My goal for this blog is to create an educational space for parents, caregivers, and perhaps other librarians who are looking for that next great idea! I hope to use this blog as a means to increase the awareness of the importance of early literacy while also generating new and fun ways to spread this idea!
Today
is my sister’s 30th birthday!Let me just say a few things..
1)We are NOT twins.We get asked that a lot!
2)She is 4 years older than me, though
she doesn’t look it!
3)I hope I look as good as she does at
30!
4)Happy birthday, Erika!
With that said, I
guess I should tie this post into early literacy somehow! HAHA!So how about a picture montage of great books
to help celebrate a birthday!
Hilarious! That is all that can be said about the Bad Kitty series!
This book comes STRONGLY recommended by librarians and parents alike!
Who doesn't love a good pop-up book?
This book is for our younger readers! A good board book is always a great present for babies!
An oldie, but a goodie!
What's a birthday without a little Seuss?
Well, that seems to be it! I just want to wish my sister a very happy 30th birthday! I am super lucky to have such an amazing sister! I love you very much, Erika!
Are you ready for the last alphabet post?!It’s been a long time in the making, but we
finally made it to the letter Z!Hooray!
Ok, I will admit it.I took the
easy route with Zz and with zebra! There are lots of great zebra books and I
wanted something a bit easier for my kids to be able to complete with little
help!Thus, without further ado… the
letter Zz!
Materials:Index card with capital z, black crayon, zebra
head, google eye, and glue stick.
Front of card
Back of card
1)Use the black crayon to draw stripes on the capital letter Z.
2)Trace the upper and lower case Zz on the back of the card.
3)Glue the zebra head on the Z and add the google eye.
By now I am sure you all know
what comes next.The 2nd
craft for my four to six year olds, of course.I really struggled with this.Finally, I found a cute zinnia craft.I know zinnia is a bit unexpected for Z, but it gave me an opportunity
to introduce the kids to a new word while also being able to celebrate
spring!Hooray! Click here to get the instructions on how to make this zinnia. Warning: you will have to scroll down a bit on the website to see this craft.
As for my book selection this week, like I said previously, there are a
ton of good books about zebras.Though,
unbeknownst to me, I actually revisited a zebra book from a series that I had
previously read.In October, we read a
ghost book about a zebra named Zee.Guess what, that’s actually the title of this week’s book, Zee by
Michel Gay.Both the children and their parents enjoyed
this great little story about a zebra who is trying his absolute hardest to get
his parents to wake up.I don’t want to
ruin the story, but let’s just say that Zee gets into all kinds of trouble when
he decides that coffee is the only way to wake them up!
I thought that finding a book to go with my zinnia craft would be
difficult, however, it really wasn’t.Eve Bunting authored the book, The Flower Garden, which discussed
a little girl who lives in an inner city.The little girl and her father are created a birthday present for her
mother.Of course, the book involves a
flower garden with zinnias, but that is all I am going to say.If you want to figure out how I the world a
girl can plant a garden in the inner city, you are just going to have to pick it
up and read it yourself!
Slowly but surely I am getting caught up!It’s nice though, to be officially done with
the alphabet!The kids enjoyed doing it,
I thought it was really fun and educational, and the parents appreciated a
craft that didn’t clutter their houses every week.Stay tuned for my next post when I show all
of the pictures of the alphabet crafts in order!
The past couple weeks in Indiana have felt like summer!Yes, we wake up and it’s a bit chilly, but by
lunch time, it’s been between 70 and 80 degrees outside and I LOVE it!Although I am a Hoosier through and through,
I can’t stand Indiana weather so it was nice to get a mild winter and
unseasonably warm temperatures early in spring.With all of this summer-like weather, it was easy to use watermelon for
our letter craft this week.When it gets
warm outside, nice, cool, refreshing watermelon is what I crave!
Materials:Index card with capital W, green crayon, pink
W cut from paper, watermelon seeds, and a glue stick.
Front of card
Back of card
1)Color the capital W green.
2)Trace the upper and lower case Ww on the back of the card.
3)Glue the pink W on the inside of the green W.
4)Glue seeds to pink W to make it look like a watermelon.
As for our second craft, well, my library recently came across our old
die cut machine in the basement.Apparently everyone knew it was down there but me!I found the cutest watch die-cut and decided
it would be quick and easy to create.When you are making 24 of anything, you definitely want to keep in mind
the process of creating as well as the intended outcome.This craft was the best of both world and I
thought the kids would really like it!
All from a die cut machine!
This is the part where I always delve into my book choices and how easy
or difficult they were to find.This
week, I didn’t choose the first book, Miss Suzanne did!I was a little under the weather (rotten
sinus infection) and called in sick!Like a champ, Miss Suzanne stepped in for me and did my Monday
programs.The book she chose was Watermelon
Day by Kathy Appelt.After
discussing this choice with Miss Suzanne, and reading it myself on Tuesday and
Wednesday, we each decided it was a little too long and needed to be shortened
for the attention spans of our listeners.This was actually REALLY easy to do with this book without losing any of
the important content.Miss Suzanne did
also say that it was difficult to find a good watermelon book! HINT HINT…
authors and publishers... get on this!
