I received a Medal, a pencil, a purple cup and a bookmark for being a guest reader at Deep Creek Elementary School.

I'm so proud!!!

Thank You!!!

 

A big thank you to Chesapeake City Fire Department.

They presented Infant/Child CPR Training for parents

and caregivers at our library!!!

 

 

Yay, for our Therapy Dogs!

 

As a part of our Paws to Read program we invited Therapy Dogs to visit our Library. We learned about their training and how they visit hospitals and make patients feel better!

We have been having fun with our parachute, right in our activity room!
Inside or out, so much fun! Counting, colors, directions...covers so many concepts!
And, we get our exercise...woohoo!

Worms at the Library!!!!

 A volunteer from Chesapeake's Master Gardeners talked to us about worms and composting.
And...everyone took worms home for their garden!

Making Vetrans Day cards

We Love Puppet Shows!!!

 

Puppet Shows are loved by everyone, what an awesome Story Time event!

a Happy Birthday Story Time

A Birthday Story Time is always fun! Celebrate everyone's birthday. Play party games, make your own birthday hat and sing happy birthday to us!!!

Rascal and Sissy, Welcome to Story Time!

Invite a pet to Story Time.  Our favorite story time pets are Rascal and his new friend Sissy.  They are ferrets. We all love them. Bunnies, ferrets or lizards, you never know who's going to visit story time next!

Art on the patio

Here's a simple art activity that is very low cost.  Use nylons with runs already in them, the cheapest popcorn you can by, paper, paper plates and washable paint.  Cut legs off, put about a good handful of popcorn inside each section as you cup the foot section.  twist the hose, flip through, repeat a couple times.  All of the work is now done.

 Set up outside.   Put paint on plates with an additional plate by each color to hold the nylons after use. ( You may want something to weight the plate down if there is a breeze.) I gave a quick run done of the materials we were using and how I made the paint receptor. Then I  demonstrated how to dip the nylon in the paint and put it on the paper. I did ask that the nylon stay with the color paint it was used with so colors wouldn't be too mixed. Give the children paper and let them have fun.  Parents and children enjoyed this program.  We had participants  as young as one through about 9 year olds.  I think some parents even made a page.  here are some phots showing the textures.  I'm not sure it will show with the size so check our L drive folder if you want to see it better.

Stellaluna Bat craft

For our Stellaluna program this summer we made a toilet paper roll bat.  I think it looks a lot like a Bat at the Beach bat.  The templates can be found at DLTK's crafts for kids and can be printed in black and white or color.  We chose black and white to print on brown construction paper.  We also had a volunteer cut out the feet ahead of time as we thought the younger children might have trouble with these. Another volujnteer cut apart all the pieces and also cut out all of the pieces for the youngest children.  Most of the program attendees were toddler to preschool age but we did have a few older ones who cut everything on their own and  few younger ones who need everything cut.  We had have all the pieces clipped together so we could set them out ahead of time along with the paper roll.  http://www.dltk-kids.com/t.asp?b=m&t=http://www.dltk-kids.com/animals/image/bbat.gif

Scuba Eggs fun craft for summer

Froggy Storytime

We enjoyed fun with frogs. Sang cool songs, listened to stories,

Kim Faurot's How To

For those of you that didn't catch everything at the workshop last summer.  And for those of you that weren't fortunate enough to attend the workshop.  Kathy found this site:
          http://www.booksinbloom.com/index.html

Hopefully she will put instructions on using this puppet soon.

Tweens Enter the World of the Last Dragon Chronicles

 

At the Central Library Tweens explored the world of Chris D'Lacey's Last Dragon Chronicles. They played dragon bingo and trivia. And they created their very own dragon with salt dough.

Tweens- Cupcake Wars

For a tween program we did Cupcake Wars. Of course with a name like that we had plenty of tweens who wanted to sign up. We actually had to stop registration at 25 and almost all of them showed up. Kathy placed an order from Farm Fresh for cupcakes with no icing and we purchased our own icing and candies. The tweens were challenged to decorate the best cupcake and then they got to vote. Very successful program.

Explaining the rules.

The candy table.

  Decorating the cupcakes.

Judging the cupcakes.



The Cupcake War winner.

Gingerbread man loose in the library

After learning my story time children did not yet know the story of the gingerbread man I decided to read a close to original version and an adapted one. I pulled out the clues for them to guess who or what our stories might be about. ( SEE PICTURE) We also talked about the order we use the things are what they are for. After our name song we took the plate of cookies to the staff microwave and returned to story time to read about the gingerbread man. After a few fingerplays etc we returned for our gingerbread who were now missing but left a clue. You will need a coworker who can see you coming and going from the program room for this. (SEE PICTURE ) Each clue took us to a different part of the library until the manager gave us a final clue that lead back to the program room and a final clue. We sang a gingerbread man song to the tune of "The Muffin Man" that allowed them to run and catch while burning up some of the excitement energy. Then we read The Gingerbread Man on the Loose and made our own gingerbread men while munching the cookies. (SEE PICTURE) Everyone took home some version of the gingerbread story.(SEE PICTURES) The parents thought this was cute and the children meet other people in the library who could help them. The book drop was well liked as someone dropped some items in just as we read the clue.

