Explore to Learn: Early Literacy Fun

R is for... Racecar! AND Cauli Le Chat Appreciation Day! (Wait, there's no R in Cauli?!)

2012-02-24T11:55:00.000-08:00

I know I say this a lot, but it was a big week at the Mooresville Public Library this week!

1) It was Cauli Le Chat Appreciation Day! More on that later.

2) We got our eggs for our annual chick hatch.

3) We had all of our regularly scheduled programs!

Sounds busy, right?

For those of you who don’t know, Cauli Le Chat is our feline roving reporter here at MPL. February just so happens to be Cat Appreciation Month and Cauli wasn’t feeling the love. Thus the Boss Lady, as Cauli calls her, decided to declare Wednesday, February 22, as Cauli Le Chat Appreciation Day. Of course, we had to celebrate this monumental occasion in Story Time as well. So, what did we do?

The banner we made for Cauli Appreciation Day.
Yes, we. Though he will loathe me admitting it,
Sammy the Toucan helped me create this beautiful banner!

In honor of Cauli Le Chat Appreciation Day,
we read many cat books! Splat the Cat is
a funny guy that every kid will be guaranteed to love.

Another favorite of mine is the Laura Numeroff
"If You Give," series. You will not be disappointed
if you pick this one up. Though be prepared,
you child will probably want a cupcake at the end!

A great book to talk about animals, shapes, and sizes,
as well as love. This is a cute book that is short and to
the point. Your child will have no problem sitting through it.

All kids at the library were allowed to participate
in the Cauli Appreciation Day Color Contest.
Stay tuned, winners will be announced on Tuesday!

As the second note mentions, our library got eggs! That’s right, for the third year in a row; we will be hatching chickens at the library. Last Friday, we started regulating the temperature of our incubator, and on Tuesday the eggs were put in, beginning the three week process. Sometime next week, we will start candling the eggs to see if life is beginning to take shape and in three weeks time, we will have baby chicks running all over the library. If you are interested in fostering baby chicks for a couple of weeks, call us at the library to get all the details! If you would like to follow the chicks' progress, follow Miss Suzanne's chick blog at

Fresh eggs just ready for incubating!

The incubators. We will start with just one,
howeveronce the eggs hatch, we will move them
to the second incubator for fluffing.

And the finished product, for now. The eggs will remain
in the incubator for three weeks. After this period we will
hopefullystart to hear chirping and eggshells cracking as
our babies make their way into the world! It really is exciting!

And now on to our regularly scheduled program, Letter of the Week! This week was all about the letter R. I went with racecar because I thought the boys in class might appreciate it. I also later realized that I could have used road to coordinate with racecar. Oh well, here is what the letter R looked like this week!

Materials: Index card with capital R, 2 sticker racecars, and crayons

Front of card

Back of card

1) Color the capital R to look like a road.

2) Trace the capital and lower case Rr on the back of the card.

3) Peel the racecar stickers and stick them on.

The book I chose to read this week is one that I have actually already ready to the 4 to 6 year olds so it may look a bit familiar. He Saves the Day by Marsha Hayles was a great read for the 2 and 3 year olds. Although it didn’t eexactly state racecar in the book, it was very obvious that the boy character was riding along in his make-believe racecar. It is a fun and exciting book, with a great ending for all the moms out there!

Well, that’s it! Personally, I think that’s enough excitement for one week! I am exhausted! If you watched this week’s video, you would know that next week is Ss. Sammy the Toucan thinks I should dedicate this day to him. Who knows, guess you and Sammy will both have to wait and see what new and exciting things happened next week! Stay tuned!

Love is in the air… Happy Valentine’s Day!

2012-02-17T13:29:00.000-08:00

Growing up, Valentine’s Day was kind of a big deal in my family. Not in the traditional chocolates, flowers, balloons, and jewelry kind of way. Valentine’s Day is actually my parents’ wedding anniversary. Yes, my parents are schmoopy and got married on Valentine’s Day. Imagine that wedding, will you? Anyways, I have always spent Valentine’s Day celebrating with my parents, and this year was no exception. Although, I did also get to have three whole days of Valentine’s celebration with my Story Time kids and boy was that fun! You would have thought it was Christmas all over with how excited my kids were!

As usual, let’s celebrate this holiday through pictures!

Books

I read this book to my 2-3 year olds. It was the perfect
length and also allowed the kids to participate by guessing what
was underneath the flap. It was fun!

I read this book to my older kids because it is a little bit longer.
Filled with all of the cutesy "kitty" love stuff, this book
is an excellentread to describe love to kids.

Although not about Valentine's Day, I still used this book for Pajama Time.
I especially like this book because all of the animal are made from hearts!
We had a great time counting how many it took to create each animal.

Another great Valentine's story told in rhyme to "Twas the Night Before Christmas."
Although I didn't use this book this year, it always makes my list because it
is a quick, upbeat read that the kids like to hear.

Crafts

These are some of the Valentine's I had my kids color!
After they were done coloring, I collected the cards and took them
over to Miller's Merry Manor, an assited living facility for the elderly.
They LOVED getting the cards and it was nice to be able to bring a smile to their faces.

I found these here. I absolutely love them!
I think they would be great for Valentine's to hand out.

How cute is this? Though I seriously considered doing
this for my crafts, I dediced to go a different route. Find this craft here.

Another cute craft I found online. Very simple!
Trace your child's hand.
Fold down the middle and ring finger.
Then glue to a heart!
A simple way to say "I love you" in American Sign Language.

Songs

Although I didn't use this song, I found it on YouTube

and think it is SO cute! Watch and listen! You will see!

I really like to use this song during Valentine's!

The song is upbeat and my kids enjoy that it isn't

your typical "kids song."

Games

I played HEART bingo with my 4-6 year olds. This is great
to work on larger numbers with kids as well as give a little
incentive to be an active listener! We had so much fun with this one!

Goodies

Ok, I know I said this would be all in pictures, but, I changed my mind. Every holiday, I like to give my kiddos goody bags. I try to make them fun and different for each holiday. I also try VERY hard to make them age-appropriate. Though buying things for my babies can be difficult, its a really fun challenge! This year in their goody bags were crayons, chocolates, strawberry chewy hearts, suckers, pencils, kazoos, stickers, and candy hearts. Each kid also got a heart-shaped crayon I found on Pinterest!

Well, that seems to be all for Valentine's Day. Next week, we take another break from the alphabet to celebrate Cat Appreciate Month. My library will be celebrate the fabulous Cauli le Chat, our feline roving reporter. Stop in to donate cat or dog food to the Morgan County Human Society in Cauli's honor. We hope you tune in to see what all the fuss is about!

Q is for.. Quails and Queens!

2012-02-10T11:55:00.000-08:00

Boy oh boy… Qq is a hard one! Although there are lots of great words that start with a Qq, finding books and crafts to go along with those words isn’t as easy. After going through quarterback (last week WAS the Superbowl and being so close to Indianapolis, I thought this might be fun), quiet, quick, and quill, I FINALLY settled on quail and queen. I really did NOT want to use queen because I wanted to remain gender-neutral for all the little boys in my classes, however, I just wasn’t able to think of another fun Qq craft that I could produce in mass quantities. So queen is was!

Our Q letter craft came from a website that was recently sent to me by a coworker. I have used this site before and I just remembered that I have never credited it. To find cute animal alphabet letters, click here.

Materials: Index card with capital Q, googly eye, and crayons

Front of card

Back of card

1) Color the capital Q to look like a quail.

2) Trace the capital and lower case Qq on the back of the card.

3) Attach the googly eye!

As mentioned, the other craft this week was a queenly craft. I gave the kids pre-cut crowns and had them “bedazzle” them with jewels and sequins. For the boys, I reminded them that while only girls can be queens, kings and princes are just as royal and also have jewels on their crowns. I did, however, try to give the boys less “girly” colors, though I gave them the option of having pinks and purples if they wanted them! See the crown Sammy is wearing in our video for an example!

Have you ever looked for a picture book about quails? Chances are, you aren’t going to find one! HINT HINT… authors and publishers, GET ON THAT! In fact, I have a good friend who will be publishing a series of children's stories about zoo animals this year, perhaps I can talk her into publishing a book about a quail! Hear me Carolyn, I am going to need you to help a librarian out!

Since I was unable to find a good quail book, I settled for two books on queens. Both books are a little bit older, but fit the bill nicely. The first book, The Queen’s Feet by Sarah Ellis was a funny little story about a royal whose feet are anything but royal. The book has a great moral value in it about apologizing and trying one’s best to behave while ultimately realizing that every so often, we all need to let loose and have fun!

The other queenly book we read was called The Queen’s Holiday by Margaret Wild. With this book, the first thing I needed to explain was “holiday” in British English means vacation. This was very important to understanding the book. After that, all of the silly things the guards, the maid, the doctor, and the groom do make much more sense. This book was a good, quick read, though the kids didn’t find it nearly as funny as I did, that is, until the royal potty made an appearance. You will have to read the book to find out why in the world a royal potty would be needed!

