Winter... Brrrrr!

We did not have a Story Hour last week as no one came, and this week one little girl and her grandma came to our first evening session.

We started with our opening song to the tune of  "The Farmer in the Dell" [see prior blogs for the words] and then we talked about winter and the things "A" likes to do outside. We also discussed problems winter creates, including the fact that we have to dress more heavily. That lead to our first book titled Under My Hood I Have a Hat by Karla Kuskin.  It is a cute story of a little girl who puts on layers and layers to go outside with her dog. We learned a new word too... 'muffler' as another name for a winter neck scarf. The ending is the funny part, so check this book out at your local library.

After reading the book we went to the craft table to create a snowman out of paper, buttons and dried up marshmallows. It may sound disgusting, but they sure turned out cute as you can see by the picture below.

While our snowmen dried we read Snow Music by Lynne Rae Perkins. A beautiful book about how snow makes the world more hushed. It included sounds that you might hear on a snowy day as well as what some of the animals do when it snows.

After reading the book I excused myself and went outside to collect a bit of our snow in a small black tray. I had a magnifying glass so "A" could look at the snow and see the sparkles and crystals. She immediately wanted to touch it and then remarked at how cold it was. I also took a small bunch in my hand and gave her the same and had her hold it tightly. When we opened our hands she remarked that it was "gone and there's only water", so we had a discussion about snow and clouds. I then scooped up the remainder of the snow and formed a ball. She asked if I was building a snowman, and I had her figure out what I had made. After stating that it was a snowball, she wanted to hold it. After a bit she squeezed it tightly as we had done with the small amount and it "exploded" throwing snow on A., her grandma and myself. Which led to a fit of giggles from her and then lots of laughter for all of us!

Our next book was Snowball Fight! by Jimmy Fallon. It's the story of a little boy and his sister who get into lots of winter wear and go outside to have a snowball fight with the neighborhood kids. This book also has a surprise ending. 

I then got our my cloth snowballs [that have cute little faces on them] and we had our own snowball fight, which also included lots of laugher and squeals. "A" had a little trouble sharing the snowballs and tended to want to hang onto them.

 At that point we were going to be done, but "A" had seen a fourth book on display and wanted it read. Grandma said it was okay with her so I did a 'talk through'  The First Day of Winter by Denise Fleming. It is similar to the song "Twelve Days of Christmas" and is all about the things that happen to a snowman on days one through ten.

When we finished the story I gave "A" a snowflake to take home and hang up somewhere, along with a folder for Story Hour and a sheet to color of a snowman, a snowlady and mittens and a cap.

Thanks for reading our blog. Come and join us for next Thursday's Story Hour at either 9:30 a.m. or 6:00 p.m.  The door opens 15 minutes earlier for playtime. The theme is winter colds and flu and there are some cute animal stories to go with it.

Children's Librarian,

Mitzi

A LOVE-ly Morning!

Mirabella, her mom and I, had a good Story Hour again today.

We began with our opening song [see last week's post] and then talked about upcoming Valentine's Day... its red color, that it honors love, and we talked about who/what we love. We then began reading our first book, Penguin in Love by Salina Yoon. Mirabella thought some of the things were very silly, such as the penguins knitting things for other creatures, especially the nose cozys and a sweater for a whale.

We stopped half way through the book, at the mysterious part where two penguins find all their yarn has disappeared from their containers, and went to the table to make our own penguins-- out of heart shapes, of course!  Mirabella's penguin is taking a nap, but his heart shows he has lots of love to share.

After that we went back to the book to see if the penguins solved the mystery. Of course it had a happy ending with the new friendships and love. It was now time to go back to the craft table and make a valentine for someone we love [or to keep if we wanted]. We used ink and rubber stamps, a heart-shaped doily and a heart sticker to create a pretty card.

Our second book was Love Monster by Rachel Bright. It was the story of a little monster who lived among a town of cute, fluffy things: dogs, cats, and bunnies that everyone loved. So Monster set out to search the world and find love. His search was not very successful, but just as he was about to give up a nice surprise happened. A very cute book to look for at your library.

We ended the morning by completing a monster worksheet where we had to find the one that was different in each row. Then I gave Mirabella her own folder to bring back to Story Hour each week and we put in a monster counting sheet, a writing readiness sheet where she could trace dotted lines and a cut-apart monster that would then be put back together like a puzzle. We also had a snack of colored Goldfish crackers and some water.

Next week's theme is winter/snow. It would be nice if you could join us for the morning [9:15] or evening [5:45] session.

