-
Mythology for Grades K – 2 and 3 -4
Today I did a very quick program for children entering Kindergarten – 2nd grade in the fall. I read aloud “Bellerophon and the Flying Horse” and “Theseus and the Minotaur” in Usborne Greek Myths for Young Children by Heather Amery. This group of myths are written for younger children and are…
-
Fun Friday: Homemade Playdough
Program Idea: Our Fun Friday program has been running for the past two years, and I’m beginning to find it difficult to decide on themes or ideas to explore. The wide age-range of the kids (grades 1 – 4) sometimes makes it difficult to plan programs, plus its only 45…
-
Book Review: Dory Fantasmagory
“Fantasmagory: a dream-like state where real life and imagination are blurred together” – a perfect start to a book that does exactly that – blur the line between reality and imagination and it’s exactly what kids need! Everyone calls Dory “Rascal” – she’s the youngest in her family and her…
-
The Nowhere Box
This book grabbed my attention right away – the cut-out, painted, and pencil sketched drawings fit perfectly with the story about a little boy frustrated by his even littler brothers always getting in the way of his fun. So, he decides to go Nowhere in a washing machine box and…
-
Summer Camp Outreach – Shrinky Dinks
This week at summer camp we made Shrinky Dinks! If you’re unfamiliar with Shrinky Dinks you can get Shrinky Dink paper from Amazon. It’s basically a sheet of plastic that can be decorated using colored pencils and shrinks when you put it in the oven (or in our case –…
-
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…
-
Robot Building – Part 1
I’m not sure that anyone who isn’t a children’s librarian understands the feelings of being smack in the middle of summer reading with programs happening on a daily (sometimes hourly) schedule, reference questions flying at you a mile a minute, and kids and parents, nannies, grandparents, and tutors in every…
-
Fun Friday: Extreme Animals
We had a great time at our Fun Friday program yesterday, 22 kids from 1st – 4th grade came to the library to learn about animals, camouflage and to use their imaginations to create their own extreme animal. We began with finding camouflaged animals in the book, Where in the…
-
What’s Black and White and Read All Over?
I’m over at the ALSC blog today posting about a great program I did with middle school students. It’s a simple program involving old newspapers, some scissors, glue and scrap paper… and of course some imagination!
-
“Imagination: The Forgotten 21st Century Skill?”
While I was contemplating what to write about today, an article about imagination just popped up on Twitter feed – and there was my answer! “Imagination: The Forgotten 21st Century Skill?” was posted on the Scholastic website by Brian Smith, a kindergarten teacher. In the article, Brian Smith notes that…
