>Making a difference: Community Service Project

>Members from The Lansdowne YMCA at St John’s were treated to a special story time when the eighth grade class from The Hill Top Preparatory School assisted with a community service project. Each student in the eighth grade are doing a project to make a difference in the community and one student focused on literacy. Stephanie planned a book drive at her school, with books being donated to Philadelphia Reads, and a trip to the library. The entire eighth grade class would read classic picture books and work with the preschoolers to create art projects.

The eighth graders were broken up into groups of two and each group read and did activities inspired by the following books:
Horton Hears A Who- by Dr. Seuss
-Make a clover out of pipe cleaners

http://www.youtube.com/get_player

If You Give A Mouse A Cookie by Laura Numeroff
-Make a cookie out of paper plates and crayons or markers

Click Clack Moo: Cows That Type by Doreen Cronin
-Making a cow mask out of paper plates, popsicle sticks and markers.
At this station the preschoolers were so enamored by the typewriter used as a prop that no masks were made!

Some children NEVER saw or used a typewriter!

http://www.youtube.com/get_player

Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendek
-Make a scary monster mask out of paper plates.

The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle
-The eighth graders read the story using a puppet made for us by a friend of the library/ For the art activity, we drew pictures of caterpillars using different color backgrounds.

Harold and the Purple Crayon by Crockett Johnson
-Draw an entire world in purple (or favorite color) crayon

A dino from the book…ROAR!

The children from the YMCA were broken up into groups of two to three children and each group of children was able to to rotate through each group of  the eighth graders reading. After hearing the story, each child was given art supplies to create or recreate a small scene from each book.

Without exaggeration, the collaboration was such a success! The YMCA group loved the individual attention and enjoyed hearing the stories. One child asked when could we do it again!

We loved the book suggestions so much that we used them for Wee Reads and The Book Bunch!

Thank you to the staff and students of The Hill Top Preparatory School for providing such a great storytime and thank you to the staff and students of the Lansdowne YMCA at St John’s for participating!

>The Rocky Horror Shrek Show!

>We celebrated Children’s Book Week with a clever take on the movie Shrek. Inspired by the revival on the television show Glee, we combined the interactive nature of The Rocky Horror Picture Show with one of our favorite movies, Shrek!

What is The Rocky Horror Picture Show?
The Rocky Horror Picture Show is a 1975 British musical comedy film that parodies science fiction and B-movie horror films.

Why The Rocky Horror Shrek Show?
Inspired by an episode of Glee and a love for the original Shrek movie, we thought we could take the interactive part of Rocky Horror and mesh it with Shrek. Despite a small turnout (8 children and three adults) we did have a great afternoon!

We are sharing information with you to create your own Rocky Horror Shrek Show!.
Also, if you have ideas to share, please leave us a comment or e-mail us at lacsd@delcolibraries.org!
The ideas listed below are collected from friends and colleagues.

Please note: the information below assumes that you have previously watched Shrek.

The materials we used to create the experience:
-paper (for airplanes and to make signs.
-gumdrops
-string
-marshmallows (we used Kraft Jumbo Marshmallows)
-shredded paper for confetti

Movie license to show Shrek.

How we interacted with the movie
We left the captions on so that we could read the screen and/ orsing along.

Opening :At true Love’s first kiss we blew a kiss
Sing: All Star
Scare away the Mob: Scream
Donkey flies: Paper airplanes
Sing: All Alone (Donkey)
Who Knows Where Lord Farquaad is: we all screamed “Pick Me! Pick Me!”
When Lord Farquaad is torturing The Gingerbread Man and threatening his buttons: we ate a gum drop button
We all recited the exchange between Farquaad and the Gingerbread Man:

Do you know the Muffin Man?
The Muffin Man?
The Muffin man.
Yes, I know the Muffin Man, who lives on Drury Lane?
She’s married to the Muffin man.
The Muffin Man?
The Muffin Man!

When The magic mirror showed Farquaad his choice of bachelorettes we held up signs to pick bachelorette 1, 2, o r 3

Upon arriving in DuLoc we all sang the welcome sign and took a picture
The fight in DuLoc:

Throw yarn, ribbon (the ale)
Cheer Shrek

Rescuing Fiona: we all screamed when we saw the dragon.

Walking in the woods
Fiona sings with bird: Everyone sings (I think if we do this again I am going to pass out bags to pop when the bird explodes)

When Robin Hood ‘rescues’ Fiona: Subtitles to sing the song

When Shrek, Fiona and Donkey make camp for the night: Marshmallows to eat in lieu of weed rats. (I couldn’t find shoestrings for rat tails!)

