July already?

It is hard to believe that July is almost here!  This is about the time when we begin to finalize our Fall programs.  I know, I said it "FALL"!!  Not to worry, we have lots and lots of fun left for the summer and there is plenty of time to earn all of your summer reading prizes.

Here is some of the fun we have planned for you!

July 5: Bluegrass Park story time

July 9: Star Discovery Bus and DiscoTech the robot (11:00am)

July 10: Musical Story time (2:00pm)

July 14: Kootenai Farmer's Market (10:00am-noon)

July 16: Coeur d'Alene Youth Marimba Band (11:00am)

July 17: Cecil the Magician (11:00am)

July 21: Zombie Prom (for teens begins at 6:00pm)

July 23: Nocturnal Animals with Beth Paragamian (11:00am)

July 27: Summer Fun at Dalton Elementary (10:00am) Bookmobile, Games, crafts and prizes!

July 30:  Dream Big Olympic party! (11:00am)

Don't forget that every 5 hours your read earns another great prize!

Thank you to our summer reading sponsors:

Breaking Out of a Reading Rut

The ending of the school year and onset of summer brings a great opportunity to escape our regular routines and try something new.

Here are some ideas for breaking out of a reading rut, courtesy of your library :) -

1) Meet some new people! Join us for a few of our special summer events and you'll have a chance to meet some of our visiting friends, including trucks from our community, a magician, and live nocturnal animals.  Interacting with a different crowd might just spark some new interests for you and the kids. 

2) Go out for a change of scenery!  We'll be out in the community this summer at parades, the local farmer's market, the North Idaho Fair, and various schools in the area.  Our weekly storytime at Bluegrass Park will involve stories, crafts, and fun with convenient access to a playground and splash pad! 

3) Try a new format.  This summer, we've challenged ourselves to try a brand new musical storytime format that will give us the perfect excuse to get out some CDs and percussion instruments that haven't gotten a whole lot of use lately!  Likewise, if you find that you're a little tired of regular print books, why not come in and check out our selection of audiobooks or playaways?

4) Ask the experts!  Our library offers access to several excellent online reader's advisory tools such as Novelist and Tumblebooks.  And did you know that librarians LOVE talking about books?  We do!  We're here to help you right out of that rut and on your way to summer reading adventures!

Countdown to Summer Reading

There are just a little over two weeks until we kick off our summer reading program with our registration event!  This week we ventured out of the library to local schools to promote the upcoming events.

Since we had such a good time with the beach theme last week, I thought I'd share some of the same books over again when I spent this Wednesday at a nearby kindergarten.  The morning classes thought To the Beach by Linda Ashman was especially funny and enjoyed interacting with How Will We Get to the Beach? (see last week's post for a summary).

I also found a clever "Five Little Seashells" fingerplay on the Songs for Teaching website (http://www.songsforteaching.com/hughhanley/5littleseashells.htm) that I adapted a little to fit right in with our theme:

Five little seashells lying on the shore,
CRASH went the waves,
And then there were four.

Four little seashells pretty as can be,
CRASH went the waves,
And then there were three.

Three little seashells all pearly and new,
CRASH went the waves,
And then there were two.

Two little seashells lying in the sun,
CRASH went the waves,
And then there was one.

One little seashell lying all alone,
I put it in my pocket
And I carried it home!

We wrapped things up with Bats at the Beach, which transitioned nicely into my summer reading program pitch (author/illustrator Brian Lies also illustrated the program's poster and promotional materials).

I was prepared to do a repeat performance for the afternoon classes, but learned that I'd be seeing a handful of "extended day" kids for a second time.  Luckily, I was just down the street from the library and had an opportunity to run back for some fresh material!

The afternoon classes were treated to fewer beach books and more nighttime books and the kids LOVED it!  We read a couple of monster pop-up style books that I had found in our Halloween collection (Scare the Moon by Harriet Ziefert and You Monsters are in Charge by Jill Sardegna) as well as Kitten's First Full Moon.

Overall, I think this bodes well for a great summer reading program as we'll be celebrating the "Dream Big-Read!" theme with lots of nighttime stories of stars, lullabies, camping, and even a few monsters!

Sunny Days at the Library Beach

The sun was shining, it was our last week of our Spring program lineup, and it was a great week for a library beach party!

On Thursday, our preschoolers sat on beach towels while we read books by two of my favorite children's authors:  Melanie Watt and Laura Numeroff.  All of Melanie Watt's Scaredy Squirrel books make me smile with their cute and amusing illustrations.  They feature a sweet worrywort squirrel who would prefer to stay safely at home in his nut tree and avoid the unpredictable dangers of "the Unknown."  In Scaredy Squirrel at the Beach, Scaredy hopes to steer clear of falling coconuts, packs of pirates, flocks of seagulls, and other perils by manufacturing a beach in his own in his backyard, but ends up having to visit the real shore to get a seashell with authentic ocean sounds.  When Scaredy's extensive preparations hit a snag, he finds himself in a crowd on the beach--enjoying the very situation that he had always avoided.

Most of the kids were already familiar with Laura Numeroff's If You Give a Mouse a Cookie and were prepared for the same pattern to follow in If You Give a Cat a Cupcake.  This one fit our beach theme really well--I especially appreciate the way Numeroff draws the connection between sand at the beach and sprinkles on cupcakes, and I think the preschoolers did too!