In keeping with the theme of music last, I thought I might introduce you all to a color song that I love! I use this song for my baby class as well as my 2s and 3s sometimes. I like this song because it first give the color, then asks you to find the object with the same color. I use this song with puppets and give each kid a craft stick puppet with object on it. That way, it becomes more of a “find the color” game and less like learning.

Although Qq was a bit daunting, I think we got through it just fine! We will be taking a break from our regularly programmed schedule to celebrate… VALENTINE’S Day. I can absolutely promise you that I will not post a gooey, schmoopy, love post next week! I like Valentine’s Day as much as the next person, but as my friend at Desperately Seeking Sparkle said, “I love to love all year round, not just on February 14th.” Thanks, Emily for that great quote! I hope you tune in next week to see what fun and amazing Valentine’s creations we come up with!

P is for... Penguins and Parachutes!

2012-02-03T13:33:00.000-08:00

For those of you that didn’t know this already, there are TONS of words that start with Pp. My kids were able to come up with easily 20 or so. Some of my favorites included Poppa, Popsicle, pineapple, polar bear, and Penelope! It wouldn’t be Story Time if one of my kids didn’t throw out a name! This week, though, I chose to play it safe and went with penguins and parachutes!

Our P letter craft this week was rather fun, it took the shape of a penguin. I love penguins! When I was a kid, they were my absolute favorite part of the zoo. To this day I can sit and watch the penguins for hours! They are absolutely mesmerizing.

Materials: Index card with capital P, googly eye, white foam belly, orange foam beak, orange foam feet, and crayons

Front of card

Back of card

1) Color the capital P to look like a penguin (black works for the best effect).

2) Trace the capital and lower case Pp on the back of the card.

3) Glue the white foam belly to the P. Add the google eye, orange foam beak and feet! TA DA! A pretty penguin!

The second craft this week for my 4-6 years olds was a recycled craft. By that I mean, we have done it before! But, who cares! I gave each of my kids a parachute man to color. The parachute man had holes punched in his hands. I then gave each kid two pieces of yarn to tie to the parachute man’s hand. The other end of the string was tied to a plastic grocery bag (parachute.) WARNING: I know that it is not safe to give children plastic bags. In my case, the kids’ parents are in the room. The bag was given to the parent with a general warning to not let their children play with this craft unsupervised. The parachute man craft looked like this!

As I mentioned previously, I like to challenge my older kids who come. This week’s challenge was manual dexterity. Tying those little knots was hard for me 4-6 year olds. I encouraged each of them to try it on their own, and then ask for help when they needed it. This is a practice I always like to use in class because encouraging independence is really important to me, especially for my 4-6 year olds. Although many of these kids are in preschool, it won’t be long before they move into elementary school. It’s a good practice for the kid and their parent as well!

As I continue on my quest to ensure that my kids are loving the books I read, I think this week, I would get a barely passing grade. Tony Baloney by Pam Ryan is a great book about a little macaroni penguin that seems to always be getting into trouble. I picked it not only because it went with the theme, but also because I thought my kids could relate. Perhaps it was a bit too long for a read-aloud or maybe they just didn’t get it, but my parents seemed to be laughing more than the kids. That’s why I give it barely passing. At least someone enjoyed it, right?

Do you know how hard it is to find a good read-aloud about parachutes? Well, my library didn’t have one and I was kind of in a pickle, so I went a different route, airplanes! That’s right, airplanes! The kids and I first talked about how parachutes are an important part of airplanes and why airplanes need them to make passengers feel safe. This, however, segued nicely into my book, He Saves the Day by Marsha Hayles. A good little book about imagination, adventure, asking for help, my kids really enjoyed He Saves the Day.

It seems I always like to finish my blog posts with the new music we used that week. This week, I chose a really fun and exciting song that I have used in the past. If you have not heard of the Disney show “Phineas and Ferb” that you must be living under a rock! Phineas and Ferb are everywhere and I love one of the songs they sang on their show, “Gitchie Gitchie Goo!” It’s fun, upbeat, and catchy! Trust me when I say this song will be stuck in your head for days if not weeks!

The other song this week was more of an educational song. I have been using this song for a few weeks and decided it was time to create a video! Everyone knows the Addams Family theme song, right? Well, some GENIUS created a Days of the Week song to go with it! I love it and I hope you do too!

That's it! I'm done! I hope you enjoyed it! Next week is the letter Q.. oh boy! What am I going to do!?

O is for... Owls and Octopuses!

2012-01-27T10:59:00.000-08:00

First, let me start by saying yes, the plural form of octopus is octopuses according to the dictionary. I thought it seemed a bit funny, so I looked it up, just to make sure! Just for your personal information, the second plural form listed is octopi, which I like much better! OH well!

As you can see this week was all about the letter Oo, OKAY? OBVIOUSLY, we focused OUR attentions ON OWLS and OCTOPUSES! Look at all those Oo words! OUR letter craft for this week looked like this.

Materials: Index card with capital O, googly eyes, orange foam beak, and crayons

Front of card

Back of card

1) Color the capital O.

2) Trace the capital and lower case Oo on the back of the card.

3) Peel and stick the googly eyes and orange beak on the owl.

The second craft this week for my older kids was a lot of fun! With my older kids, I like to try to add something new and different. This week, our challenge was scissors. That’s right, I let 4-6 year olds use scissors. I have a bit of a luxury in my classes because their parents remain in the room with them. Thus if something like scissors becomes too difficult for the child, their parent is always there to help out if need be. I must say, however, that only one or two of my kids needed help. As mentioned previously, my kids are all about their independence! You can find out octopus craft here. As you can see from the picture below, we changed ours up just a bit. Instead of paint, we used markers. However, I think they still turned out pretty cute!

This isn't the one we made. Mine has gone missing!
But ours did come out looking like this!

So, what fun books did we read this week? The first book I picked was Frank Asch’s Bread and Honey. When I first picked this book, I wasn’t quite sure how my kids would like it. However, the premise of the book is quite funny and my kids laughed the whole way through it. There is also a great underlying moral to the story! I love when that happens.

For the octopus book, we read My Very Own Octopus by Bernard Most. Have you ever wanted and octopus for a pet? In this funny book by Most, he goes through the best parts of having an octopus. Can you imagine having a pet that can brush your hair, brush your teeth, and help you get dressed all at the same time? I think I would like a pet like that!

The last thing I always try to do is introduce “new” music to my kids. The week, I took the plunge and introduced a new alphabet letter strip song. For those of you who don’t know what I am talking about, in my classes we do an activity called the letter strip. This is just a long strip of paper, laminated, with clip art pictures of the letter and then a picture. My kids LOVE IT! When I don’t do it, they whine and groan and moan, so I have to! I have been using the same song for a little over a year, but I felt it was time to move on. You can see the old song at my YouTube channel here. The new song is the Richard Scarry Alphabet Song. It is a little bit different than my previous alphabet song, but after a couple of weeks, I think my kids and their parents will begin to love it as well.

As for other music, I also like to introduce my kids to kid-appropriate popular music. I am a HUGE fan of the oldies. I think playing the oldies is great because it gets both kid and parents engaged. This week’s blast from the past came in the form of “I’m Walking on Sunshine,” by Katrina and the Waves.

That seems to be all for this week. Next week we tackle the letter P. However, its Q that I am really worried about! EEK! Stay tuned in to see what we do!

N is for... Numbers and Noodles!

2012-01-20T11:51:00.000-08:00

Another week, another letter! This week’s letter was multi-faceted. As you can see from the video with Sammy the Toucan, as well as the blog title, this week wasn’t just about letters, but NUMBERS too! The mix of alphanumeric is always fun because kids often see these at different entities. Most of my kids who come to the library know their alphabet and their numbers. However, when I explained to them that when spelled out, numbers actually have letters in them, it blew their minds! Perhaps a little too in depth for 2-6 year olds!

This week’s craft looked a little something like this. Side note: not all of the letter N’s looked the same. I ran out of number stickers and had to improvise with glitter numbers!

Materials: Index card with capital N, number stickers, crayons

Front of card

Back of card

1) Color the capital N.

2) Trace the capital and lower case Nn on the back of the card.

3) Peel and stick those number stickers anywhere!

The second craft this week for my older kids was really fun! I always like to challenge this age group as much as possible. This week’s craft, noodle necklaces, really challenged my kids on their manual dexterity skills! It’s amazing how much hand-eye coordination is involved in string pasta on yarn. The other amazing thing to watch is how much age matters in some of these believed to be simple tasks. While my four year olds had a couple of problems, the five year olds were a little bit better, and most of the six year old needed little if any help.

Materials used.

The first few "beads" put on.

The finished product. I like patterns!

Styling up our penguin with a Noodle Necklace!

