Happy "Noon" Year 2017

On the last day of the year, kids gathered at the Gordon-Nash to celebrate "Noon Year's Eve", counting down the minutes and seconds until noon and a celebration for 2017. While we waited, we read favorite books like LeUyen Pham's A Piece of Cake and Aaron Reynolds' Creepy Carrots. We made noisemakers from decorated paper towel tubes and and embellished party hats with stickers and streamers. We had refreshments - juice boxes, apples and cheese, penguin crackers, and candy canes.

We played a fun game that Japanese kids play at New Years. It's called fukuwarai, and it involves placing paper facial features on a blank paper face. But kids have to do it blindfolded, or with their eyes closed! It was so funny to open our eyes and see the silly face on the table. Fukuwarai means "lucky laugh" - and that's what everyone did when they looked at their face!

When the countdown timer showed noontime was getting near, we counted down the minutes and then the seconds. When the screen announce "Happy Noon Year!!", everyone tossed streamers in the air and blew their noisemakers. We paraded around the library and wished other patrons a "Happy Noon Year". Then we listened to Auld Lang Syne, the song that people play when one year ends and another begins. 

That's how we celebrated New Year's at the Gordon-Nash! We'll save the game to play again next year! Happy 2017!

Pajama Storytime Saturday: Christmas Eve Day

On the morning of Christmas Eve, we held a festive storytime to celebrate the upcoming holiday. Everyone wore their pajamas, we made special reindeer hats, and we read stories about Christmas. First we read Little Santa by Jon Agee, about Santa as a very young boy living with his family at the North Pole - until they decided to move to Florida! Bear Stays Up For Christmas by Karma Wilson was about Bear, who decided not to hibernate until after Christmas so he could celebrate with his friends.  Last we enjoyed the LEGO version of The Night Before Christmas and marveled at all the imaginative brick creations in the illustrations - even LEGO reindeer!

After stories, it was time for refreshments! Hot chocolate with candy canes! Yum! 

Have a Happy Christmas!

Gingerbread Men

Run, run, as fast as you can! Do you know who says that? The Gingerbread Man! That's who we read about this week, in many forms. First, The Gingerbread Boy by Richard Egielski, which had the gingerbread boy running around in the city. Then another rhyming version by Scott Cook, where the famous cookie ran away from his farm family. Next we read Jan Brett's Gingerbread Baby, which featured Matti as the baker who had the plan for getting the gingerbread person back. Finally, we read Gingerbread Mouse by Katy Bratun, about Mouse who was forced to find a new home after her old one was destroyed. Can you imagine what kind of house she found?

Between the stories, we made gingerbread men from sturdy paper and decorated them with all sorts of materials...ribbon and yarn, pompoms and stickers, foam shapes and sticky dots, and googley eyes, of course! Some of us even made t-shirts for our gingerbread men!

And we had fun, fun, as much as we can, 

with everyone making their Gingerbread Man!

S.T.E.M. Saturday: Gingerbread Houses

Our third annual S.T.E.M."gingerbread" house program was this past weekend, and was as much fun as ever! This year, kids were offered a new design challenge: to use large marshmallows as a base for their graham cracker creation rather than the milk carton we have used in years past. Some took the challenge, some used the traditional method, but all had fun! So much good engineering happened this year! Here's our show!

O Christmas Trees!

Stories about Christmas trees were featured in this week's Storytime. Pam read my favorite: Mr. Willoby's Christmas Tree by Robert Barry, where a too-tall Christmas tree keeps getting trimmed off at the top! She also read The Christmas Tree Tangle, a funny story about what happens when a kitten decides to climb a Christmas tree. Lastly, Merry Christmas Geraldine by Holly Keller was a story of a girl who wanted a tree so tall that it would touch the ceiling! Borrow the book to find out if Geraldine got her tall, tall tree!

Pam and Brandie led children in filling a clear plastic ornament with all sorts of tiny things - bits of ribbon and pipe cleaner, tiny pompoms, scraps of tissue paper, yarn, buttons and jewels and other bright colored objects. Children finished ornaments by tying on a tag with their name and the year, then took them home to adorn their own Christmas trees.

Winter's Sleep

We began December by reading stories about hibernation. Hibernation Station by Michelle Meadows is about various animals preparing to spend their winter in a log train. If you'd like to hear the story too, click here. We also read Time to Sleep by Denise Fleming, about Bear and his friends who cannot settle down to hibernate until they spread the word that it's time. A Sleepover for Beatrice and Bear by Mônica Carnesi told the story of a rabbit trying to share winter with her hibernating friend. Finally, Sleep, Black Bear, Sleep by Jane Yolen told about many creatures who sleep during the cold winter months.

Our craft was a paper bag den for a sleeping bear. First we cut, folded, and glued the bag into a cave. We glued soft cotton, bits of colored paper, and brown and tan texture paper to make a comfortable, warm den. Then we added a few snowflakes - because winter is coming!

Lastly, we colored a bear and tucked him inside. Look - doesn't he look cozy sleeping in his cave?

It's December!

Happy Turkey Day!

Since this is the last Storytime before the holiday, today we read about Thanksgiving. We began with The Ugly Pumpkin by Dave Horowitz, a sad and funny story of a pumpkin that no one wants. Then we read A Turkey for Thanksgiving by Eve Bunting, about Mr. Moose trying to find a turkey for dinner so Mrs. Moose can have her Thanksgiving wish. Our last story, Bear Says Thanks by Karma Wilson, tells of our friend Bear, who wants to have a feast and invite all his friends, but who has no food to share. 

We made a turkey for our Thanksgiving craft. Using makers, we colored each ridge on the round edge of a paper plate to make it look like colorful feathers. 

Then we added eyes, a beak, and a wattle to our turkey. We accordion-folded long orange strips to make turkey legs coming from the bottom of the plate.

Finally, we attached our turkey to a long strip of paper. We decorated the paper with colorful Thanksgiving stickers, then wrapped the strip around our heads and taped it. Voila! a turkey hat to wear on Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving Day to you and your family!

Crazy 8s Club: Crayon Craze

Today the Crazy 8s Club used old crayons to sort and classify, estimate and count. We sorted by size and by shade, and grouped crayons into groups of five and then ten. With a partner, we grabbed handfuls of crayons and compared the number in each fist. We counted by 5s and 10s and we even talked about odd and even numbers, oddly enough! As you can see, these crayons were for much more than coloring!

S.T.E.M. Saturday: The Moon and Stars

S.T.E.M. Saturday this month was all about the moon, the stars, and other objects in our solar system. Young patrons made dot-to-dot constellations with stick-on stars and constellation viewers by poking holes in cut paper star formations, then attaching them to the openings of toilet paper tubes. Peek through, and there's the Big Dipper, Casseopia, Orion!

We talked about the planets in our solar system, and checked a NASA image online to see their colors and where they fall in order from our star, the Sun. We made solar system hats (or charts) to take home.

Using a flashlight, a tube, and a ball, we made shadows on the wall to show how the Moon changes its shape from one night to the next. We also checked moon phases for November 2016, talked about the nightly changes we noticed, then tried to duplicate the waxing and waning shapes by scraping the filling from Oreos!

Before we ended, we talked about the library's telescope - yes, we have one that patrons can borrow for up to a week! Stop in or call to find out how!