller group than usual.

For my first book, we read "Little Owl's Orange Scarf" by Tatyana Feeney. This is one of my go-to books for owls and is about an owl who doesn't like his orange scarf his mommy made him. At the end of the book, Little Owl gets a new scarf that he likes much better.

The other book I ended up reading was "Edmund Unravels" by Andrew Kolb. This story was truly a picture book about yarn. Edmund is a ball of yarn who is looking for adventure, but realizes he misses the familiar.

Our first craft of the program was doing some process art using paint and yarn. The group each had their own cups of paint and yarn dipped inside. Once they stirred up the yarn to get it covered in paint, they put that on their cardstock. They could drag the yarn, dab the yarn, try to make designs with the yarn, but the goal was to try a new way of painting that was creative and unique to each child. These turned out fun!

Our next craft was making an owl just like in our first story, but with yarn weaving. Each preschooler was given a card stock owl body that had small slits cut all around it so that they could weave their yarn around the owl body easily and make patterns any way they like. I kept my craft simple by just weaving the yarn back and forth across, but a few of the kids made awesome checkered patterns.

Other Books:

Extra Yarn Mac Barnett

A Bedtime Yarn Nicola Winstanley

A Friendship Yarn Olga Demidova

The Red Wolf Margaret Shannon

Book of the Month: Brave the Page

It is National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo), and I thought it would be a fitting idea to make Brave the Page my Book of the Month. 

Summary: Partly a how-to guide on the nitty-gritty of writing, partly a collection of inspiration to set (and meet) ambitious goals, Brave the Page is the go-to resource for middle-grade writers.

Ages: 10 and up

"Warning: Following the advice in this book will lead you toward achieving big things. You'll write more-and faster- than you've ever written before."

NaNoWriMo Presents Brave the Page: A Young Writer's Guide to Telling Epic Stories is one of the best writing books that was published this year. This book is perfect for a young writer that wants to start writing but doesn't know where to begin. 

I am a big stickler for how non-fiction books are formatted and this book was put together in perfect and simplistic order. I also liked the tone of the book because it comes across as down-to-earth and friendly. 

The book starts off by recognizing the hard work in writing and gives clear points on why the reader should write and how this book will help. 

This is such a well-rounded book for the young writer with tips on how to find story ideas, make a writing deadline, set writing goals, and create a routine so that your writing becomes consistent. 

I also think the writing challenges in the book are extremely helpful and how following the book will set up any writer, young or old, for future success. 

This book is geared to help children find out what type of writer they are and provides writing quests and examples that will ease them into their writing. There's even a progress tracker by weeks and a writing pledge that can be used, along with quick starters and other writing tools. 

Once writers are ready to revise and edit their work, there's a chapter on that too. 

I would like to see more information for children on how to publish their writing, but perhaps that could be NaNoWriMo's next book for children. 

I plan on doing a short book-talk on Brave the Page during one of my upcoming writing programs. 

Family Storytime: Fall

This was a nice fall storytime with a great theme that provided a lot of book and activity options.

We started with our bean bag song and then talked a little bit about fall-the leaves, animals, and weather.

Our first book was, We're Going on a Leaf Hunt by Steve Metzger. I always enjoy reading this one for the fall theme because it goes over the colors and the concepts of directions.

This was a perfect opportunity to pull out the tree flannel and add some different color leaves to our tree. We counted each of the colored leaves on the tree and separated them by color.

Next, I read The Busy Little Squirrel by Nancy Tafuri. It's a very cute book about a squirrel who has no time to play because he's getting ready for winter.

Because our book was about a squirrel, I used our five little squirrel flannels and the kids helped counted and liked the rhyme that went with it.

Our next book was Mouse's First Fall by Lauren Thompson. The illustrations are so vibrant in this picture book and it's a cute story that sparks fall conversations with the kids.

We sang "If You're Happy and You Know It" and then read our last book, called Leaves by David Ezra Stein. I love this book's concept about a bear who is confused and concerned that leaves are falling off the trees and shows how bears hibernate for the winter.