Noodle necklaces were fun because the kids were able to be creative. I gave each kid 12 pieces of pasta. Some shapes were dyed red, blue, green, purple, and orange. Although I did not personally do the dying (I used materials my library already had) there are a lot of great websites out there for how to dye the shapes. Click here for step-by-step instructions on how to dye pasta. My necklace turned out so great, that not one person commented or asked me why I was wearing a noodle necklace for two straight days! HA! One woman did tell me that she thought it looked like wooden beads so that might explain why!

In sticking with my New Year’s resolution, the books I chose for this week were very fun. For the numbers portion, I chose Bill Martin, Jr.’s Chicka Chicka 1,2,3. Its funny how many people know of the alphabet version of this book, but have never read this numbers version. One of the many reasons I chose this book is that it goes past 1-10 and on until 100. Although it doesn’t cover every number from 1-100 in the text, the last page does have all the numbers if you are looking for a great visual representation.

As for a pasta book, well, is there anything better than On Top of Spaghetti? Now I know that this book doesn’t expressly say “noodle,” however, spaghetti are noodles and this book allowed me to sing and read, which I love to do. There are many different version of this song out there in book form, but the one my library owns is the version written and illustrated by Paul Brett Johnson. Like I said, I love books that incorporate a song within the story. Not only did I get to sing and read, but there were lots of fun fake-sneezes going on as well!

I had a really great time this week finding a new numbers song as well as noodle song! When finding music, I always go through the list of CDs that my library offers first! Why buy music on iTunes when I can download from a CD my library already owns? I have been able to find a lot of great things that way, however, sometimes, I just have to bite the bullet and pay the $1.06 for a song I know my kids will love! That what I had to do for the “Numbers Rhumba” by the Wiggles! The song is very upbeat, educational, and great for teaching about not only numbers, but cultural music, too!

The other great song I found in my library is called the “Noodle Dance,” by Playhouse Disney! Now I admit that the noodle in this song is actually referring to your brain, but that works great too! I love explaining to kids how the same word can be used to mean different things. It’s almost like a light bulb moment when they understand! It’s great!

The "Noodle Dance" song starts at 2:08.

That seems to be it for this week! Next week we tackle the letter Pp. I can’t wait to hear what P-words my kids come up with! Hope to see you then!

M is for.. Mice and Mustaches!

2012-01-19T16:50:00.000-08:00

Welcome back! I hope the new year finds everyone healthy, wealthy, and above all, HAPPY! I always love that start of a new year. First of all, I always feel rejuvenated. There is something about taking a couple of weeks off between programs that really makes me appreciate what a great job I have. Second, the new year always bring new kids to my story time classes! Although I love my regulars who have attended my classes from the beginning, meeting new kids and their parents are always fun, too!

I don’t know about you, but the first week back to story time after a long break is always interesting. This year, it seemed as if 2012 brought my brand new kids! My shy kids were suddenly outgoing, my outgoing kids were suddenly shy. The kids who have been coming forever seemed to forget who I was! Once we got back into the normal routine, they all seemed to liven back up!

Just because it’s a new year does not mean I am changing gears in terms of our alphabet mission! I will continue with the letter-a-week theme until we get through the entire alphabet! This means that this week we conquered the letter Mm! There are lots of M-words, but I chose a simple one, mouse! EEEEKK! There are tons of great mice books in our library and I think the card looks so cute!

Materials: Index card with capital M, 2 googly eyes, pink pom-pom, pipe cleaner tail, and crayons

Front of card

Back of card

1) Color the capital L to look like a mouse

2) Trace the capital and lower case Mm on the back of the card.

3) Glue the eyes to the M. Glue the pop-pop on as the nose. Glue the tail on the bottom. Add whiskers and ears to complete your mouse!

As usual, I continued with a second craft for my 4-6 year olds. When I first started doing multiple craft with this age group, I thought it might be a bit too much. My main thought for doing a second craft was that it would really reinforce the alphabet letter of the week. Well, after one semester, I can honestly say I am glad that I did it. My kids love crafts. It is great to do the alphabet letter first and then the “fun, creative” craft second. Thus without further ado, the second letter Mm craft!

That’s right… MUSTACHES! How fun is that? All I did for this one was print mustaches on cardstock and cut them out. The kids then colored them however they wanted and finished by adding a craft stick! VOILA! A mustache!

My New Year’s resolution for story times was to start picking better books. I know that the books I pull every week are age appropriate and fun, however, my kids just aren’t responding to them the way I would like. Thus, for the next year, I am going to place a greater focus on picking books that I know they will love. I want to have a year full of book-laughter! Thus, this week I went with the following, Shout! Shout It Out! by Denise Fleming and Mustache! By Mac Bennett!

Fleming’s book is great for the 2-5 year old crowds because it involves a bit of call-and-response. I don’t know about your kids, however, the kids that come to my classes always have a case of the wiggles! This just gives them a good excuse to shout out the answers as I point to them. As for Barnett’s book, well, who doesn’t love a good book about mustaches? Especially when the whole plot revolves around drawing mustaches on pictures of the king?

Another thing I have decided to try to do this year is add a little more kid-friendly contemporary music! Songs for kids are great, but there are a lot of popular songs out there that can work well with my themes, too. Brian Setzer’s song, “Rockin’ at the House of Mouse,” fit the agenda easily! Was this a song written expressly for children? No! But does it work! FOR SURE! I was really excited to add this element and I hope I am able to continue to find great songs!

Sidenote: I had NO IDEA that this was the theme song for a Mickey Mouse show until I did this YouTube search!

Well, that seems to be it for this week's installment! If you haven't all ready, take a look at this week's video! Sammy and I had a lot of fun with out mustaches! Hope to see you next week when we cover the letter N! Any guess as to what it may be?

Special Christmas Edition!

2011-12-21T14:11:00.000-08:00

Merry Christmas! I absolutely love this holiday! It is my favorite! It is hard not to get excited when the kids come in all ready for Christmas! I think that I work with the best age group in regards to Christmas! Their ideas on Santa Claus, Rudolph, the elves and reindeer, as well as the North Pole never cease to amaze me!

This edition of the Explore to Learn: Early literacy blog is going to be a bit different. Instead of giving you step-by-step of what we did, I am going to put it in pictures! I will give you a few book, song, and craft suggestions!

Books

This book is great for younger children. I love counting
books and this book counts backwards. There are also some
great sound effects in this one!

Who doesn't love Ollie books? This book is also
great for a younger audience. They will have
no problem sitting through this one!

Pop-up! Say no more! I read this to a mixed ages
group with no problems at all!

Who doesn't love the "If You Give" mouse books?
I don't know a single good who doesn't giggle at
all the mischief this little mouth causes.

A holiday classic! If you haven't read this yet... DO! Although a
bit long, the pictures are beautiful and will keep your child's attention!

Everyone needs a good Christmas bedtime story, right?
This one is more about winter than Christmas,
butit is still a great tale.

Perhaps my kids favorite that I read. Anything by
Robert Sabuda is great! He takes this classic
and makes it so much fun with the pop-ups!

Need a book that covers Christmas and New Year's? This is it!
With great rhyming lines, you can't go wrong with this choice!

Crafts

Found here.

Music

This is the version of the song that I use every year!

Jingle Bells... this isn't the version I use, but how

cute is this video?!

We Wish You a Merry Christmas video.. GREAT FOR KIDS!

Well, that is it for 2011! Thanks for tuning in and we will see you in 20121 Have a safe and happy holidays from Miss Jaymi and the Mooresville Public Library!

Letter L: Ladybugs and Llamas

2011-12-21T11:48:00.000-08:00

Welcome back! It seems I have taken a mini-vacation, when in actuality; things have been so busy I haven’t had much time to blog! A couple of weeks ago we covered the letter Ll. This is a fairly easy letter in terms of finding books and crafts. Just off the top of my head you could do leaves, lions, letters, lights and lawyers. Ok, ok, that last one might be hard to create, but I promised a friend of mine from college who is almost finished with law school that he would make my blog during the letter L. Happy Benny? I, however, chose instead ladybugs and llamas

The ladybug letter craft was interesting this week. Although I had a couple of add-on parts, the bug and the antennae, I think what made this letter look the most like a ladybug was that I colored the letter L red and then put black dots all over.

Materials: Index card with capital L, red construction paper cut to look like a ladybug, pipe cleaner to look like antenna, and crayons

Front of card

Back of card

1) Color the capital L to look like a ladybug.

2) Trace the capital and lower case Ll on the back of the card.

3) Glue the lady to the letter L. Color black dots on the ladybug. Glue the antenna to the ladybug.

With the older kids, I created a craft out of thin air. I absolutely love the Llama,Llama books by Anna Dewdney, so I know we were going to create something with a llama. After a little internet research on what llamas look like, I ended up with this.

I free-handed the llama shape. I then gave each kid a bunch of cotton balls and had them glue them all over the llama to look like wool. I also gave each child one googly eye to put on their llama once all of their cotton balls were firmly glue down. Lastly, I put crayons out and if the kids wanted to, they could draw a scene behind their llama. Although the whole craft was fun, I especially liked the last part because it made each kid’s llama craft different.

