• Activities

    Toddler Dance Party

    We had a lot of fun at our toddler dance party this morning.  It’s so interesting to see what kids do – some come in ready to dance, others take a while to warm up, but end up dancing in the end.  Our program lasted about 45 minutes with some…

  • Activities

    Fun Friday – Yoga

    The kids were all a little wired for our Fun Friday program.  We ended up with 21 kids for 45 minutes in grades 1 – 4.  It’s only the second week of school, the weather was awesome, and it was Friday, so naturally the kids were bouncing off the walls. …

  • Activities

    Flannel Friday

    I use the flannel board for my story time usually for 5 Little Monkeys, and sometimes I’ll use it for other songs like Old McDonald or The Itsy Bitsy Spider, but I haven’t used it very often for storytelling.  I can’t quite figure out how to hold a book, put up…

  • Activities

    Sensory Friendly Story Times

    I think I’ve finally got my toddler story time plans finished and my yoga plans as well, now it’s on to planning for the sensory friendly storytimes, both here at the library as well as the outreach classrooms.  As part of grant for the county, we offered 6 sensory friendly…

  • Activities

    Summer Theatre

    We had an amazing group of 8th graders that graduated out of our Junior Friends program this spring and offered to direct, produce, and run practices for a summer play.  I love empowering tweens and teens that have the initiative to create new programs for kids.  We’ve had a Chinese New…

  • Activities

    Story Time Nursery Rhyme Cube

    I’ll say this right up front, I can’t remember where I found this fun idea!  If it’s your genius at work, please let me know so that I can give you credit.  There is so much research in the story time world about the importance of nursery rhymes and singing…

  • Activities

    American Helicopter Museum Visit

    Last night was our last big program of the summer (yay!) where we invited the American Helicopter Museum to give the kids some brief information about helicopters and then the kids got the chance to sit in a helicopter, push some buttons and take some photos.  For the event, we…

  • Activities

    Edible Book Contest

    This is such a great event to encourage getting children into the kitchen!  We’ve had an annual Edible Book Contest for the past six years and although we don’t get many submissions (usually between 10 – 15) the kids that do submit edible books are amazingly creative and their submissions…

  • Activities

    1,000 Books Before Kindergarten Celebration

    Last night we had a celebratory party for all the families who have completed the 1,000 Books Before Kindergarten program and it was so much fun!  I wanted to make sure that it was very different from our typical story time and that the kids knew we were celebrating them! …

  • Activities

    3rd & 4th Grade Book Discussion

    We started our 3rd & 4th grade book discussion last summer and had some great experiences and the kids who attended all read the books!  This is particularly amazing because I can’t always get our middle school students to read the book (which can make a book discussion difficult), but…