Story Time Review

Sharing and Caring @ the Library

For our Story time classes this week we read books on the topic of sharing. We used The Bear who Shared by Catherine Rayner, We Share Everything! by Robert Munsch, Should I share my Ice Cream? by Mo Willems, Dot and Dash Learn to Share by Emma Dodd and Rainbow Fish by Marcus Pfister.

Instead of reading the Rainbow Fish story I showed a YouTube Video  found here. I don't usually show movies since I feel like they get more than enough screen time but this video was simple and creative using the original illustrations and the text was read by Ernest Borgnine.  After the video we played a game of pin the scale on the fish. I created the fish by copying a fish outline onto poster board. I covered the fish with clear contact paper so we could stick the scales on without damaging the
drawing. For scales I used my
 1 1/2" circle cutter to cut out circles from some glitter paper and some shiny foil coated paper. For our younger classes I just let the kids each have a scale and stick it on. For the older kids we used a blind fold.  During this activity I talked to the kids about how when someone shares with us then we return the favor and share with them. We "shared" back some of the Rainbow fishes' scales.

We used the song Wonderful Friends from the CD Music Time by Johnette Downing and clapped along and followed the directions in the song for finding a wonderful friend.  We had a guessing activity where I hid a toy inside a #10 can. I had prepared the cans before by cutting a hole in the plastic lid and stretching and gluing a tube sock over the hole. The children could reach inside the sock and feel what was in the can but could not see it or pull it out. They had to guess what toy was inside that we could share. I hid a stuffed animal and a ball in them. The ball was easy to guess, the stuffed animal (The very hungry caterpillar) was harder.

For our craft I used a print out of a fish outline that included scales. I gave the children some glitter and foil papers cut into scale shapes to glue on. Then we used watercolor paint to make the fish rainbow colors.

This was the final week of our Story time session. Registration for the next session will be on March 11th at 10:30 a.m. Hope to see you there!

Michele Schumann, Children's Librarian

Story Time Review

We Love Story Time!

This week we took time to celebrate the St. Valentine's Day holiday. We read Louanne Pig: In the Mysterious Valentine by Nancy Carlson, Be Mine Be Mine Sweet Valentine by Sarah Weeks, There was an Old Lady who Swallowed a Rose by Lucille Colandro, If you'll be my Valentine by Cynthia Rylant, Henry in Love by Peter McCarty and Love Monster by Rachel Bright. I also had planned to use Happy Valentines Day Curious George by H. A. Rey but I didn't have time for this title.

We got our wiggles out with the CD Smart Moves II, using the track Balance it on my Head. I gave each child a beanbag to balance on their head and we marched, skipped, danced and spun around trying to keep the bean bag in place without touching it with our hands. Tricky to do when skipping! We also did an activity with some valentine hearts. I had written an activity on the back of each one and one at a time the children chose a valentine and we stretched, or blinked or jumped. The children enjoyed choosing. One three year old took her heart and since she, of course, couldn't read it she just made something up. "It says to jump up and down." she guessed.  It didn't, but I thought that it was great that she tried to read it on her own and failing that predicted what it might say.

For our craft we created a Valentine Day hat with a simple paper plate and some heart stickers and plastic jewels. Our take home pages were Valentine related find the item that doesn't belong and a tracing page with hearts to practice writing control.

Next Week: Sharing
Michele Schumann, Children's Librarian

Don't repair your library books

Tape: Just say, NO!

Books are made of paper, and it is true that paper isn't very durable, so inevitably it will get torn. So what is a person to do? Most of the time what happens is, we reach for something to repair that torn paper. A lot of you use tape to quickly patch up a torn page or to reinforce an old binding. Librarians and people in the business of book repair have very strong feelings AGAINST using tape to repair books. Over time, regular tape will turn brown and the chemicals in the adhesive will become a part of the paper. At that point, it will no longer stick and hold the pages together, but will just peel right off leaving a brown stain behind, and the biggest problem, it will no longer hold the ripped page together. And not everyone chooses to use clear tape! We see all types of tape used to repair library materials. I guess whatever is handy will do, right? No way! 

Did you know that the library staff would prefer that if your library book rips or the pages fall out of the binding, that you not repair the damage? We would really prefer that you let us do it, we have the correct materials and the experience in repairing library materials. Most of the time if you make a repair with the incorrect materials it causes more damage to the book, sometimes making a correct repair impossible. Most people think if they repair the damage that we won't charge them a damage fee. Twice today I have had "repaired" items brought to my attention. I charged double what I would have for the simple damages, simply because the tape that was used was cheap cellophane that will yellow and not hold the pages in a few months time. It takes staff time to try and remove this cheap tape. Sometimes it is impossible to remove and thus makes it so we have to replace the item.


Here is the advice I give to those who come in to tour the library. Don't repair library books, they don't belong to you. Just bring them in and we will repair them properly. Accidents happen and sometimes it isn't your fault at all. For example, pages falling out of a poor binding (our LDS fiction collection is a great example, the publisher uses cheap, brittle glue on all of their books!).  Perhaps the glue or stitching is worn out, this is general damage from use and we don't charge for that type of thing. Now, if your child or dog has chewed the cover or if you spill your spaghetti O's on the pages, we will charge you. We do try and adjust the cost to the age and use of the book, even if the damage is your fault.  We know it's painful to pay for damage to a book, so try and keep them safe. Don't read in the bathtub, etc.(but that is another topic, I will save for another day) Remember, just say NO! to tape.

Thank you!
Michele Schumann, Children's Librarian

Story Time Review

What Shape is Story Time?

This week we explored more shapes in our Story time classes. We read Mouse Shapes by Ellen Stoll Walsh, The Shape of my Heart by Mark Sperring, It Looked like Spilt Milk by Charles Green Shaw, What Shape? by Debbie McKinnon, and  I am a Blop! by Herve Tullet. Although I wanted to focus on shapes I found that a lot of these titles were also good at discussing that everything has a shape, not just what we call "shapes". It is a bunny shape or a house shape or a people shape. To help with this line of thought I used balloons and filled them with a variety of things. Salt, beans, water and corn syrup etc. They all had the same shape of a balloon but when the children held them and squished them they were very different. Some were hard some soft, some smooth and some bumpy. I loved this activity but one of our mom's in our Jr. Story time class is highly allergic to latex! Oh, I felt so badly for exposing her. She ran upstairs and took allergy meds and we had to make sure that her daughter washed her hands very well at the end of class. I usually am aware of things like peanut allergy and that is why I don't often give food to kids during our classes but this was a new and scary allergy to worry about.

We got out the Sound Shape drums and played around with different ways to play them. Fast, slow, loud, quiet, on the side, on the bottom, with your fingers, toes, elbows and head. Lots of fun and really noisy for the library. We danced along to the tune We are Rolling from the CD Smart Moves II.

For our craft we used heart shapes, stickers and markers to make some "Love Bug" valentine day cards for someone in the child's family. A lot of pieces but they were super cute when they were finished.

Next week: Valentine's Day/Love
Michele Schumann, Children's Librarian