For our craft, we used die-cut leaves and traced them with fall colored paint using our fingertips and q-tips, leaving colorful leaf designs on our paper.

Other Books:

When a Tree Grows Cathy Ballou Mealey

Clifford's Puppy Days: Apple-Picking Day Samantha Brooke

Every Autumn Comes the Bear Jim Arnosky

It's Fall Celeste Bishop

The Apple Pie Tree Zoe Hall

Red Leaf, Yellow Leaf Lois Ehlert

Watching the Seasons: Fall Emily C. Dawson

Orange as a Pumpkin Molly Dingles

Let It Fall Maryann Cocca-Leffler

Full of Fall April Pulley Sayre

Toddler Art: Apples

For this week's Toddler Art, we continued with the October theme of apples and read one, short apple story and then completed two painting crafts.

We read One Red Apple, but Harriet Ziefert. This book has beautiful illustrations and is simple enough for toddlers.

Once we got done reading and talking a little bit about apples and their colors, we got to making our two crafts.

For our first craft, I put out shower loofahs, card stock, and die-cut tree trunks with their branches. The trunk was glued onto their card stock and then they used the loofah to dip it into green paint to make the leaves on their tree. After this, they used their finger tips to dip into red paint to make the apples on their tree. They got practice with gluing and painting, with the loofah being a fun element.

For our second craft, we made pumpkin prints using apples cut in half, orange paint and stamping them onto our paper. We used our finger tips for green pumpkin stems and for painting grass for our pumpkin patch scene.

Family Storytime: Hedgehogs

Hedgehogs is a cute storytime theme for the fall that has plenty of books to pick from that focuses both on hedgehogs and the season. It's also a great theme for teaching about nocturnal animals.

We started off storytime with our bean bag song and then talked about what we knew about hedgehogs. Of course we talked about their spiky quills and how they are awake at night.

Soon enough, we dived into our first book, HedgehogNeeds a Hug by Jen Betton. This is a cute book that focuses on hedgehog's quills and how the other animals are afraid to hug him, except for the trickster wolf who ends up getting hurt from trying.

We each had a turn to put up flannel hedgehogs on the flannel board and count how many there were using a cute rhyme and then we got to our second book, Hedgehugs: Autumn Hide-and-Squeak by Steve Wilson and Lucy Tapper. I think everyone enjoyed this book because it was cute and we all had opportunities to squeak!

We sang "If You're Happy and You Know It" together and then got to our final hedgehog book…a short one called Hedgehog'sMagic Tricks by Ruth Paul. The group loved saying "Abracadabra!" throughout the book.

For our hedgehog craft, we made hedgehogs using pine cones. Even though it took some patience to get the pine cone to stick to our hedgehog face, each hedgehog looks so cute and unique.

Books:

Herbie's Big Adventure Jennie Poh

Hedgehugs Steve Wilson & Lucy Tapper

Help! A Story of Friendship Holly Keller

One Rainy Day M. Christina Butler

Little Hedgehog's Big Day Daniel & Heidi Howarth

Hedgehog Needs a Hug Jen Betton

Harriet Dancing Ruth Symes

Other activity:

Hedgehog, Hedgehog (tune: Teddybear, Teddybear, Turn Around")

Hedgehog, hedgehog, turn around.

Hedgehog, hedgehog, touch the ground.

Hedgehog, hedgehog stretch up high.

Hedgehog, hedgehog, search the sky.

Hedgehog, hedgehog, search down low.

Hedgehog, hedgehog, touch your toes.

Hedgehog, hedgehog, sit on the ground.

Hedgehog, hedgehog, curl up small and round.

Playdough Party! and No Registration vs. Registration

I just wanted to post a quick blog mentioning that I put on another one of our playdough parties. This one had our biggest crowd yet! 
Because of going no-registration on mostly all of our programs, it made for a great turnout. 