Books this week were an easy pick! They were also really fun. I just happened to come upon the most perfect ladybug I could think of. Five Little Ladybugs by Karyn Henley was great because it was not only a story, but it is actually a finger play that I was able to teach to the parents. Anything that allows your parents something to take home is always an added bonus in my book! This book was also perfect because although it starts out spring-looking, it actually ends in SNOW! Which living in Indiana in December means that we tend to get lots of snow, except this year! I am not complaining, but my kids are!

As mentioned, the books I chose for the four to six year olds was from the Llama, Llama series by Anna Dewdney. I really wanted to read the Christmas book, however, I waited too long and it was checked out. So I went with Llama Llama Mad at Mama. This. Book. Is. Hilarious! I have read a few others of Dewdney’s, however, I have somehow missed out on this one. What a shame because I think every person, man, woman, and child, can relate to this book! Can you tell that I loved it and would highly recommend it?

Music this week was the same as it’s been the past couple of weeks. I did add a new song called, “Action Dance,” by Kate Kuper and Neal Robinson. My 2-6 year olds loved this song so much they asked to do it again! Don’t you love when that happens? This song and many of her others can be purchased on iTunes.

That seems to be all for this installment! Next time we will celebrate my absolute favorite holiday, CHRISTMAS! Come back for some great Christmas ideas!

Letter Kk: Kites and More Kites!

2011-12-05T08:41:00.000-08:00

Welcome back! Sammy the Toucan finally gave me my camera back; however, I had to promise him that I would promote his Victorian Christmas PSA. There Sammy, are you happy?

I know that we have been on bit of a break, but now that we are back into the swing of things, let me introduce the letter of the week- Kk! Kk is one of those letters that lends it to many proper names; at least it seems that was all my four to six year olds could think of. When I asked them words that start with Kk, I received, “Kate, Katie, Katherine, Kalyn, Kelsey, and Kennedy.” Haha, I just love the way kids’ brains work. I did, however, get kite and kids, also with a little prompting, koala.

My kids were at able to at least get this week’s theme: Kites! Below is the alphabet card of the week.

Materials: Index card with capital K, string, construction paper diamonds, crayons, and glue stick

Front of card

Back of card

1) Color the capital K.

2) Trace the capital and lower case Kk on the back of the card.

3) Glue the string to the kites.

4) Glue the kites to the card. Glue the knot of the string to the card!

5) Add the letter K the other completed alphabet cards!

As for the second craft for the four to six year olds, I continued with our kite theme. Just like the kids when I asked them for “K” words, I had a hard time find other “K” crafts that I liked. I thought about doing something with kittens, but everything I thought was cute and creative was either a bit too hard for the kids, or required too much time. Thus, we ended up making kites out of cardstock, string, and crepe paper. Although minimal in resources and prep time, the kids really seemed to enjoy being able to color and decorate their kite however they wanted.

As mentioned before, my four to six year olds are ALL ABOUT their independence! I cannot tell you how many times a class I hear, “No Mom, I can do that by myself!” I always encourage the kids to try the crafts on their own, but also remind them that it is okay to ask for help. This kite craft was great because it required little assistance from the parents, which, in turn, really helped the kids’ self-esteem and sense of accomplishment. Below is the finished craft that I created. Needless to say, the kids' kites were MUCH more decorated than mine.

I had a really good time picking out kite books this week. I was a bit worried that finding a book solely about a kite would be hard, but I ended up finding a gem of a book called, Gilberto and the Wind by Marie Hall Ets. First let me start by saying this book is OLD, which is why I love it! Kids these days are inundated with so many colors, pictures, and words, I thought it might be nice to show books with simpler illustrations. Although a big long, this book lends itself to skipping a page here or there without ever losing the plot of the story.

As for the second book for the Story Time kids, I had ulterior motives in choosing this title. This week, my library received THREE “Flat Stanleys” from a friend of mine who teaches school in Lithuania. Cauli, our roving reporter, received a friend and blogged about their adventures here. In order to introduce Geidre, my “Flat Stanley,” to the class, as well as continue with the letter K, I chose the book, Thank You, World by Alice B. McGinty. You can use this book for many themes, however, I liked the fact that it not only had kites in it, but also allowed for me to discuss with the kids Flat Geidre and that she came overseas from another country.

Look for Flat Geidre in our video this week. I also posted a few pictures below of some of the adventures Geidre went on. This mostly included things we do during Story Time!

Geidre likes to listen to music on the library iPod.

Can you find Geidre in the toy box?

Geidre made the craft this week! It was perfect size for her!

HO HO HO! Look who Geidre got to meet?

Music this week was fun, fun, fun! Because it’s December, I could care less if my music goes with the letter theme for the week, it is all CHRISTMAS music ALL THE TIME! I am a stickler for the Polar Express Soundtrack, so my kids blow bubbles to it throughout all of December. I also use a song from the Seasons and Celebrations CD by Kidzup Educational Music appropriately titled, “Winter.” Both of these music videos below I found on YouTube.
Lastly, I always try to introduce the kids to one new song a month that covers basic knowledge skills for preschoolers. This may be a number, alphabet, color, or body awareness song. However, this week, I found a fantastic shapes song by Parachute Express on the CD Sunny Side Up called, “The Shapes Game.” I actually had a little bit of time, so I created the video below! I hope you enjoy it!

"When Christmas Comes to Town"

on the Polar Express Soundtrack.

"Winter" by Kidzup Educational Music.

"The Shapes Game" by Parachute Express.

Well, that seems to be for this installment of Explore to Learn. Next week will be our last letter update for the year. After that, I will have my much anticipated Christmas Story Time followed by a few weeks of break, which really just means planning everything for January through May. Stay tuned next week to see what happens! Thanks for stopping by!

Victorian Christmas Celebration!

2011-12-01T12:30:00.000-08:00

Sammy the Toucan hijacked my camera(wo)man and made a video of his own this week! We hope you enjoy it!

The Mooresville Public Library and Silly Safaris

proudly presents:

ANIMALS OF THE NORTH POLE!

Bring your whole family out for this fun and educational event. The Mooresville Public Library is just one of many stops during the Victorian Christmas Celebration!

For a complete list of events, visit here.

Sammy and I hope you and your family have

a very merry Christmas!

Thankful Thanksgiving!

2011-11-17T16:25:00.000-08:00

Well, Sammy the Toucan was feeling a little under the weather this week, so I gave him the week off. I tried to get Cauli Le Chat, the MPL roving reporter to help out, however, I couldn’t find him anywhere! He must have been out looking for the next big story!

Although there will not be a video this week, Sammy was kind enough to send me this picture! Just proves that you can take the bird out of the library, but you can’t take the library out of the bird!

Sammy wants to wish everyone a Happy Thanksgiving!
He is really sorry he couldn't make the video this week. :(

P.S. Isn’t Sammy festive in his pilgrim hat?

This week was an extra special week here at the Mooresville Public Library. I always like to incorporate the holidays into my story times when possible, and Thanksgiving is no exception. Although a big Halloween and Christmas fan, something about Thanksgiving always gets me excited. I personally love Thanksgiving because it is all about spending time with family, and who doesn’t love that?

For special holiday-themed story times, I like to forgo the alphabet letter-of-the-week and create a special craft. Remember, though, I usually see between 60 to 75 kids a week so this can lead to lots of crafting. The internet is FILLED with tons of great crafts for small kids but I always have to make sure that it isn’t too labor intensive since I have to be able to produce in mass quantity. There were so many great Thanksgiving crafts online I had a hard time picking just one. However, I decided to go with a fairly easy one, reminiscent of the pumpkin crafts we made for Halloween.

I created a turkey out of colorful butcher paper.

I then gave each kid a feather. On it was a line for the child’s name then the phrase “is thankful for…”

I asked each kid to write their name on the feather then have their adult write down what they are thankful for this Thanksgiving season. Each kid then placed their feather on the turkey and I used them to decorate the library.

Some of the kids’ answers were pretty priceless! I had one little six year old girl who said, “Miss Jaymi, Miss Jaymi, Miss Jaymi! I am thankful for clothes because without them…we would be NAKED!” I can’t make this stuff up!

As for my four to six year old class, I taught them a Thanksgiving classic… turkeys made from tracing your hand! This was so much fun and so easy! The kids loved that they were able to create a craft that required little, if any, help from the adult they came with! I am all for independence and was glad I was able to encourage not only that, but also ensure that each kid was able to creatively make their turkey however they wanted to! Below is the turkey I made this year!

As for books, well, if you have ever tried to pick out a book for Thanksgiving you understand that this can be a daunting task. For one, most books are too long for the attention span of a two to six year old. For another, as a public institution, I have to make sure to stay away from anything faith-based. Lastly, I would love to include some of the historical reasons as to why we celebrate Thanksgiving, but an exciting book on the history of Thanksgiving just doesn’t exist, at least that I can find. However, I did find a few that I like.