Children's Librarian,
Mitzi

A Very Colorful Morning!

Although only Mirabella and her mom came this morning, we had a wonderful time together. We opened with a song this morning, sung to the tune of "The Farmer in the Dell". It goes like this:

          It's time for storytime, [Clap hands to the beat.]
          It's time for storytime.
          Height-ho, the derry-o,
          It's time for storytime.

          We listen to some stories, [Tug gently on ears.]
          We listen to some stories,
          Heigh-ho the derry-o,
          We listen to some stories.

          We sing some songs and rhymes, [Point to mouth.]
          We sing some songs and rhymes,
          Heigh-ho, the derry-o,
          We sing some songs and rhymes.

          And now we'll have some fun, [Pat legs and clap hands.]
          And now we'll have some fun,
          Heigh-ho the derry-o,
          And now we'll have some fun.

This will be our opening song for each session from now on.

Our first book was a fun one titled I Ain't Gonna Paint No More! by Karen Beaumont. It is the story of a naughty little boy who paints all over the house, himself and his dog... and of course, gets in trouble with his mom.  We had many laughs while reading this story. It is also a good story for learning the basic parts of the body.

After reading the story we went to the craft table and cut out a paper person to glue on our sheet with the story title. Then we took turns selecting [and stating the name] a color of paint, passing it around and adding paint to our pictures. They ended up looking a lot like the pictures in the book, as you can see by Mirabella and her mom's paintings.

Now it was back to the chairs for two more stories. First we read White Rabbit's Color Book by Alan Baker. This was a great story about mixing colors and the results you get.

We immediately moved on to our third book, Dog's Colorful Day by Emma Dodd. This is a very cute story about a little white dog with a black spot on his ear, who gets all sorts of things in different colors dripped on him throughout the day.  Great book for color identification and counting to ten!  Mirabella got the giggles over many of the things Dog had drip on him.

It was then time to go back to the craft table where we each had a bin with 10 crayons and a printout of Dog with circles on him. We took turns selecting the color to use to fill in a spot of our choice. After our ten crayons were used I brought out five special crayons with unusual names and we used those for five more spots. They had fun/funny-sounding names: Asparagus, Robin's Blue, Dandelion,

Mahogany and then there was White. [I wanted to see if the children would comment on putting white onto white paper, and Mirabella did not disappoint me!]  She then also noticed that there were still five blank circles, She was pleased to know she could color them any color she chose. As you can see, Dog turned out quite cute!

Next week's theme is valentine's.  Hope to see you then, and remember there is a 6:00 p.m. session in addition to the morning session now.  Please sign up and join us for one of them [evening session is a repeat of the morning one].

Children's Librarian,

Mitzi 

Story Hour Starts THIS Week!!

Apologies for the late posting!  Stop in to register for the next round of story hour!

Story hour will start on February 5th.  This time around we are offering a Thursday night session as well as a Thursday morning session to try and reach more families!

Doors will open Thursday morning at 9:15 a.m. for play time and story hour will start at 9:30 a.m.  The evening story hour will have doors opening at 5:45 p.m. for play time and story hour will start at 6 p.m.

Story hour is for ages 3-5.  If there is interest for a story hour from ages 0-3 please let us know.  If there is enough interest we will see about starting an infant or toddler story hour.

We were asking that you register by February 3rd but because of this late posting try to register by the 4th if you are attending the morning session and the morning of the 5th if you are attending the evening session so we have enough supplies for everyone.

Hope to see you there!

Cassandra

OH, CHRISTMAS TREE!

Although we waited to get started, only one of my children came, but she had her mom and dad with her and the morning turned out to be a fun family one.

We began with our usual trip outside to check the weather. Mirabella immediately noticed it was cloudy and very, very cold. Then we noticed tiny snowflakes appearing on Dad's dark sweater and that was quite exciting [even if they didn't last].

Once inside, where it was warm, we put up our weather symbols and then letter "T" for "tree" as in the book The Snow Tree by Caroline Repchuk. It is such a beautiful story about the animals of the forest bringing things together to decorate a tree that reminded them of the days before the snow was on the ground. Along with the familiar animals of a bear, squirrel, bluejay, raccoon and reindeer, there were some unfamiliar ones, a bunting, mink, moose, lynx and an Arctic fox.  Be sure to check this wonderful book out of the library and read it with your children.

At the craft table we made our own Christmas tree out of strips of paper and decorated it with flowers and bright colored things to make it just as pretty as the one the animals created. In the process of making the tree we talked about long to short as we glued on the green strips. To complete the tree we added a bright, sparkly star to the top.

