• Activities

    Storytime Theme: Shapes

    Identifying shapes is so important to a child’s development, it’s the beginning of understanding letters and words and an important early literacy skill.  My first storytime of the session focused on shapes, but in a much more abstract way than identifying squares, circles, triangles, and more.  The kids did a…

  • Activities

    Sensory-Friendly Story Time Theme: Down on the Farm

    Today was our first try at providing a sensory-friendly story time at the library.  Unfortunately, no one showed up.  I’m not giving up though, sometimes this happens – especially for a brand new program targeting a specific part of the community.  Many families that have children with disabilities do not frequent…

  • Lifestyle

    Flexibility and Librarians

    I literally just posted yesterday how it’s been relatively quiet in the library and I’ve been getting a lot of work done at my desk – revamping the library website, booklists for a new librarian and patrons, and I came in today with a pretty decent to-do list and this…

  • Activities

    Storytime Theme: Imagination Station

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    This is the second Saturday storytime I’ve tried this fall and it’s great to see some regular faces, but also some new faces who can’t come in during the week! I had about 20 kids show up which worked really well and before we began I explained to parents the…

  • Activities

    Story Time Theme: Mo Willems

    This week was probably one of my favorites – Mo Willems Week for story time!  Willems is an amazing author/illustrator in the children’s literature world and his books are geared perfectly to my crowd of 2 – 3.5 year olds.  We shared Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus with…

  • Reviews

    Little Red Writing

    Joan Holub and Melissa Sweet are paired together in this beautifully executed story about writing a story.  This is such a fun way to introduce children to writing stories.  Little Red Writing takes a familiar story and remakes it to include tried and true rules for writing a story.  Our…

  • Reviews

    Tea Party Rules

    Ame Dyckman has done it again, Tea Party Rules is an adorable story of friendship in the most unlikely place. Cub smells something delicious and before he knows it, he has found a tea party…complete with cookies! When the little girl shows up, she teaches Cub the (many) rules one…

  • Activities

    Story Time Theme – Amy Krouse Rosenthal

    This week’s story time author/illustrator was Amy Krouse Rosenthal – another favorite author of mine whose books are funny, poignant, and can help children learn valuable life lessons.  Again, I think these books may have faired better with a little older audience (I’m thinking preschool age), but they are still…

  • Reviews

    Pumpkin Trouble

    It’s that time of year!  No, not Christmas (yet!), but Halloween and there are some great books out there for the holiday.  Kids around here are ready to go trick-or-treating and have been talking about costumes for awhile now.  I thought I’d post this great holiday book as it fits…

  • Activities

    Story Time Theme – Paul Schmid

    This week our story time author/illustrator was Paul Schmid.  He writes and illustrates absolutely beautiful and adorable stories for little ones.  Unfortunately, these stories were a little too long for my crowd, but would most likely work for an older audience in preschool.  I did blowup balloons for the kids…