My kids loved this book. It is really great for being able
to help kids count backwards!

How many things can this old lady eat?
My kids loved the repetitive line, "perhaps she'll die!"

A little bit long for younger kids, but perfect for Kindergarten age!
My kids really enjoy this one so I read it year after year.

I tried something different this year and read this short
book to my Baby Time class. It reminds us to be thankful
for everything we have.

Written just like the Christmas classic, this book, once again, may
be too long for some of your littler kids.

This book is great. You just have to read it to understand
why the kids love it so much! Hint, hint.. there's a surprise ending!

Music for Thanksgiving, however, is never difficult to find. The only problem that I usually run into is making sure that the songs aren’t too slow. My kids love upbeat music, especially when bouncing the parachute. Below is a video that I didn't create, however, it is the song I always use! Its catchy and quick and is sure to get stuck in your head!

I just want to finish this post by listing a few things that I am thankful for. Thanksgiving is a time to be thankful for everything that we have. I am thankful for my family, friends, and health. I am also thankful that I work in such a great place that allows me such freedom in my programs, as well as the opportunity to share my ideas with the world. Lastly, I want to thank everyone who reads this blog. I hope that I am able to help you just a little bit.
Ok, enough mushy stuff! I hope you tune in next time as we will return to our regular programming!

Letter Jj: Jewels, Jellyfish, and JAYMI!

2011-11-17T14:20:00.000-08:00

Well, this week we covered my absolute favorite letter, Jj! Now you may ask why this is my favorite letter. It’s my first initial, duh! This week was all about jewels, jellyfish, and me, JAYMI! Ok, not really on the last one, but we did do crafts and books on jewels and jellyfish. The only one really interested in J is for Jaymi was Sammy the Toucan, who sported a few “I love Miss Jaymi” buttons all day.

If I had it my way, the kids would have decorated the letter Jj flashcard with lots of pictures of… ME! Or as Cauli, our MPL roving reporter would say, “MOI!” However, I thought that may be a tad bit overboard, so I decided to go with Jj is for jewels. My library has a lot of crafty materials lying around and I knew this would be quick, easy, and fun!

Materials: Letter J flashcard, sequins or jewels, glue dots, crayons

Front of card

Back of card

1) Color the letter J.

2) Trace capital and lowercase J on the back of the card. Cover your J in beautiful jewels and sequins!

The other craft for this week was something I just made up on a whim. Now I am sure that someone, somewhere, already put this online, but oh well. I was pretty proud of this craft considering it used all materials we already had at the library. Can you guess what Jj craft this might be?

Materials: Plastic bag, cotton balls, rubber band, googly eyes, cut-out of a fish

1) Cut plastic bag into square. Make slits in the side to create “tentacles.” Fluff up cotton balls. Place in middle of plastic bag.

3) Tie rubber band around jellyfish to create a head.

4) Attach googly eyes to the head and the fish to the tentacles.

TA DA! A cheap and easy jellyfish with materials you probably have lying around your house!

For those of you who have been keeping up on my posts, you know that picking books for Story Time has been a struggle for me lately. I always try to keep in mind what kinds of things my kids are interested in as well as what will help reiterate my theme, however, I just can’t seem to pick books that my kids like as much as I do. I got luck this week. I chose two GREAT books that my kids seemed to love.

Jewel books are a bit hard to come by. I really wanted to find a book about kings or queens that discussed jeweled tiaras or rings, however, that just wasn’t happening. I ended up going with a book called Bat Jamboree by Kathi Appelt. Although it had NOTHING to do with jewels, jamboree is a pretty great Jj word and my kids really enjoyed the book. Who doesn’t love a book that ends with the pun, “The spotlight will shin on that six-story screen. And the show won’t be over till the bat lady sings.”

As for a jellyfish book, I went with a pretty well-known book. I’m the Biggest Thing in the Ocean by Kevin Sherry is one that I have read before. The kids I read it to then seemed to enjoy it so I figured it couldn’t hurt to try it again. I am glad that I did. There are all kinds of creatures that you can talk about and discuss with the kids, not just the jellyfish. I was really impressed with all of the sea animals my kids knew about. I would definitely recommend this book!

This week, in Story Time, I moved on to the last installment of the alphabet song. Below is the video for the “Q-Z Alphabet Song” by Kidzup Educational Music. I have had quite a few parents tell me they really like having access to these songs because they are able to not only use the song, but also discuss the different sounds a letter can make.

"Q-Z Alphabet Song" by Kidzup Educational Music.

This song can be purchased from iTunes.

That seems to be it for this week's installment. I hope you were as excited about the letter Jj as I was. Next week we will have another extra special installment in order to celebrate an upcoming holiday! Hope to see you then!

I is for... Iguanas and Igloos! BRRRRR!

2011-11-07T10:11:00.000-08:00

Who knew the letter Ii could be so difficult? Of course, when most of us think about the letter Ii, we immediately think of ice, ice cream, ice trucks… you get the picture. Another word that may come to mind is iguana, but can you think of anything after that? Of course there is always interesting, interrogate, and other words that start with Ii but have little or no meaning to a four year old! I was highly IMPRESSED with a 3 year old who exclaimed IGUANADON, in which I had to then ask him, “That’s a dinosaur, right?” Nothing like being outsmarted by one of the kids! J

My safest bet this week was to go with iguana. I figured that most of my kids would know what an iguana was and I even had a really good book to go with it. Ever heard of a gem of a book called I Wanna Iguana by Karen Kaufman Orloff? Normally, I would NEVER promote a book that uses improper grammar, however, this one was just too cute that I couldn’t resist. At least I thought it was cute. To continue on with my streak of pulling subpar books, my kids just didn’t seem to think this one was as funny as I did. The material may have been a little too long for my younger kids and some of the joke may have been too subtle, but I just couldn’t pass it up. This book had me in side-splitting laughter, my kids, however, thought it was a big YAWN! Oh well, you win some, you lose some.

My other book choice this week, for the four to six year old, was all about igloos. There is just something so mysterious about igloos that even if you are reading a non-fiction book, the kids just love it. I like to try to add in a little non-fiction every now and then. It is great to mix things up, but also because it exposes children to literature outside of the everyday picture book. My kids at the library love non-fiction, as long as it is minimal and about a topic they are interested in, so I knew igloos would be great. The book The Inside Story: Igloo by Dana Meachen Rau is a great book filled not only with a lot of age-appropriate information, but some pretty awesome photos too. I didn’t even need to read the words for my kids to be enthralled. We flipped through the pictures and the kids asked questions based on what they saw. Sometimes it’s fun to stray from the norm.

My letter flash card this week was a cute one. Although not necessarily a well-known critter, when I explained to the kids that an iguana is kind of like a lizard, they were all onboard to create the creature. What is it with creepy-crawly ways, what kid wouldn’t love an iguana? Below is what our little Ii iguana looked like. Although it required quite a bit of cutting and glue dots in preparation, the kids loved it.

Materials: Letter I flash card, 2 goggle eyes, green cardstock, red cardstock, and crayons

Front of Card

Back of Card

1) Cut the green card stock to create a semi-circle, three triangles, and a tail. Apply to glue dots.

2) Cut the red card stock to create the tongue. Apply to glue dots.

3) Color the letter Ii to resemble an iguana.

4) Trace the capital and lowercase Ii on the back.

5) Attach the green and red cardstock pieces. The semi-circle is the head. The three triangles form the spikes on the back. Place the googly eyes on the head. Stick on the tongue and the tail.

As for my igloo craft, well, I took things back a bit. I don’t know what it is about stickers, but my kids love them. Maybe it is the sense of independence they like, considering they need little to no help in using stickers. So this week, I cut out an igloo shape from construction paper. Then, being that I work in a library, I used spine labels cut in half to create the ice blocks of the igloo. I gave each kid a couple of rows of “blocks,” and had them stick away! They loved it because it was easy and they had no instructions to follow, and I liked it because the preparation work was simple! Nothing like a win-win situation!

Materials: Black construction paper cut out of an igloo and white labels

1) Attach labels to igloo! Remind kids not to cover the "entrance."

2) If you want to get extra crafty, create a snow scene and glue the igloo to it.

This week’s music included one of my favorite songs. I like to rotate music as much as I can; however, “Knees Up Mother Brown” on the CD 30 Playtime Songs always seems to make it back into the rotation. I also downloaded an iguana song this week from iTunes. “The Green Iguana Bellyflop” by Brent Holmes has a great Caribbean feel to it which is especially nice considering the weather here in Indiana is starting to cool down. Anything to make it feel a bit “warmer” is fine by me.

"Knees Up Mother Brown" performed by Raffi!

"The Green Iguana Bellyflop" performed by Brent Holmes.

Well, I think that is it for this week. Stay tuned next week for the letter Jj. This is an extra special letter for me and Sammy may just be sporting an extra special accessory!

