A MEOWY GOOD DAY!

Today was all about the habits of cats that live with us, and how they relate to the big cats [especially lions and tigers]. It began with getting a paw print stamped on our hands. Then we talked about cats that live with the children and myself. From there we jumped right into learning facts about cats. My base book was an Usborne book titled Cats by Patrizia Donaera.

I would present a topic using this book and then had pages marked that linked to it in the following books that are all books from a series titled All Nature's Children: Cats by Maggie Da Silva, Lions by Elizabeth MacLeod, and Tigers by Bill Ivy [sorry, images not available for two of the books]. 

As we were talking/reading about cats our guest arrived. He was brought in by my husband in a carrier. His name is Jax.  He's my "sweet boy" and he was exactly that throughout Story Hour, as he allowed me to show his retractable claws, his eyes changing in darkness and reflecting light, and his teeth. 

He also showed us how cats check everything out through smell and he allowed everyone to touch him at times. He even "talked" to me a couple times and that reinforced more cat communication. He showed us he was very comfortable with us by rubbing on us and rolling around on our rug. He also liked the curtain in the play corner.

"M" noticed that Jax wasn't eating his food. We decided he was too excited by all the new things to explore.

At the craft table the children selected brown, grey or orange paper to create a stand-up cat with toothpick whiskers. As you can see, they turned out to be just as cute as real kittens.

As Jax created so much interest, and the children had a lot to add to our topic today, we ran out of time to read our fiction book. The children were given cat-themed take-home sheets which

included the letter "C", pictures of cat eyes, a little rhyme and a cute story about cats with some words linked to pictures to help the children with word identification. And the final item of the morning was to allow the children to select a Beanie Baby cat [from my daughter's former collection] as their very own. It was so wonderful to see them hug and cherish that animal!

There is no Story Hour next week, April 23, but the following week, April 30, the theme is "Creepy Crawlies".  I hope you will join us.

Children's Librarian,

Mitzi

It's for the Birds... and Kids!

"D", her dad and I [her sister joined us some of the time] had a great Story Hour together . After signing her in and giving her a sparkly cardinal sticker and getting her folder set up we started with a picture of a robin. We talked about it being our state bird, common in our yards as the warmer seasons begin, how it hops along the ground looking/listening for worms, and looked at its color markings.

Then we read Birds by Kevin Henkes. It was a great book to allow us to talk about birds of different colors and some of the habits of birds.

At the craft table we made a paper robin, again looking at the picture and noting the proper coloring and adding some white crayon between his orange belly and tail and a white ring around his eye. Dad traced "D's" hand to make her robin's tail and wing and then cut the fingers apart a bit so they looked like feathers.

Back by the story rug we looked at the book Cardinals and Other Songbirds by Meish Goldish, a World Book Series book. We talked through the selections I had marked about birds that are commonly seen in our backyards. We discussed their coloring, where we might see them, what they eat and for some of them, the calls they make. "D" had a lot to add to our discussion.

When we returned to the craft table I had a box with a real bird nest in it for us to talk about. We looked at all the different things the bird had put into the nest: paper, pieces of plastic bags, grass, feathers, small twigs, string, etc. We also noticed how soft the inside felt. I then brought out my box of items I had collected so "D" could 'be a bird' and build her nest on a blue paper plate. I had placed strips of very sticky tape on the plate for her to attach items, and as she struggled with some items we talked about how birds have only a beak and feet with which to build their nests.

As you can see she selected some very appropriate items and built a rather nice nest.  She then used her sheet of common birds to select one to cut out and put on the nest.

When that was done I gave "D" some sheets related to our bird study to put in her take home folder. Then her mom and sister joined us and I gave them all a Rice Krispie bird nest with 3 malted eggs inside. Everyone seemed to enjoy the treats and then it was time to go home.

Next week's lesson will be about cats. Hope to see you then.

Children's Librarian,
Mitzi

It's a Jungle, Sometimes!

"M" was here this morning and we had  "C" with us as a visiting guest. Both girls and adults joined in with the opening song and when I asked if they were ready to have some fun I received a very enthusiastic, "YES!". So we got started right away with our first book, We're Going on a Lion Hunt by David Axtell.

Before reading we talked about lions and what the girls knew about them [fierce, with big, sharp teeth; not friendly; have a mane- which lead to talking about that as only on a male lion. We all agreed that we wouldn't want to go on a hunt for a lion. So we also talk about how kids pretend to do things or even dream they have done things. As this book is based on repetition it allowed the girls to join in much of the time.

We added actions to show going "over, under, around and through" all the different places in the story.

