>Fee-Fi-Fo-Fum…

>Inspired by Kristin at the Swarthmore Public Library, Wee Reads and The Book Bunch went crazy with books about giants and had huge fun pretending everything around us was smaller than us.

Our reading list:
Chicken Big by Keith Graves
I think the adults in the room enjoyed this as much as the children!

How to Make Friends with a Giant by Gennifer Choldenko
Which generated a surprisongliklively discussion about acceptance, differences.

The groups had a blast making books for giants (large pages and lots of staples!) and teeny tiny books that were ‘left in the giant’s castle when Jack ran out!’

>Strega Nona

>Today for Wee Reads and the Book Bunch we read Tomie dePoala’s Strega Nona and created our own overflowing bubbling pasta pots!
For the pots we used baby food jars (empty and clean of course!)
Masking tape (to color our pots)
Sequins (decorations)
Yarn (pasta)
Here are some pictures from the day:

Materials for our pots!

More material for our pots

>The Book Bunch is Just Ducky!

>

We’re here for the books!

While the Book Bunch is aimed at children ages 4-7, during summer and school vacations we may relax the rules as attendance mandates. For our meeting this past Thursday, our members of the Book Bunch enjoyed duck themed activities as we read Phyllis Root’s One Duck Stuck.

Copies are available at this and other libraries!

After reading the book we learned sign for some of the animals (courtesy of ASLpro):

duck

frog

fish

moose

possum

snake

skunk

snail

Then it was off to the races! Through funding by our generous Friends of the Library Group, we had a rubber duck race. Attendees raced ducks across a water pond (aka a plastic container!) and each participant was awarded a rubber ducks purchased with funds from the donation.

The contenders in the ‘pen’

The ducks dry out between heats

We also drew and colored our own ducks!

A rainbow duck!

The Book Bunch meets Thursdays at 4PM during the summer! Join us for books, new friends and crafts!

-r

>Going Batty with The Book Bunch!

>Today the Book Bunch was all about Bats!
We read ‘Bats at the Beach’ by Bryan Lies, learned the sign (courtesy of ASLpro.com) and created our own paper bats to take home with us!
Miss Rachee shared a story from when she was younger about a bat sighting.
If you are interested in bats, here are more books for your pleasure:
Bats at the Library also by Bryan Lies
Bats on Parade by Kath Appelt
Homework Hassles by Abby Klein
For non-fiction titles check out the juvenile non-fiction collection under 599.4.

The Book Bunch meets Thursdays at 4PM during the summer.

-r

>Join the Shellibration!

>For the second year we invited people to join us for a “Shellibration” to celebrate National Poetry Month. This year our celebration took place in April and we shared our favorite Shel Silverstein (and other favorite authors) poems as well as other activities to encourage an exploration of poetry.

An ongoing way we celebrate poetry is with our Poem-tree. Visitors to the Family Room can add a leaf with their favorite verses.

During Book Bunch we celebrated with flashlight poems. Using an idea from the Crayola web site, participants wrote poems and they were then displayed in the Family Room.

The direct link is here:
http://www.crayola.com/lesson-plans/detail/flashlight-poems-lesson-plan/

Please visit our Facebook page for more photos from the event:

For the Shellibration we read our favorite Shel Silverstein (or other author’s) poems.
Afterwards we created moveable poetry. Moveable poetry is like magnetic but we used construction paper and not magnets. The idea also came from Crayola and can be accessed here:
http://www.crayola.com/free-coloring-pages/print/crayola-poetry-coloring-page/

The picture shown is a word file we

created with sight words for our moveable pieces.

Enjoy!
-r

>One Potato, Two Potato

>Each week the library hosts a book club for children 4-7 years old*. This group, The Book Bunch, mixes books and crafts without the formal format of a storytime.

This week, in honor of the upcoming Saint Patrick’s Day holiday, we read and discussed One Potato, Two Potato by Cynthia DeFelice with illustrations by Andrea U’Ren. This is the story of a very poor, humble couple who lives so simple a life they share everything. One day the husband discovers a pot with magical powers buried under the very last potato in the garden.

After reading the book we discussed this book versus another similar one we read, Two of Everything by Lily Toy Hong and also discussed what WE would do with a magical pot.

For the craft we made potatoes.

Join us Wednesday afternoons for our young reader book group. New crafters are always welcome!

*Children up to and including 8/9 are welcome but may wish to join out monthly ‘tween bookclub, TBC.

-r