The book How Will We Get to the Beach? by Brigitte Luciani allowed the preschoolers to try out their own problem-solving skills.  In this story, Roxanne heads for the beach on a sunny day with five essentials: her baby, her turtle, an umbrella, a book, and a ball.  Roxanne's car breaks down and she must find an alternate mode of transportation that can get everything there; however, the bus, bike, skateboard, kayak, and hot air balloon all force Roxanne to leave something behind.  Readers get to enjoy the guessing game of figuring out what's missing from each picture and what the ultimate solution to Roxanne's transportation problem could be.

We wrapped up the beach party with dancing in bubbles to Laurie Berkner's "The Goldfish" and did a sandpaper sandcastle craft.  It was a great way to end our Spring storytime schedule and transition into Summer Reading!

Sounds of the Season: Happy Mother's Day!

This week, our storytime groups prepared for Mother's Day by reading books that focused on families and honored Mom!

But what makes a holiday more festive than some great musical accompaniment?  And who knew there were so many songs and rhymes that include references to dear "Mama"?  Our Thursday preschool group formed a crazy team of monkey puppets that bounced right along to a fun Caribbean arrangement of "No More Monkeys Jumping on the Bed" (performed by Asheba on the CD Putumayo Kids presents Animal Playground).  Naturally, we had puppets representing Mama and the doctor too!  Other songs included in our Mother's Day storytime soundtrack included following:

"Five Little Ducks (Went Out to Play)"
"Down by the Bay"
"Mama Don't Allow (No Music Playin' Around Here)": the Muppets have a great version!

We also made up our own actions to go along with this poem adapted from the Whatcom County Library System Storytime Theme Handbook: 

My Mommy

My Mommy’s very special,
I think that you’ll agree.
She picks the greatest stories,
To read aloud to me.
Sometimes she take me shopping,
Or we play a game of ball.
She always gives me great big hugs,
She’s the best Mom of them all!


Can you think of any other Mother-themed songs or rhymes?  Have fun looking for a special way to celebrate!

Cinco de Mayo Fiesta!

Our maracas and our All the Best of Mexico CD sounded throughout the library this week during our Cinco de Mayo storytimes and activities.

Monday's open craft program had a record number of crafters in attendance when we made mini chile pepper pinatas out of toilet paper rolls and crepe paper.  (Yes, they technically came for the candy, but had fun creating in the meantime!) 

Thursday's preschool group decorated spoon maracas, which also made great use of some leftover Easter eggs.  The maracas became the voice of the culebra (rattlesnake) as we read Manana Iguana, by Ann Whitford Paul.  Then we got even more festive shaking them to the enthusiastic "Ole!" refrain of Chicks and Salsa by Aaron Reynolds.

Cinco de Mayo also allowed us a good opening to discuss the bilingual materials available in our collection.  We presented Kitten's First Full Moon (by Kevin Henkes) next to its Spanish counterpart (La primera luna llena de Gatita).  The preschoolers were especially amused by the fact that two books could look the same and have the same story, but have different words inside.

Finally, our Thursday and Friday craft--a cup and plate sombrero--made for some great photo opportunities.  Here's Clifford modeling:

Happy Cinco de Mayo!

A Week of Earth Day / Arbor Day Celebrations

Earth Day was every day here at the library this week, and we celebrated by designing some great recycled collages and reading stories about trees, gardens, and nature.

We also set up a fishing pond for Thursday's preschool story time using paper towel tube fishing poles and magnet "hooks" (the fish were then caught by the paperclips on their mouths).  After the pond got polluted with bottles, paper, and cans from our play picnic lunch, the preschoolers had a quick lesson about sorting out trash and recyclables.  The kids really just enjoyed the catching fish and throwing them back, so we brought it back out for Friday's Literacy Play Group too!

One of the favorite books of the week was Big Bear Hug by Nicholas Oldland, a sweet story about a bear who hugs every living thing he comes across in the forest and loves the trees most of all!  When the bear meets up with an axe-wielding man near a favorite tree, his affectionate nature is overtaken by a fierce instinct to protect his forest.  Bear's decision about how to save the tree that he loves so dearly conveys an important message about environmental conservation and the strength of a good hug.  It's a book with simple illustrations, a silly lovable bear protagonist, and a moral that's direct but not too heavy-handed.

Our reading of Big Bear Hug on Friday was especially appropriate as it coincided with Arbor Day.  The Idaho Forest Commission left us with some baby trees to plant as well as bookmarks and pencils, so the Literacy Play Group kids left with some great reminders to continue their Earth Day and Arbor Day celebrations throughout the year!

April Showers at the Library

We made the most of our recent super-soggy spring weather with our "April Showers" theme this week. 

Our Tales for 2s and 3s and Preschool storytimes on Wednesday and Thursday included some enthusiastic dancing, stomping, and singing along to the song "Boots" from one of our favorite CDs, The Best of the Laurie Berkner Band.

We said a poem together and chatted about some different ways to stay dry in the rain:

The rain fell down on the rooftops,
The rain fell down on the trees,
The rain fell down on the green grass,
But it didn't fall down on me.

One of our crafts this week was inspired by Ollie the Stomper by Olivier Dunrea.  The kids had the most fun painting water over the blue markers to make the blurry rain effect!

Other books we shared this week included the classic Little Cloud by Eric Carle as well as some new finds such as The Thingamabob by Il Sung Na and Raindrop, Plop by Wendy Cheyette Lewison.



We're looking forward to some sun and flowers after all of this rain, especially since we'll be getting green with our Earth Day theme next week! 

Happy New Year!

This year we look forward to many fabulous and wonderful story time programs. Including our impromptu Literacy Play Group today!

Pinkalicious Party! Wednesday, February 29, 4:00-5:30pm. What better way to celebrate Leap year than with a PINK party. The cure for all things pink? GREEN!!