At some point, it was getting crowded in the room so I just mentioned that those who wanted to join us could wait outside by the stacks until more space cleared out and that seemed to have worked well. Plus, a lot of those already in the room who had at least half the time for playing were kind enough to leave to make room for others who just showed up. I also ended up leaving the room open for an additional half and hour to give those who showed up late a full chance at the program. 

The Playdough Party program has worked well with no-registration, but I do notice that some programs work much better with the registration required-especially for craft prep and for the ability to do reminder calls for attendance purposes so you do get a decent crowd. 

Patrons either love no-registration because they don't have to worry about registration, but other patrons need that reminder call to remember to attend and want a guaranteed spot. 

As with everything, there is positives and negatives, but personally I like registration so I can get to know patrons' names better, have the opportunity to give them reminder calls, and know how much to prep so I don't over prep and end up with too many craft materials that I could have used for another program. 

With that being said, I'm flexible and can accommodate to both ways to fit whatever is best for patrons. 

Preschool Picasso: Apples

This was a great Preschool Picasso turnout with some new families to the group!

I gave everyone a brief introduction on Preschool Picasso and announced our apple theme. 

We read Apples for Little Fox by Ekaterina Trukhan. This is the cutest story about a fox who loves the library and enjoys reading detective books. He can't wait to solve a real life mystery, but can't seem to see one…until all the apples disappeared on his favorite apple tree. Of course this story has a sweet ending. The group really enjoyed this book and I would definitely use this one again for any apple-related program.

Once we talked a little bit more about the book, I explained our two crafts for the day. Our first craft is usually always our paint craft, so for this one we were going to be using real apples from the library's apple tree to stamp apple shapes onto our cardstock using red, yellow, and green paint. They added on an apple basket by cutting brown construction paper into strips while giving them some cutting practice.

The group's other craft was making a tie-dye apple. I put out red, yellow, and green washable markers on the tables for the kids to doodle on their apple-shaped coffee liner. Once finished, they were to use the spray bottles to spray their apple and make the tie-dye design. Once a little dry, they could glue it onto a construction paper red apple. The kids always enjoy using the water bottle sprays.

Fall is here!

     

Book of the Month: Here and Now

I used Here and Now by Julia Denos for my yoga and mindfulness storytime and thought that it deserved to be Book of the Month for October. 

The book sparked conversation and the kids liked talking about the things that were around us and observing the present, which became quite engaging for them. 

Summary: Illustrations and easy-to-read text celebrate mindfulness and the connectedness of everything on Earth.

Ages: 4-7 years

“Right here, right now you are becoming.”

This book is a perfect children’s book for teaching mindfulness and the pictures are so beautiful and tranquil.

Fitting for a storytime or a book that would calm your child before bed and explain how so many things are happening and growing around us while we sit still and observe.

It’s also a great conversation starter with your kids about the present moment, all what’s going on around us, and how we are all part of it.

Family Storytime: Yoga and Mindfulness

This was a nice, calm storytime about yoga and mindfulness. It was our first storytime using this theme and I would definitely revisit it again.

I started off storytime with our familiar bean bag song and then I explained a little bit about yoga and mindfulness and asked some questions about our topic.

I started by reading Zoo Zen: A YogaStory for Kids that is a book that explains yoga using cute animal characters and showing each yoga pose they do. The kids were eager to try each pose and they were pros! This was great because they were involved, got in their exercise, and were focused.

We then read Yoga Bunny by Brian Russo. This is another cute yoga book about a bunny who wants his friends to do yoga with them, but they needed to focus and clear their minds first before Yoga Bunny got all his forest friends involved.

We did a few breathing and mindfulness exercises using Kira Willey's Mindful Moments cd and then we read our last book, Here and Now by Julia Denos. This was the perfect book to end this storytime because it was such a peaceful book to read.

For our craft, we made mandalas out of paper and paint. The kids loved painting and focused on it very well and then had fun seeing how their designs would look like after they folder their paper circles in half.

This is a perfect theme to do for a smaller storytime group.

Other Books:

Yoga Friends Mariam Gates

I Am Yoga Susan Verde

Belly Breathe Leslie Kimmelman