I think we were very relieved to know the girls got home safe with that big, male lion following... but then they were in bed so maybe they dreamed the whole adventure.

I then informed the girls that we were going to "paint with forks" [which caused some giggles and crazy looks]. The girls also thought it was interesting that I mixed some yellow paint with the brown and we talked about how that made the brown a lighter color. They were very ready to then pick up a fork and paint the lion's mane.

We created his face on a separate circle so we could glue it over the one with the painted mane. They really turned out as cute lions, not fierce ones.

While that project continued to dry we returned to the Story Hour rug for our second book, If You're Happy and You Know It by James Warhola.

This book is written to a tune familiar to so many. It is about being happy and clapping your hands, so again everyone joined in. We would look at the page, determine what sound or action to make, and then do the song. The girls really enjoyed some of the actions, especially jumping, crawling, scratching out fur, and roaring. 

As we read the book the girls noticed some of the animals were on our Story Hour rug, so when we finished reading we looked at all the animals on the last two pages and searched to see how many were part of the alphabet rug. Surprisingly, there were quite a few, and that also gave us a chance to talk about letters that went with the animals.

At the craft table the children watched me mix black and white paint and they soon recognized the color grey. I asked them what big animal was grey, and after the response of "rhinoceros",  I got "elephant". [The book featured an elephant all the way through, that is why I chose an elephant for our project.] I started by painting my palm and fingers, then pressing them to a white sheet of paper. Next we did an adult and the girl who came with her.

While our handprint elephants dried I had the girls work on an animal sheet with patterns where they had to select the animal that would next appear in the pattern. Then I gave them a sheet of animal "front halves" and they had cut out pictures of the "back halves" and they had to put them together. Both girls did and excellent job of getting these two sheets correctly completed.

We also named all the animals on the front-to-back sheet. Then the girls could take them home to play with them some more.

We ended the morning by using a Sharpie to draw an eye, tail hairs, and toenails on our elephants and then I gave them each a bag of animal crackers to go with our theme.

Happy Easter, everyone!  Join us next week when our theme will be "feathered friends".

Children's Librarian,
Mitzi

Bears, Oh My!

Three little girls came to the morning session today, and one to the evening session. After singing our opening song we jumped right in to learn about real bears. The book, Bears by Patrick Merrick, helped me with a "talk through" of some bear facts.

The girls were each given a set of cards with pictures of different bears on them. As we talked about bears in the book they did a good job of finding the same bear on their cards. We discussed what bears eat, where they sleep, that they sleep for most of the winter, how they care for their babies and how big they are, yet they have small eyes and ears. A difficult concept for the girls was to realize that bears are not cuddly, friendly creatures... as teddy bears might be. I think it helped convince them a bit when they saw pictures of bears' huge claws and sharp teeth.

Even baby sister joined in for some of the stories.

At the craft table the girls were given a bear outline on heavy cardstock. After attaching some sticky-backed wiggle eyes and a black nose they covered the bear with a thick coat of liquid glue and then applied ground coffee beans and pressed them into the glue.

We did this in small segments and ended up with some cute black bears.

After washing our hands [and reviewing the song about washing away germs from last week],

We came back to hear a cute book about a "hibernating" bear [we also learned that bears don't truly hibernate, but just go into a deep sleep] called Old Bear by Kevin Henkes. This old bear sleeps and dreams of the passing seasons, and when he gets to Spring, looks out of his den to discover he isn't dreaming after all!  It gave us a good chance to talk about the seasons and that we are entering into Spring right now, and what signs of spring we can look for in the next few weeks.

We then sang a song to the tune of Fre`re Jacques. The children were given a copy to take home, and it goes like this:

Bear is sleeping, bear is sleeping,

In his cave, in his cave.

Wonder when he'll wake up?  Wonder when he'll wake up?

In the Spring!  In the Spring!

We also talked about fun, harmless bears called Teddy Bears and the children were shown four different ones that I had brought. They also had some fun hugging and arranging them.

Our final book of the morning was another true bear book called Bears: A First Discovery Book by Gallimard Jeunesse. This book had more interesting facts about bears and some very nice clear overlay pages that allowed us to see a Giant Panda [not a bear!] nurse her cub, a bear curl up in its den, a bear get a bee nest out of a tree, and more. There were some "Yucks!" over the fact that bears eat bugs and especially grubs.

The morning ended with the children having some "bear snacks". [One little girl worried that they were going to be worms or bugs!]. We tasted some nuts, dried cranberries, crackers and honey. There were also a couple more handouts for our take-home folders.

Come join us next week when we will explore mice together.

Children's Librarian,

Mitzi