Egg Drop

On Saturday I got to host our tween STEM event--Egg Drop!!  We had a decent size group and the kids worked hard on their contraptions.  It took them a while to figure out the best ways to keep the egg safe.  But they all kept working at it until they did it (or until we ran out of time!)

Supplies:
cardboard
cardboard tubes
raffia
yarn
pipe cleaners
newspaper
tissue paper
pom-poms
Q-tips
straws
lots of masking tape

At least a quarter size piece of the egg had to be visible and the contraption had to fit into a shoe box.

Some of the designs that keep the egg safe!

The ultimate test!
We took the kids out back to drop their egg from the upper level!  Most of them even survived!

I will be doing the program again at another library this Saturday.

Down on the Farm Baby Storytime

Another fun storytime featuring farm animals!  My farm animal puppets are getting a lot of use!

Song/Rhymes/Bounces
(words can be found here)

Clap, Clap, Clap
Hello Song
Little Bear
I Have a Little Duck
Tiny Little Babies
Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star
Itsy, Bitsy Spider
Humpty Dumpty 
Acak Backa Soda Cracker
Hug, Hug, Hug

Read Aloud Book

Hurry! Hurry!

by Eve Bunting

Shared Reading

A variety of board books with farm animals including

You Are My Baby: Farm

by Lorena Siminovich

Can You Say It Too? Woof! Woof!

by Sebastien Braun

Play and Learn
Since tax season is over we didn't have to rush out of the room for the tax aide program to set up!  The moms enjoyed hanging out a few more minutes talking.

One little (no- mobile) guy loved when his mom help the beach ball up for him to see and then she'd lower it and lift it up so he could see her face.  So adorable!

I've become "Auntie Tammy" to a sweet, little, baby doll snatching 14 month old! :)

Hiccups, Burps, Sneezes, and Snores! Storytime

When Hiccupotamus arrived at the library I knew I wanted to use it for storytime!  It was a super fun storytime!  My puppet, Henrietta, really got into the theme by hiccuping, sneezing and snoring!

Books

Bear Snores On

by Karma Wilson; illustrated by Jane Chapman

Before reading the book I told the children to listen and watch for the burp and the sneeze!  We also "snored" when Bear snored.

Hiccupotamus

by Steve Smallman; illustrated by Ada Grey

The kids helped me make all the noises the animals made!

Chu's Day

by Neil Gaiman; illustrated by Adam Rex

Magnet Board

Four Hungry Ants
Four hungry ants marching in a line;
Came upon a picnic where they could dine.
One marched into the salad,
He marched into the cake
He marched into the pepper--but that was a mistake!

Aaah, aaah, CHOO!

Songs

Let Everyone Clap Hands Like Me

Let everyone clap hands like me (clap, clap)
Let everyone clap hands like me (clap, clap)
Come on and join in the game!
You'll find that it's always the same.

Let everyone hiccup like me (hic,hic)

Let everyone sneeze like me (aah-choo!)

Let everyone snore like me (zzzz)

Let everyone clap hands like me.

Are You Sleeping?

Are you sleeping, are you sleeping
Little bear? Little bear?
[snore]
Wake up little bear!
Wake up little bear!
Grrr, grr, grr!

Other animals
Frog/bunny--jump/hop
Bird--flap
Cheetah--run


Play and Learn

Four Hungry Ants magnetic board
(many kids loved trying the rhyme and making the ant's sneeze blow the ant away!)

Train
Puzzles
Musical Instruments
Magnet Game "What Goes Together"

April Book Club

Just two of us at this month's book club.  Don't know if we will be able to keep it together through the summer!

These are the books my colleague read and talked about:

Skink No Surrender

by Carl Hiaasen

The Scandalous Sisterhood of Prickwillow Place

by Julie Berry

Bird

by Crystal Chan

These are the books I read/listened to this month:

The Mark of the Dragonfly

by Jaleigh Johnson

*audio*

Brambleheart: A Story of Finding Treasure and the Unexpected Magic of Friendship

by Henry Cole

Mouse Scouts

Sarah Dillard

*new 'transitional' series*

Under Their Skin

by Margaret Peterson Haddix

*1st in a new series*

Connect the Stars

by Marisa de los Santos and David Teague

I loved the development of the characters in the book, but some of what was expected of them at camp was not realistic.