I thought a book on watches would be easy to find.Instead of watches, most of the books at my
library were about clocks!So I went
with it when I found a great book by John Archambault entitled, Boom Chick
Rock.This book is great.The beat is great.The mentioning of dances, including the
Electric Slide, the Tango, and the Bunny Hop, is great! And the pictures are
great!Can you tell I really liked this
book?My kids also like being able to
participate in the reading of the book when the line “Everybody rock! Around
the room! Boom chicka rock, chicka rock, chicka boom!” came about.The more times we read this line, the louder
it got!
I also want to take just a moment to brag about my good friend Carolyn Mueller, and this seems like the perfect place to do it! My roommate Carolyn is going to be a PUBLISHED AUTHOR! That's right.. a PUBLISHED AUTHOR! When she told me about a month ago, I felt like a proud mom. I was there with her senior year of college when she would hole herself up in her room for hours on end working on her senior writing thesis. She worked so hard and I am so happy that it is soon to pay off. So why am I just now blogging about her book? Well, not only does it come out next month and you can pre-order it here, but my library just purchased it! I have no idea what a dwarf zebu is, but I am super excited to get it and perhaps have it signed? Don't worry, I definitely plan on reading it in my Story Time class sometime soon so we can all find out exactly what this mysterious animal may be!
I didn’t introduce any new and fun music this week.Like I mentioned, due to my missing of
Monday, I didn’t have time to throw anything new together and I like to keep
all of my classes on the same schedule.I did, however, add an old favorite to my Story Time classes.It’s another alphabet song, but this time you
use a bean bag to act out the different letters.The song, “Bean Bag Alphabet Rag,” by Hap
Palmer, is an old favorite and I can’t believe I have put it on my YouTube
channel before now!I hope you enjoy it
as much as my kids do!
That seems to be all for this week.I can’t believe we are almost to the end of our Alphabet Adventure.It seems like yesterday that I started this
blog.Although I have a great craft for
next week and the letter Xx, I am struggling a bit with Yy.There is the norm of yo-yo, but if you have
any other ideas, let me know!I am a bit
desperate at this point! Thanks and tune in next week when I give a little
shout out to my mom!
Sammy totally made me write his name in all capitals!He really is that excited for his “special” day.I haven’t had the heart to tell him that it is really just “S” week.Oh well!If it makes Sammy happy, then let’s go with it!
Like I mentioned previously, the alphabet letter this week was “S.”I decided to go with spiders, because everyone loves spiders, right?Haha, no way!I hate spiders, but the kids seemed to really be into this week’s craft.
Materials:Index card with capital S, 8 strips of black paper, googley eyes, glue stick, crayons
Front of card
Back of card
1)Color the capital S to look like a spider.
2)Trace the upper and lower case Ss on the back of the card.
3)Accordion fold the 8 strips of black paper to make the spider legs.
4)Stick on the googley eyes and glue down the accordian legs to create your spider!
Our second craft this week was rather creepy and scary as well. SHARKS!Yes, I know it isn’t Shark Week, however, it fit so well, and the craft I found was so cute.All you need is a paper plate, scissors, glue stick, and blue construction paper.If you really want to get festive, add some googley eyes to the mix.I found the craft here.
I know that I work in a library and that I should be up-to-date on great kid lit, however, as mentioned before, I have a tendency to pull books that my kids just don’t like. This, however, was NOT the case this week.I found the BEST books for both spiders and sharks!In fact, my shark book had spiders in it! Both of these books are funny with some humor that is not only great for kids, but adults as well!
You know, I often write about the songs I use in class, however, most of them are action based. Let's be honest, when you work with 0-6 year olds, the more action, the better! However, I also have two great "Goodbye" songs that my kids really like. In fact, I have had one parent ask me where she could find the goodbye song because in my class, is triggers the start of "clean-up" toy time and she was hoping it would do the same for her child at home! I think that is just hilarious!
The first song I use is called the "Goodbye Song," by Playhouse Disney.
The other song I often use is from this CD.
It is the last song in this video and starts at 7.32.
Well, that seems to be all for this week! WAIT!!! I forgot one really important thing!
Today is Read Across America Day. This is in celebration of Dr. Seuss' birthday. In fact, if Dr. Seuss was still alive, he would be 108 years old today! WOW! Here at the Mooresville Public Library, we love Dr. Seuss! I mean, who doesn't? Here are some of our favorite Seuss books. What are yours?
This was my FAVORITE book growing up! My poor mom had to read this to me over and over!
Well, that is officially it for this week! Next week is T. The possibilities a limitless with T. Come back next week to see what we think of!
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!
