• 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…

  • Activities

    Fall Programming Ideas

    Although in our area children do not go back to school until after Labor Day, I’m already hard at work finalizing fall programming dates and times as well as beginning to promote events that are upcoming in September.  Our summer reading program doesn’t even end until the 29th, so we…

  • Activities

    Catapult Science Workshop

    pom poms

    Today we’re going to be creating own very own catapults to test out!  I came across this idea from the Libraryland blog and from the Show Me Librarian blog.  Both had great ideas and I combined them as well as some ideas of my own to create, what I think,…

  • Activities

    Robot Building – Part 2

    I survived our robot building workshop this afternoon! It was a lot of controlled chaos, but I think the kids and many of the parents had a really great time building, exploring, imagining, and just having a really great time together. We ended up with over 100 people for this…

  • Activities

    Summer Camp Outreach

    Every year the library partners with the local Park & Recreation Department to bring a library program out to the summer day camp.  This year we’re focusing our services on children ages 5 – 8, which is a little easier than offering a 30 – 45 minute program for the…

  • Activities

    Slime Science Workshop

    Our slime science workshop was definitely a lot of fun  – so fun in fact, that I took it with me when I visited summer camp today and we had fun there as well!  I started each program reading the story The Secret Science Project that Almost Ate the School by…

  • Lifestyle

    Audiobooks & Playaway Display

    Our first summer display is up and will stick around for just about 2 weeks before our Summer Reading Program begins and the table display changes every week!  I often like to acknowledge our audiobooks during the beginning of the summer to remind our families of the great resources we have…

  • Activities

    Making & Doing This Summer

    I read a great article in The New York Times yesterday about allowing kids to make and do things this summer that they don’t normally get the chance to make and do!  And I loved the author of the article because her first idea was visit the library!  She points…

  • Activities

    Children’s Book Discussions

    I have been working for the past few weeks on getting many of my book discussions finished before the onslaught of summer reading is upon us.  I’ve found that if I have everything ready to go, all I need to do is print out the questions, review the story and…

  • Reviews

    The Shadow Throne

    It’s been awhile since I posted a book review, but I finally got a chance to finish this trilogy!  I absolutely loved The False Prince and plan on using it as a suggestion all summer long for summer reading.  But, I personally, don’t find trilogies to be very strong.  I…