Bed Luck

by Pseudonymous Bosch

Book 2 of The Secret Series

*audio*

My favorite was definitely Mark of the Dragonfly!

Lego Club

The third Thursday of every month we Lego Club--an open time for kids to come build with our four bins of Legos--plus a few boxes of Duplos for younger siblings!  I have been putting the Lego creations on display each month (so far they have been left alone).  It has really helped to keep our numbers up each month!

We will host Legos Club twice over the summer (different days/times).  As long as we have interest this will be a program we will continue!

Seed Library -- Season Two

We have had enough seeds donated back to the Seed Library that we are good to go for another year!  After our successful year, two other branches in our library system have decided to start a Seed Library this spring.  I am happy our hard work has paid off!

We had a series of four gardening classes with local Master Gardeners starting in Feb/March!  We have branched out from our basic gardening classes we had last year.

Oh, Deer!

How to keep deer and other animals out of your garden

Plot Gardening

Container Gardening

Fruit Tree Pruning

Our number have not been as high as last year, but they are decent.  

We have had quite a fee seeds donated back to our Seed Library--lots of flowers.

Communications made these envelopes so donated seeds can be checked out.  It is taking a lot of time to sort, package, and label all the seeds.  Hopefully we will have another good season of seeds getting checked out!

 

That One Great Book!

Have you ever had this happen to you?  You find a great new book that you love and want to share it at storytime, but you can’t find other really good complementary books to go with the theme.  Options:

1.  Use books that you don’t really love or that aren’t high quality just because they fit the theme

2.  Do an unthemed storytime

Options 2 is a completely acceptable.  I know some people who almost always do “unthemed” storytimes.  Option 1 however, is not acceptable.  The quality of books is essential to a successful storytime.  Please don’t use books you don’t love or that are not high quality for storytime just because they fit the theme!  And if you’re like me and want a theme this can make planning a little trickier!  Then I learned about option 3 from Rob Reid!

3. Make a loose connection and create a wider theme

For example, in his book Animal Shenanigans he suggests a theme called “The Animal Talent Show—Books about singing, dancing, and art”.

Recently I came across the book Hiccupotamus by Steve Smallman.  I feel in love with it and really wanted to use it.  But how?  I couldn’t find any other books that I loved about hiccups.  How could I build a theme around this book?

I started looking for books about other noises we make (a few I didn’t want to try to address!)  But I finally settled on “Hiccups, Burps, Sneezes and Snores” for my theme.  And I am very happy with it because I get to use Hiccupotamus as well as an all-time favorite Bear Snores On (not only is there snoring, but also burping and sneezing!)  I found Chu’s Day and Stop Snoring, Bernard that are wonderful books and fit nicely into the broader theme!  I am so excited to share this storytime with my families at my next storytime

Check out some of Rob Reid's books to get your creative juices flowing!

Baby Storytime--Farm

Another farm storytime!  They loved the pop-up book!

Song/Rhymes/Bounces
(words can be found here)

Clap, Clap, Clap
Hello Song
Little Bear
I Have a Little Duck
Tiny Little Babies
I'm a Little Teapot
If You're Happy and You Know It
Pease Porridge Hot
Hey Diddle, Diddle
Acak Backa Soda Cracker
Read Aloud

Snappy Little Farmyard

Shared Reading

A variety of board books featuring farm animals including:

Learning with Animals: Numbers with Farm Animals
by Melanie Watt

Who's in the Farmyard?

by: Phillis Gershator; illustrated By: Jill McDonald

Parachute

Using Jim Gill's Alabama, Mississippi

Play and Learn

Baby Storytime--Farm Animals

We had several new families today!  And since it was spring break I got to meet some older siblings, which is always fun!

Song/Rhymes/Bounces
(words can be found here)

Clap, Clap, Clap
Hello Song
Little Bear
I Have a Little Duck
Tiny Little Babies
Three Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed
Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star
Humpty Dumpty
Jack be Nimble
Acak Backa Soda Cracker
One Bright Scarf

Read Aloud Book

Baby Says "Moo!"

by JoAnn Early Macken; illustrated by David Walker

I skipped the repeating phrase to keep it short.  We made sure to wave to everything Baby saw!

Baby rolls along, grabs a yummy snack,
Waves at the people and they all wave back.

