December Holidays!

Does your family celebrate a big holiday in December?  There are lots of special days!  Hanukkah starts December 10th, Las Posadas begins December 16th, Christmas is December 25th, and Kwanza starts December 26. The Yule, or the Winter Solstice (the longest night of the year!) is December 21st. And there are more! This week’s craft will help your child see the number of days left until your family's BIG DAY!

Kids connect lots of colorful or sparkly loops, with one for every day of December leading up to your holiday. Each day, they remove the bottom loop. When the loops are gone, it's time to celebrate!

Contact the library for your kit(s), available to pick up from the Curbside Bin. December starts tomorrow!! 

Read Aloud: The Ugly Pumpkin

 I just love this book. Every year when I read it, I laugh all over again. It's pretty short - I hope you and your children like it, too. Post a comment, and let me know your family's reaction.

Thanksgiving Dinner

Even though Thanksgiving this year will not be our traditional celebration, I'm trying to find ways to make it a memorable one for my family. This week's craft is a way for your child to take part in the planning and preparation of your special day by making place cards for each person at your table. Craft bags this week contain cut-out white cardstock oak leaf shapes, tiny paper leaves, stickers, and stick-on gems. All your child needs is crayons, markers, or paints, a glue stick, and imagination! Give the library a call or email us so we'll know how many leaves you need in your child's craft bag. We'll gather them up, get back in touch with you, and we'll leave the kits for you at our Curbside location.  We also have several craft bags left from last week if kids in your house would like to make a turkey!

Maybe your child would like to help with food preparation. Here are a few websites with easy recipes for kids - there are lots more online!

Two Ingredient Cream Biscuits: https://addapinch.com/two-ingredient-cream-biscuit-recipe/#axzz30oMVd89O

Apple Pie Bites (I'm going to make these myself!)

https://theblondcook.com/apple-pie-bites/print/18012/#respond

Pumpkin Spice Chex Mix

https://thenovicechefblog.com/wp-json/mv-create/v1/creations/409/print

Calls for a bag of Candy Corn or Harvest Mix but I bet you don’t need it. 

Butter!

My favorite thing to make with kids is butter! Heavy cream in a jar, shaken vigorously for several minutes. Just past the whipped cream(!) stage, the cream will separate into a lump of butter and a bit of buttermilk. Take out the lump, mix in a little salt, and put it in a small bowl on your table. Believe me, your child will be so proud when that butter is passed for rolls, potatoes, etc. If you need a recipe, there's one here: https://buggyandbuddy.com/make-butter/

Want a read-aloud story with a recipe to follow? We have several in the Children's Room! 

Pancakes pancakes by Eric Carle, with a recipe for pancakes. 

Cranberry Thanksgiving by Harry Devlin and Wende Devlin featuring "Grandmother's Famous Cranberry Bread" 

Amelia Bedelia’s first apple pie has a recipe for apple pie. 

Bear and chicken - make "Bear’s vegetable soup"

The Mitten, with a recipe for Grandma’s delicious hot cocoa.

The gingerbread man, with a recipe for gingerbread cookies!

Pumpkin Soup!: with a recipe for that! 

Soup Day: make delicious "Snowy day vegetable soup" 

And we have two books with pie recipes...

How to make a cherry pie and see the USA

How to make an apple pie and see the world

This year, I am thankful that our community is supporting the library and each other. I'm thankful that kids have resources and adults who are committed to helping them grow and learn in and outside of school. I'm thankful that there is hope for a time when we can all be together again as we were before.

Have a safe and a memorable holiday with your family.

Time for Turkey!

There's a new craft kit for kids this week, available for Curbside Pickup now. Here's the start of it - all these pieces are in the kit along with long paper strips to attach to the back for feathers. Kids need crayons, scissors, a glue stick, and some imagination to make this turkey for display at your house! We also have some Thanksgiving books - search our catalog HERE or tell us your child's age and we can pick a few for you. Just call us or email and we'll save a kit for you. I also have a few moose kits left if you'd rather have a moose for Thanksgiving!

Make a Moose!

I had so much fun reading our new children's book, Jefferson Measures a Moose by Mara Rockliff, that I wanted a craft to go with it. And here it is: a moose puppet in a take-home bag with all pieces and directions included. Aren't those unbleached coffee filter antlers funny? 

Let us know if you'd like to request a kit or two for your children and maybe a moose book to go with it - here's what we have:

Moose Tracks by Karma Wilson
If you Give a Moose a Muffin by Laura Numeroff
This is a Moose by Richard Morris
This Moose Belongs to Me by Oliver Jeffers
Z is for Moose by Kathy Bingham
Jefferson Measures a Moose by Mara Rockliff

Email library@newhampton.org or call us 677-3740 and we'll deliver a kit and books to you curbside!

Whooo??? YOU!

It's another take-home craft kit for kids - this week, a paper bag owl! Materials, including the paper bag, are included in the ziploc bag kit. All your child needs is crayons, scissors, a glue stick, and imagination! Let us know if you'd like an owl book or two to go along with the craft. Both are available for Curbside Pick-up, as are all kids' books in our online catalog - just call us at 603-677-3740 or email to library@newhampton.org. Supplies are limited!

I'm a Winner! 🏆

Look!! I won some books for the Gordon-Nash in a raffle from the NH State Library! These are picture books all based on stories and events of famous lives. 

In Ben of All Trades, a young Benjamin Franklin tries to find a job that he likes. Hard Work But It's Worth It is about the life and accomplishments of President Jimmy Carter. In Box, slave Henry Brown mails himself to freedom! Rescuing the Declaration of Independence tells the story of one man's determination to save important historical documents from a British invasion of Washington!

But my favorite one is Jefferson Measures a Moose by Mara Rockliff. It's about Thomas Jefferson, who loved books and numbers and math! A nature expert in France wrote a book about America and said some bad things - like birds couldn't sing, dogs didn't know how to bark, and people were weak and not very smart.  Jefferson wanted the world to think favorably about our brand-new country, and he used numbers to do that. He measured and weighed and used numbers to set the record straight! He got a moose from New Hampshire and wait til you see what he did with it! Wow!

The more I read about Thomas Jefferson, the more fascinated with his life I become! If you want to borrow this book (or any of the others listed here - or any of the others that we have!), call us (677-3740) or email (library@newhampton.org) and we will check it out to you and get it to you curbside.