A Halloween SPOOK-TACULAR!

2011-10-28T08:43:00.000-07:00

“This is Halloween! This is Halloween!” Have I told you lately that I absolutely love Halloween! Although Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas is not one of my favorite movies, the music from this movie always seems to get stuck in my head right before Halloween! Halloween music is one of my favorite things about Halloween, besides the candy and dressing up! This year, I chose to use some classics including “Monster Mash,” “Witch Doctor,” and the “Munsters Theme Song." I also had a request for the "A-H Alphabet Song" by Kidzup Educational Music, so I went ahead and made a video for it as
well.

Munsters Theme Song
This song can be purchased on iTunes.

                                    A-H Alphabet Song by Kidzup Educational Music
                                         This song can be purchased on iTunes.

As mentioned last week, this week’s theme was letter-inspired, but HALLOWEEN-inspired! I always like to do a little something special for the holidays, and Halloween is just so fun that it is hard to pass up having a big celebration. One of my favorite things that we do for Halloween is to invite all of the kids to come in their costumes! This year I had a wide-range of characters including a baby Frankenstein, all of the Disney princesses, Little Red Riding Hood and the Big Bad Wolf, as well as a few Spidermans, a couple of Iron Mans, and one awesome Bat Man! My favorite? Well that probably belongs to a little boy whose mom made him dress up as a monkey. If looks could kill, well, I think Q’s mom would be dead!

On special Story Time days, I like to do things a bit different. We don’t focus as much on “education” as much as we do on fun. I will still do a couple of songs that may include body awareness or actions to get the wiggles out, but mostly I focus on how much of the holiday I can put into that day.

This year, in lieu of a craft, I had my kids break up into teams of three and make a jack-o-lantern. I created large pumpkins, and then cut out different facial pieces. The kids then had to figure out what piece of the pumpkin they had, and then glue it to the pumpkin. This was fun because not only did it incorporate recognizing facial features as well as the teamwork component, but really, the beauty of the pumpkins came from the fact that no pumpkin was the same. Below are a few pictures of our “Picasso-like” pumpkins. I love them and used them all to decorate the library.

Although I decided to go with the group pumpkins this year, I did come across a few great crafts that I thought might be fun! I hope you enjoy some of my favorites!

Pumpkin and Ghost string decorations found here.

Cheesestick fingers? It doesn't get much better than that. Found here.

A health Halloween option! Found here.

Besides a craft, I also like to give out a little edible treat. I have discovered that “baby” cupcakes, or mini-cupcakes, are the best treat for this age group. They are able to eat them quickly without getting too full. One thing to note… always be aware of food allergies. I do have one little girl with an egg allergy. Her mother offered to bring her own snack for that day and it was greatly appreciated!

What’s Halloween without a couple of great Halloween books? This year, I chose to read one of my favorites, 10 Trick or Treaters by Janet Schulman. This book is one of my go-to books when it comes to Halloween. I really like that you can make it as scary as you want while also giving the “education” component of counting numbers. This book is also great because it isn’t your standard “count to ten” book, instead of going from one to ten; it starts at ten and counts backwards.

Another great Halloween book is Sheep Trick or Treat by Nancy Shaw. My story time kids love all of the Sheep books by Nancy Shaw, so I knew this one would win them over as well. I love the creativity of the sheep and even ask the kids what costumes they would create if they could. My kids never cease to amaze me with their over-the-top answers!

Halloween this year seemed to be really successful. The kids especially liked the end surprise, a GOODY BAG for everyone! With the 2-6 year olds, I usually give the typical Halloween fare: candy, bubbles, rings, stickers, etc. But for some reason, I am always stumped on what to give babies. I thought I might put out a few suggestions for those of you who are just as clueless as I am . This year, my babies got a wiffle ball, a sticker, a Dum-Dum sucker, a board book, and a sippy cup. Now I know the Dum-Dum may not be appropriate for every child, but as long as you forewarn the parents of what is in the bag, then I feel it’s ok to throw it in.

That seems to be all for this extra SPOOKTACULAR installment. Although I love my special Story Time, getting back into the normal swing of things is nice too! Please come back next week as we continue on our letter-a-week journey with the letter Ii.

H is for... HEARTS and HALLOWEEN!

2011-10-20T16:44:00.000-07:00

It’s a well-known fact that after Christmas, Halloween is my absolute favorite holiday. I hate being spooked, but there’s just something about dressing up and getting candy that is just so much fun. So, boy was I excited when I figured out that the letter Hh would be close to Halloween! How could I not cover Halloween with the letter Hh? However, for my flashcard, I went a more generic route so that the kids and their parents could use them long into the future if they want to.

When I start my flashcard craft for each week, I always like to do a quick little Google search for some inspiration. This week, I saw the letter H turned into a house, a horse, a hippo, and hands used to form the H. All of those are pretty great, however, I have a group of kids that LOVE stickers. I am always grateful for my sticker-loving kids because when I am having a hard time thinking of a craft, all I have to do is find some great stickers, create a simple background scene, and my kids are perfect happy. So what better way is there to incorporate stickers into a craft than to give each kid a sheet of heart stickers and let them stick until their heart’ content. Thus, our craft this week looked a little something like this.

Materials: Capital letter H drawn on an index card, foam hearts on glue dots, and crayons

Back Side of Card

1) Trace the capital and lower case Hh on the backside of the card.

2) Color the letter H then STICK AWAY! My kids got a little creative here. Some used the hearts on the front, as intended, while others used the hearts to outline the letters on the back. I love it when my kids think of something that I haven’t!

3) Place letter Hh on the binder clip with the letters Aa, Bb, Cc, Dd, Ee, Ff, and Gg.

Normally, I do not have a hard time finding great read-aloud books that I know my kids will like. Lately, I have been STRIKING OUT! Last week’s giraffe book was a bit of a bust, and I had that same problem this week. It was a little bit difficult finding a good book about hearts that wasn’t related to Valentine’s Day. Thus, I went with the book, In My Heart by Molly Bang. I thought this book was sweet, thought-provoking, and loving. My kids thought it was a bit slow and lacked excitement. My suggestion? This book would be great for a mom/dad/grandma/grandpa/aunt/uncle to read in a one-on-one situation, however, as a group of about 20, the message doesn’t really come across clearly.

Halloween books, on the other hand, there are so many great ones it’s hard to pick just one to read. This week, I went with a fairly new book that I knew none of my kids had read. The 13 Nights of Halloween by Guy Vasilovch is really funny, a bit creepy, and filled with lots of fantastic drawings. This book is really fun because you can sing it to the tune of “The Twelve Days of Christmas.” In fact, it’s kind of hard not to. I gave my kids the line “5 Singing Skulls,” and boy did the love to shout it out!

As for our Halloween craft, I strayed just a little bit and went a “Five Little Pumpkins” craft. Does it have to do with Halloween? Eh, pumpkins remind me of Halloween, so why not? Plus, our fun Halloween craft will be next week when my library has our annual Halloween Story Time! In order to get a complete list of instructions, go here. I didn’t follow the instructions exactly, however, below you can see a picture of what ours looked like. The biggest thing that I added was print-out of the poem on the back so that the kids and their parents could recite it at home whenever they want. Reading and a craft?! Woo Hoo!
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Front side of the "Five Little Pumkins" Craft.

Back side of the craft and the poem the craft is based on.

I like to finish these blog posts with the music that I have been using over the past couple of weeks. I am a Windows Moviemaker novice, and while making these music videos can be fun, there is quite a bit of frustration at the same time. I just hope they keep getting better the more I learn. Below are a couple more songs that my kids absolutely love. “If You’re Happy and You Know It,” is a classic, however, I like this version because it’s just a tad bit different. Watch and listen to see if you can find the differences.
*** Due to some technical difficulties, this video has been removed. Please visit the following link to see this video.

"If You're Happy and You Know It"

The same can also be said for another favorite, “The Itsy Bitsy Spider.” Just like “If You’re Happy and You Know It,” this one also has a bit of twist that my babies tend to go wild for. Watch and listen and I’m sure you can figure out how this one became a quick favorite among my kids.

"The Itsy Bitsy Spider"

by Hap Palmer.

This song can be purchased on iTunes.

Well, I think that is it for now. Did I mention that next week is Halloween at our library? Maybe once or twice? I cannot wait! The kids are always so cute in their costumes and it’s hard not to have fun when everyone is so excited. I can’t wait to post pictures of my costume, but first I have to figure out what I am going to be! Stay tuned for next week to see what I come up with!

G is for... GIRAFFES and GHOSTS!

2011-10-14T10:45:00.000-07:00

Things are starting to get a little spooky this week at the Mooresville Public Library. Our volunteers did a GREAT job getting all of our decorations up for Halloween, but that isn’t the only thing causing a scare. This week, we covered ghosts….BOO! The letter Gg fell at a great time considering it is almost Halloween and what better way to ring in the letter Gg than with a ghost craft and story! It was GHOULISHLY GREAT and I am GEARED up to show you all about it, but let’s first begin with our flashcard of the week.