How pretty her tree looks! All that patient gluing paid off.

Our morning ended with treats and good conversation and a Christmas bag full of goodies for Mirabella.

This was the last session of Story Hour for this year!

Mitzi  

Children's Librarian

Fun on the Farm!

We began with the usual sign-in and then going upstairs and outside to check the weather. Even the children said it was time for us to "find the sun", as once again it was cloudy and rather cold. Someone even noticed that our breath made "little clouds in the air".

Today's lessons were focused on farm animals, and we sat down to listen to our first book: The Noisy, Noisy Farm by Stephanie Stansbie. The children loved being able to push the buttons that made the realistic animal sounds in the book: a cat, duck, sheep, cow, chicks and a rooster. It was also a chance for them to predict each sound, and the only one that gave them difficulty was the "Cock-a-doodle-doo" of the rooster.

Everyone gathered around to push the buttons when ALL the animals cried out for the rooster.

For our movement this morning we were to move like the animals in the book. I would name one of the animals and the children moved as they thought that animal would move. And move we did!

In the picture below the children are being the duck and flapping their wings.

Here they are being the sheep or the cow.

Then it was over to the craft table to make some roosters to take home. I had printed a rooster onto heavy card stock paper and using the rooster in our story as a guide the children selected colors and found the correct areas to add color to their roosters. Once the coloring was done we used our glue and added feathers to the wings and tails.

See how cute our roosters look!

After all that hard work it was time to listen to another story. This time it was a silly story about a herding dog who lived in the city and had to spend a lot of time napping and was tired of doing this, so he started rounding up the rug and the chairs. This bothered the parakeet who told him to go out and find a cow. The problem was, the dog did not know what a cow looked like, and so he assumed many different animals were cows and that got him into trouble each time. The book is Find a Cow NOW! by Janet Stevens and Susan Stevens Crummel and you need to get it from your local library to see how the story ends.

As a take-home project I had a cow printed on heavy card stock paper and suggested they put spots on it... perhaps with a Q-tip and black paint.

Next week is our last session until later in January or February. I hope you are able to come for a couple Christmas stories and some fun.

Thanks for reading our blog, Please leave us a comment.

Mitzi
Children's Librarian

"T" Is for Tiger

New faces came to Story Hour this morning, and that was a good thing as the regulars were unable to attend. They were all sadly missed and I hope to see some of them again next week.

The children weren't too sure about heading outside without putting on coats [to check the weather] but I assured them we wouldn't stay out long. As soon as we came back inside we determined that the symbol to put up was cloudy as we couldn't see the sun at all this morning.

Even though none of the children had been at our last session I reviewed the letter "M" and the word "MOO" that was on the board. I then wrote the letter "T" and Tess immediately recognized it as the beginning letter to her name. Good job, Tess!  I also told them that it was going to start the name of our animal for today... tiger.  

We then sat down to read the book, Who Is the Beast? by Keith Baker. It was one of our Story Hour BIG books, and the jungle illustrations were absolutely wonderful. At first the children thought the 'beast' was naughty and frightful, but as the story developed we learned, and so did the tiger, that he was just like many of the other beasts [creatures] of the jungle. The children had a lot of fun finding the animal eyes, ears, tails, etc., hidden in the jungle.

Everyone was so good during our reading of the story that it was then time to get up and do some wiggling around. As everyone was new I decided the best way to do that was to use the bubbles once again. It worked beautifully! The children could take turns blowing bubbles, but mostly they were happiest just trying to catch or pop them and there were lots of giggles.

Then it was off to the table to create our tiger faces. We made the tiger's black face stripes by putting down a drop of black paint and blowing it with a straw.  We then added ears, green eyes [to match the tiger's in the book] and fuzzy whiskers. They turned out so cute.

Our morning ended with a matching and counting game. We each had a sheet with rows of  wild animals on them. I had created a die with a different animal on each side. I also had a matching regular die. The children took turns rolling both dice and then finding the animal that was on top, figuring out the number on top of the second die, then marking off that many of the specific animal on their sheet. When a row was filled they received a prize... and everyone ended up with a prize.

Before we called it a morning we had some animal crackers to eat and we received a tiger picture with the letter "T" on it to take home and color.

Thank you, Niesha, for taking pictures on your phone this morning.

We hope to see everyone back next week when our theme is farm animals.
Please leave a comment if you are reading our blog.

Children's Librarian,
Mitzi