Baby takes a ride through the busy, dizzy city,
Waves at the yellow bird singing so pretty.

Baby zooms away...
[so forth]


Shared Reading

A variety of board books featuring farm animals including:

Honk, Honk! Baa, Baa!

by Petr Horacek

Oink, Moo, Meow

by Sterling Publishing Co.

Play and Learn

Some of the usual toys--puppets I used in "I have a little duck", scarves from "One Bright Scarf", tunnel, beach balls, shape sorter, button bottle, puzzle, stacking rings...

I had a fun time playing peek-a-boo with a little one by the tunnel!

Little Mouse, Big Books Storytime

It was fun to do a full storytime using big books.  And to have three all about mice was even better!

Big Books

Mouse Paint

by Ellen Stoll Walsh

If You Give a Mouse a Cookie

by Laura Joffe Numeroff; illustrated by Felicia Bond

The Little Mouse, the Red Ripe Strawberry, and the Big Hungry Bear

by Don and Audrey Wood; illustrated by Don Wood

Songs/Flannel Board

M-O-U-S-E

There is a little ball of fur nibbling on my cheese
M-O-U-S-E
M-O-U-S-E
M-O-U-S-E
And mouse is her name-o.

There is a little ball of fur nibbling on my cheese
M-O-U-S-(clap)
M-O-U-S-(clap)
M-O-U-S-(clap)
And mouse is her name-o.

Continue taking one letter away at the end until you have five claps!

If You're Happy and You Know It

My Hands
My hands upon my head I'll place
Upon my shoulders, on my face
At my waist and by my side
And then behind me they will hide
Then I will raise them way up high
And let my finger fly, fly, fly
Then clap, 

Little Mouse

Little Mouse, Little Mouse come out and play!

What color house are you in today?

I think I may redo this into a magnet board.  The mouse always wanted to come off with the flannel house!

Play and Learn

Alphabet Dot-to-Dot (M is for Mouse)

Busy Bags!

• Tools
• Straws and felt circles
• Colored paper clips Sort
• White boards
• Pom-pom stuff
• Velcro Sticks
• Lacing shapes

Farm Baby Storytime

I thought April 1st was a great day to change up our songs, rhymes, and bounces!

Songs/Rhymes/Bounces
New for the Spring (can be found here)

Clap, Clap, Clap
Hello Song
Little Bear
I Have a Little Duck
Tiny Little Babies
If you're happy and you know it
Pat-a-cake
Pease Porridge Hot
Acka Backa
Hug, Hug, Hug

Read Aloud Book

Hello, Day!

by Anita Lobel

Shared Reading

A variety of board books about farm animals including:

Baby Animal Farm

by Karen Blair

Farm

by James Brown

Play and Learn

Mother Goose Storytime

I had a crazy schedule last week I had to pull together a storytime quickly.  I've decided Nursery Rhymes is one of those "go-to" kinds of storytimes!  So much available and so easily adaptable!

Books

Cindy Moo

by Lori Mortensen; illustrated by Jeff Mack

To Market, To Market

by Anne Miranda; illustrated by Janet Stevens

Song/Rhymes/Flannel

Hey Diddle, Diddle

Little Miss Muffet

Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes

Baa, Baa, Black Sheep
(with a variety of different colored sheep!)

Play and Learn

Nursery Rhyme Scavenger Hunt 

I used the same scavenger hunt that I had made when I read Max and Ruby's Treasure Hunt--my group right now is too young for such a long book though.

Fill in the blank Hey Diddle Diddle

I used Microsoft Word to make this fill in the blank rebus of Hey Diddle Diddle nursery rhyme.  

The pictures are from PreKinders.  I printed four sheets to a page to make them small enough to fit onto one page.  The picture cues help children to retell the nursery rhyme.  

Duplos

March Book Club

Because of crazy pre-summer schedules we didn't actually meet for our book club...but here are Young Adult and Juvenile books I read this month!

Golden Braid

by Melanie Dickerson

The Notorious Benedict Arnold: A True Story of Adventure, Heroism & Treachery (audio)

by Steve Sheinkin; read by Mark Bramhall

The Thing About Jellyfish

by Ali Benjamin

The Dragonsitter and The Dragonsitter Takes Off

by Josh Lacey; illustrated by Garry Parson

Masterminds: Criminal Destiny (audio)

by Gordon Korman