I love giraffes! There is something so magical about a creature with an extremely long neck. However, did you know that a giraffe has the same number of cervical vertebrae (or neck bones) as humans? We each have seven, though a giraffes are MUCH LARGER! Just a little tidbit of information in case it ever comes up on Jeopardy! I found an adorable letter G giraffe this week that I just had to use. Although I do like trying to free-hand my letters, this week, in order to make sure it was dead on and looked like a giraffe, I traced it. What do you think? Cute, huh?

Materials: Letter G card, crayons, washable paint, Q-Tip, googly eye

Back Side of Card

1) Color the letter G to make it look like a giraffe. Place the googly eye on the giraffe.

2) Trace the capital and lower case Gg on the back side of the card.

3) With your Q-Tip, paint orange dots on the giraffe to create his spots.

4) Let dry then place on your ring with letters, Aa, Bb, Cc, Dd, Ee, and Ff.

I had a bit of a hard time finding a good giraffe book this week. Although my library had quite a few to pick from, they all seemed to be a bit long and not very entertaining as read-alouds go. So I went with a personal favorite, Shel Silverstein’s A Giraffe and a Half. Although a bit long, this book lends itself to being cut down just a bit. It was quite easy to cut out a few pages but still keep the drift of the book. I read this to my Tuesday 2s and 3s Class and to say it did not go well would be an understatement. Although quite funny, I think the subtlety in the jokes were a little over the head of my poor 2 and 3 year olds.

So I made a quick change before my Wednesday classes and I came up with Carlo Likes Colors by Jessica Spanyol. This book, though not necessarily a great story, was fantastic for discussing colors and objects that fall into those color categories. This book seemed to go over much better with the 2 and 3 year old crowd. I think they especially liked it because they were able to yell out answers about the colors and let’s be honest, what kid doesn’t like to yell out answers?

As previously mentioned, I went with a ghost theme for my four to six year old class. I knew I wanted to do ghosts because it is so close to Halloween, however, I did not want to read a Halloween book just yet. After a quick little search for “ghosts,” I found the perfect book for my needs. Zee is Not Scared by Michael Gay is a terrific book to talk about ghosts, but not necessarily Halloween. I don’t want to ruin it, but I might add that this book has the potential to give your kids a bad idea when it comes to scaring their parents! J My kids loved this book. It was suspenseful in just the right spots, funny in the right spot, and even has some feel-good parent love at the end. I don’t think it can get much better than that!

Going into a ghost craft I thought it couldn’t be that hard to find something that is easy, mass producible, and fun. Boy was I wrong. Everything that I wanted to make was too messy, too advanced, or not easily made for a class of twenty! That was until I found the PERFECT craft for kids. Wait for it… GLUE GHOSTS! That’s right… GLUE GHOSTS! What kid do you know that doesn’t like to squeeze all of the glue out and make big puddles of it? Well, that was EXACTLY the point of this craft. All you need is wax paper and glue. If you want to get a little more festive, add googly eyes and some felt. For complete step-by-step instructions, go here. Also, take a look at my video too see the glue ghost I created.

As I mentioned in last week’s post, my new goal for this blog is to post two new music videos a week. This week I have chosen a couple of my classes absolute favorites, The Numbers Jump and Open, Shut Them. I don’t know about you, but my kids go crazy when they hear these two songs. I have played them both so much over the past two years that I have slowly been trying to weed them out, however, it’s impossible when the kids come in requesting these songs. I hope you can get as much use from these songs as I have.

The Numbers Jump by Wonder Choir

Open, Shut Them by Hap Palmer

Well, that's it for the letter Gg. I hope I gave you some pretty great ideas that hopefully you can use with your own kids. As usual, feel free to leave me a message if you have any questions, comments, or even ideas! I am always looking for the next great craft! Next week, we tackle Hh!

F is for... FROGS and FIRE!!

2011-10-06T16:31:00.000-07:00

FIRE! FIRE! FIRE! No, don’t worry; the Mooresville Public Library isn’t on fire. Next week, October 9-15 is Fire Safety Week! We take fire safety VERY SERIOUS here at MPL, however, it fit better with my letter-a-week theme to do fire safety this week, since fire begins with an Ff.

The sticker I gave each child. This was donated to MPL by the Mooresville Fire Department.

I have done fire safety with my story time classes for two years. Although it is never too early to talk to your child about fire safety, I decided to focus on fire safety just with my four to six year old class. I was amazed how many children knew the emergency number 9-1-1. I was proud that almost every child in the room knew what to do if their clothes caught fire; STOP, DROP, and ROLL! Every child knew that fire can be very dangerous and that only adults should handle fire if it is necessary.

Though I normally like to begin my posts with the craft I chose, I think in the case of fire safety, I might start with my book choice. Fire safety books can be difficult read-alouds. Most of the time, the information is fantastic, however, the story line, not-so-much. This week, I read Dot the Fire Dog by Lisa Desimni.

This book was a great read-aloud because it was short and to the point. It was more about a firehouse and what goes on there. I enjoyed this book because we were able to discuss such things as why firemen wear protective gear and what the purpose of each piece is. We talked about why a dog is useful to have in a firehouse. And lastly, we discussed what qualities it takes to become a fireman. So not only did we talk about fire safety, but the importance of having firemen in general. I am also posting a couple other books that might be good read-alouds to help discuss fire safety.

My craft for fire safety week was meant to allow the kids creative juices to flow. The idea came from a craft project I saw here. I cut out the pieces to create a fire truck out of construction paper. With these pieces we were able to talk about colors and shapes. Once they had the fire truck pieces glued down, then I had them draw whatever they wanted. Some of my kids drew the fire truck going to a burning building, while others just drew a huge fire. Some didn’t draw fire at all, but opted for rainbows, puppies, and kitties. Like I said, I didn’t care what they kids drew, as long as they were being creative. In my video with Sammy the Toucan, you can see the picture I drew. Like the kids, I got a little carried away with my fire!

The picture I drew as an example.

As for my two and three year olds, we continued with the alphabet flash cards. This week, we turned the letter F into a frog. Now I know what you are thinking, how do we do that? Well, just like last week, it is not always necessary to have to turn the letter into the object. This week, all we did was cut out two frog arms, two frog legs, and two black eyes. The kids colored the letter F, traced the uppercase and lowercase letters on the back, then placed the arms, legs, and eyes on the F. VOILA! A jumping frog! (For those of you who may be interested in how we get the pieces to stick, my library has a fantastic supply of glue dots! You can get them at any craft supply store in the scrapbooking aisle. They are great for small children because all they have to do is peel off the back and stick it on!)

Materials: Letter F drawn on an index card, crayons, two green frog legs, two green frog arms, 2 black dots for the eyes

Back side of card

1) Color the letter F. Place eyes, arms, and legs as if to make it look like a leaping frog.

2) Trace the capital and lowercase Ff on the back of the card.

NOTE: Remember, if your child cannot do this, help them trace by guiding their hand. DO NOT do it for them. Also, pay close attention to your child's grip on the crayon. Encourage them to hold the crayon as if they were writing.

3) Add the letter F to the other letters.

The book I read to the two and three year old this week was a FABULOUS pick. I will definitely be reading this one again in the near future. Jump! by Steve Lavis is what I refer to as an “action book.” The book gives action directions to the kids that include, marching, dancing, clapping, and roaring! Do you know how much fun it is to listen to fifteen, two and three year olds roar as loud as they can! It is hilarious! I would highly recommend this book especially if you have a class full of movers and shakers!

After writing six blog posts, I have decided that I need to improve my music suggestions. I think that my book and craft suggestions are fairly on point and creative, but my music is a bit lacking. Music is an integral part of me story times, however, I think I need to make a bigger deal of how important it really is. My last post mentioned my recent Every Child Ready to Read training and the importance of the new five practices: TALKING, SINGING, READING, talking, singing, reading, writing, playing. How am I supposed to express how important these practices are if I am not discussing the importance of music and singing in my blog posts? So, here’s a quick list of my favorite music.

This week, since we focused on frogs, I used the classic “5 Green and Speckled Frogs.” There are many different versions to this song, but I chose the one that was most upbeat and fun. Once again, I used this song to play with the parachute and although I did not have a frog to bounce, we opted for another animal that begins with an Ff, Fish! I do however, use other songs each week. Songs I chose to use for the month of October include…

1) I-P Alphabet Song by Kidzup Educational Music

2) Jump Up, Turn Around by Jim Gill

3) Spunky Spider by Jane Murphy

4) I Love Bugs! by Jane Murphy

5) Clap Your Hands Just Like Me by Tumble Tots

6) Numbers Jump by Wonder Choir

7) Itsy Bitsy Spider by Hap Palmer

8) The Animal Alphabet by Twin Sisters Production

My goal throughout the month of October is to post two song videos per each post, thus, by the end of Ocotber, you will have a video for each of the songs I list above. Now, I am the one making these videos on Windows Movie Maker. I am a movie maker novice, so bear with me. Hopefully as the month progresses, my videos will get better and better. Thus, let me present, my first two music videos EVER!