Cabin Fever

For our Cabin Fever program we used peanuts for making snow angels and adding to the atmosphere. We also skated with paper plates. But everyone agreed that trying to open a Hershey's kiss with ski gloves on was very hard! Since our area rarely has snow we made our own and the children took it home.

Table Turkey

materials needed:

latex type glove without powder inside

permanent markers

foam sheets in red, orange or brown

Make a template for the gobble and feet. I found a gobbler on line that I used as a reference. Remember the feet need to be joined for the ballon knot to have a place to go through.

Trace templates on foam sheets and cut out apart.

Blow up glove ahead of time and tie in knot. I bought the large so it was hard to tie the knot. Wrapping it around a fat sharpie helped.

My program was for 6 and up so I let them cut out the foam pieces, but if you wanted to have younger children just cut out the pieces ahead of time. Fold the feet in half and cut a small X to insert the balloon knot through.

Color the feathers ( fingers)

Add eyes to the head ( thumb) and a few wings on the side.

Gobble, gobble

We made monsters from candy after hearing spooky stories.

The monster body/head are from 2 gum drops. Bananna runts make the horns. White chocolate chips turned backwards for eyes and extreme for tongues. I also gave them a string of twizzlers pull aparts that they used in different ways.

I gave the children the basic parts, showed them how to use a toothpuck to make holes for the candy and let them have fun making their own creations.

Halloween bag puppets

The Strange Case of Origami Yoda – A Tween Program

I started off by reading the first few pages of the book, so that everyone would know what it was about. We also spent a little time discussing what the book was about.

Using the book “The Star Wars: Craft Books” By: Bonnie Burton we found a felt craft idea and made felt Yoda finger puppets.

We also watched this YouTube video by the author Tom Angleberger on how to make your own Origami Yoda.

http://www.youtube.com/embed/TA4VJbqFQuw

I created a word search activity for them to do and the first one who finished won a copy of the book. Here is the word search and anyone can use it if they would like.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1z-1uX9F42Y4h_Q6punPRA-ksV09eiDTlID0Fp9EEfWQ/edit?hl=en_US

We also used this pattern to make an extremely simple origami Yoda finger puppet and added pipe cleaner lightsabers.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1DhXHp6KThJAyaYF9d-69Q99s038LTr2fNBHmfT341gE/edit?hl=en_US



Snake puppet craft

materials:
pair of wiggle eyes
party blower
green construction paper or foam sheets
stapler or glue


To Make:
Decide how long you want the snake to be and then cut strips out of the green paper/foam of equal length and width.

cut out double snake head with neck connecting them ( diamond shape with neck coming out of top of diamond to bottom of second diamond shape)

cut a small slit in the neck of the snake head

connect you strips in a chain pattern either by gluing or stapling each piece in a circle interlacing with the previous piece

insert the party blower mouth section through the slit from the front of the mouth (You may want to fold the head section in half first)

glue wiggle eyes on head
connect the chain to the snake head below the slit
Now read a story with a snake so all your little listeners can hiss along with you.

Tween Program Ideas

Here are some tween program topics that I have already done programs on. If you want further information on any of these, just let me know.  -Jessica M.

Tween Gaming

Christmas Cards

Making Games

Paper Bag Albums

Fun with Yarn

Going Green

Microwave Cooking

Sewing 101

Vintage Valentines

Create SRP Decorations

Guardians of GaHoole

Mad Science

Candy Sushi & Anime

Duct Tape Wallets

Mothers Day Crafts

Paper Airplanes

Summer 2010:

1- Diary of Wimpy Kid

2- Ice Cream Day

3- Percy Jackson

4- Pirate Party

5- Paper Bag Album

6- Gaming

7- Luau

8- Gardening

Bunnies Visit Toddler Story Time

Bunnies from the Chesapeake Guinea Pig Rescue visited story time! What a wonderful surprise just in time for Easter!!! They were lopeared rabbits, named Braxton and Harley.

Egg-citing!

With Easter just around the corner and birds building nests, I thought that eggs would be a good topic for storytime this week.  We are exploring the different kinds of eggs. 

Some good books are:

Grambling, Lois.  Can I have a stegosaurus, Mom? Can I? Please?

Gravett, The odd egg
Heller, Ruth.  Chickens aren't the only ones

Flannel board story:
"Three eggs in a basket" found in Sierra, Judy.  Mother Goose's Playhouse
 "Mother Hen" : clip art pictures for traditional rhyme
            Five eggs and five eggs
            That makes ten
            Sitting on top is Mother Hen
            Cackle, cackle, cackle
            What do I see?
            Ten fluffy chicks
            As yellow as can be!

Activity:
 Prepare plastic easter eggs with a small photo of something that hatches from an egg.  I found clip art photos of various birds, reptiles, amphibians, and insects.  Make enough for one for each child.  Place in a basket.  Let children open their egg in turn and talk about what is inside.

Music: "The chicken walk" found on the Wiggles Go Bananas CD  with shaker eggs, of course!