This is the I-P Alphabet Song by Kidzup Educational Music.

This song is available for purchase on iTunes.

This is the Animal Alphabet song, a Twin Sisters Production.

This song is available for purchase on iTunes.

Well, I think that is it for this week. I hope you enjoyed this week’s post about the letter Ff. Don’t forget that next week is FIRE SAFETY WEEK! It really is important and everyone should take just a little bit of time to talk about it with their kids. As usual, if you have any questions, comments, or concerns, feel free to leave me a message! I love getting comments almost as much as I love getting snail mail!

E is for... EGG and ELEPHANT!

2011-10-03T14:16:00.000-07:00

It’s been another crazy week at Mooresville Public Library. I love working in a

fast-paced environment because you never know what you are going to walk into on any given day. This week alone I saw 65 Kindergarteners for a pre-field trip story time, 70 second graders for a library tour, and 80 children between the ages of newborn to six years old for regular weekly Story Time. And if all that wasn’t enough, I also got to attend a seminar at my library about the new and improved Every Child Ready to Read 2.0! I am exhausted just thinking about it. Let’s get going on what we did this week at Story Time, however fair warning, I am also going to talk a bit about ECRR 2.0 at the end because it was so FANTASTIC!

As you may have already guessed, the letter this week is Ee. I happen to really like the letter Ee. It’s the first initial of my middle name AND my last name AND my sister’s name begins with an Ee. Ee was a tricky one for me in terms of our flash card this week. The obvious response would have been to make an elephant with our upper case E, but I wanted to be different. I decided that Ee was going to be an egg. Egg? Now I know what you’re thinking. How in the world are we going to turn an Ee into an egg? Simple… you don’t! Behold the power of a brass fastener.

Materials: Uppercase"E" drawn on an index card, crayons, an egg cut out of colorful printer paper cut in half to make it looked cracked, and a brass fastener.

Back side of card

1) Color the capital E adn decorate the egg.

2) Trace the Ee on the backside of the card.

3) Stick the brass fastener through one portion of the egg. Now, barely overlapping, push the brass fastener through the second half of the egg.

4) Next push the brass fastener through the index card. The E should look as if it is inside the egg. Don't forget to pull apart the prongs on the fastener in order to make it nice and secure.

5) Lastly, add the E to the letters A, B, C, and D.

As for the second craft for my four to six year olds, I went the safe route, elephants! Admit it, elephants are funny. They are HUGE, look funny, and every kid loves them. I found a really awesome craft here. Elephants AND a party horn? Life doesn’t get much better! Although this craft was a hit, I learned a few things.

1) ALWAYS, ALWAYS, ALWAYS have more than enough crafts prepared. Although it sounds a bit wasteful, having too many ALWAYS beats the alternative. I got lucky and 2 children had to leave early. If they hadn’t, I would have been 2 short! Worst nightmare!

2) Kids DO NOT CARE if their mouth has been on something. They will still want to switch you for a different color.

Books this week were two I had never read before. For my two and three year olds I chose the book Except If by Jim Averbeck. This book was a great “thinking” book. What starts out as a cracked egg quickly becomes a snake, then a lizard, then a dinosaur, and the list goes on. I am not going to ruin it for you, but I will tell you it’s possible to keep your kids guessing for an extended period of time about what my come next.

To go along with our elephant craft I chose a not-so-traditional pick, That’s Not Funny! by Adrian Johnson. Thought not necessarily about an elephant, the elephant quickly becomes the star and main joke-getter in this book. This book is SO MUCH MORE than a book about a boy and an elephant. It’s a great book to discuss things such as being nice to everyone, helping someone instead of laughing at them, and could even be used with an older group when discussing bullying.

Song choices this week were minimal. I like to try to combine my songs, books, and crafts into on cohesive theme, but sometimes, it just doesn’t work. This was one of those times. I couldn’t really find and egg song or elephant song that I really loved. I did use a song called, “Dinosaur Egg” by Geof Johnson. This was great for the parachute because it was fast and really got the kids hyped up (as if they needed it!).

So that was this week’s story time in a nutshell. As I previously mentioned, along with my typical programming this week, I also attended a workshop held at my library about Every Child Ready to Read. This is the second edition of this program and I was really excited to see what new changes they were implementing. The best part, for me personally, was the change from 6 skills to 5 practices. What use to be a lot of library jargon, such as phonological awareness and narrative skills, became 5 easy practices that everyone can do- Reading, Writing, Singing, Playing and Talking! YAY!!! Something we can all understand!

One of the greatest things that came from this workshop, in my opinion, was the recognition that my library and the weekly programs I do are ahead of the game. With the implementation of the alphabet flash cards, I have slowly been adding writing into my weekly plans which seemed to be the hardest one for people to wrap their heads around in terms of how we are going to use the 5 practices in Story Time.

There are so many more things I could say about Every Child Ready to Read 2.0. I think it is going to be great incorporating the practices into what I already do. I don’t think it will be difficult, just different. If you have any questions about my weekly story times or even what I learned during my ECRR 2.0 workshop, please leave a comment! Next week we tackle the letter Ff.

D is for... DINOSAURS and DOCTORS!

2011-09-30T13:56:00.000-07:00

Sorry for the delay in this post! Although we did the letter Dd a week ago, Sammy had some vacation hours he needed/wanted to use. I guess we will excuse him just this once. It just didn’t feel right doing my video without the little guy, thus, without further ado… the letter Dd!

For the letter Dd, I went with a favorite among many of the kids in my classes, DINOSAURS! What two through six year do you know that is not obsessed with dinosaurs? I always start off my classes by asking the kids what the letter of the day is going to be. This is great for helping them remember what letter they did last week and which letter comes after it in the alphabet. I have some pretty smart cookies (if I do say so myself) and they continually amaze me with how much they already know. Thus, without missing a beat, almost every kid in my class knew it was Dd and knew we were doing dinosaurs. I wish I could have captured their excitement!

The flashcard craft this week was pretty simple. For those of you who don’t know, I try to draw my flashcards for the kids. I am by no means an artist, but I think it adds a little something special. So, with just one mess-up that ended in the recycling bin, the flashcard looked like this.

Materials: Dinosaur "D" drawn on an index card, crayons, and 4-5 foam triangle stickers, and a googly eye

Back side of the flash card

1) Color your dinosaur. Place triangles along the back of the dinosaur. Place google eye on the head.

2) Trace the uppercase and lowercase "Dd" on the back of the card. If your child cannot trace, hold their hand and guide them.

3) Add your card to the letters Aa, Bb, and Cc.

I added some triangles to this flashcards in order to talk about shapes with the kids. I asked the kids to put the triangles on the backs of their dinosaurs; however, if they did not like that, then they could put them anywhere. In what I like to refer to as a “light bulb” moment, one kid responded, “So you want us to make a stegosaurus?” Tell me that isn’t a smart cookie?

Now I know that last week I said the clothesline craft was a favorite of mine, however, that was before I came across this amazing doctor bag craft (scroll down to the bottom of the page to find it). I saw it and immediately knew I had to do it. That is one of the best parts about crafting during story times, it’s not only educational but fun too!

Books this week were interesting. There are thousands, and I mean THOUSANDS, of dinosaur books to choose from when you are looking for a great read-aloud. The hardest part of dinosaur books is often the pronunciation of the dinosaur names! My best suggestion, PRACTICE before you read it aloud. I ended up going with Dinosaurrumpus by Tony Mitton. This book has a lot of great dinosaurs that your kids will recognize. There is also a chorus that repeats almost every page. My kids had a great time chanting the chorus with me.

For my doctor book I decided to stray from the norm. There are doctor books by all the classic children’s authors including Mercy Mayer, Jonathon London, and Stan and Jan Berenstain, however, I went with a little known book, Miss Polly has a Dolly by Pamela Duncan Edwards. This book is actually a converted jump rope rhyme. There are a lot of repeating words within the book that the kids enjoyed reciting with me. Another great aspect of this book was that it was filled with Dd words.

Other than books and crafts, my next favorite thing to jazz up my programs is the music! You CANNOT have a great program if you do not have music. For my dinosaur theme I went with a well-known oldie but goodie “Walk the Dinosaur.” For those of you who don’t know, the remix by Queen Latifah is fantastic and most kids recognize the song from the movie Ice Age. It’s upbeat, bouncy, and all out fun! Just what I like. Another great dinosaur song, “Fossil Rock” by Jane Murphy, is fantastic for teaching kids about fossils and how dinosaurs became fossils. Once again, upbeat, fun, and bubbly! Mark it down as another win!

That seems to be all for this week’s post! I hope you enjoyed the letter Dd. As usual, if you ever have any questions, leave a comment! I love getting replies! Next week is the letter Ee. What fun things can you think of?