At the wedding of Fiona and Farquaad:

Signs that read Applause, Awwww! Aaah! Gasp!
Green hearts (they are ogres!) and we made kissy noises.

At Shrek and Fiona’s wedding we used shredded paper as confetti.
And of course all sang I’m a Believer.

In the future this will definitely be restricted to ages 10 and up. The younger members enjoyed the food but didn’t really care for the interactive part of the performance.

Some of the materials for the movie

Lots of string!

Ms. Margaret helped out

A giant marsh…, uh weed rat!

The players showing off the signs

We have a whole week of events planned! Stop by and join in on the fun!
-r

>Homeschool Happenings accueille* Caitlin!

>Bonjour les amis bibliothèque!**
Homeschool Happenings was pleased to welcome Madame Caitlin Knight from Lango Philly Main Line who shared a wonderful French class! We had a wonderful group with ages from toddler through tween experience a full immersion French lesson.

Along with Cosmo, Lango’s mascot, Mme Caitlin introduced us to numéros (numbers) and couleurs (colors) with the help of Cosmo, the bulldog who is the mascot for Lango. Despite Mme Caitlin speaking totally in French, the group had no trouble following along and a few members who already spoke some French assisted.

Bienvenue 

Bienvenue

Bonjour! Bonjour!

Combien?

Quelle couleur?

Dans le cadre du parachute

Faire sauter Cosmo!

Homeschool Happenings is a new program designed for homeschooling families to socialize and experience special library events. Please join us May 11th for our next event!

*Welcomes
**Hello Library Friends!

>The Stop, Drop and Craft Aerodynamic Experience!

>To celebrate our participation in Subaru Cherry Blossom Festival of Greater Philadelphia for this past Wednesday’s Stop, Drop and Craft activity we practiced origami. But our library friends wanted to explore the paper planes we found in A Kid’s Guide to Origami…Making Origami Paper Airplanes Step by Step and we had a paper plane flying contest!

Guest crafter Ms. Margaret was our special judge as we held a contest to see how far the planes flew, the best design, and to help determine who flew the furthest distance.
There were no set rules for our impromptu paper plane throwing contest. The group could choose to use origami paper which measures 6″ by 6″, ‘regular’ copy paper which measures 8 1/2″ by 11″ or legal sizes paper which measures 11″ by 14 1/2 “

Books available for origami:
A Kid’s Guide to Origami…Making Origami Paper Airplanes Step by Step by Michael G. LaFosse
Origami: The Fun and Funky Art of Paper Folding by Thiraunt Boonyadhistarn
I Made it Myself: Paper Folding Fun by Didier Boursin
A Kid’s Guide to Origami…Making Origami Science Experiements Step by Step by Michael G. LaFosse
Classic Origami by P.D. Tuyen

Web sites consulted for paper planes:
Amazing Paper Planes: http://www.amazingpaperairplanes.com/Simple.html
Alex’s Paper Planes: http://www.paperairplanes.co.uk/rapier.php
California Science Center: http://www.californiasciencecenter.org/Education/GroupPrograms/BigLab/Rollercoasters/docs/RollercoastersPre.pdf

Stop, Drop and Craft meets Wednesdays from 4-6. Stop by and see what crafty goodness we are making!

Even Mrs. Gianella got in on the act!

What can we use to make THE best plane?

Our supplies: paper, scissors and glue!

Other plane options available

The helicopter option

The contest!

http://www.youtube.com/get_player

>Literacy Career Fair

>

Join the Lansdowne Public Library and the Darby Free Library Monday, April 4, 2011 beginning at 6:00 PM for a Literacy Career Fair! Our special guest is Stephen R. Swinburne the author of 2011’s Pennsylvania One Book, Whose Shoes? A Shoe for Every Job

Each year, Pennsylvania’s One Book program highlights the importance of early literacy development in preschoolers ages 3 to 6. Another goal of this program is to increase awareness among parents, other family members, and the early childhood community of the need for practices that promote early literacy development.

For our event members of the community will meet with children and their parents and will demonstrate their careers and talents and tell what shoes are best for the job. Our special guest is the author of the book, Stephen R. Swinburne, who will read and sign free copies of his book for each child.

Also scheduled to appear:

Musician Noelle Huie from Reilly the band
Hoop Dancer Sarah Maccarelli from Hooping with Sarah
Ballet Dance Jamie Laughlin from Ajala Dance Studios
Office Larry Albertoli, Lansdowne Police Department
Magician Ran’D Shine from Shine Entertainment
Laboratory Technicians from Fitzgerald Mercy Hospital
Amtrak Safety Track Program
Pastry Chef Heather Perot
Children’s Librarian Mr. Perry

A fruit stand with free samples and volunteers from RSVP, the Retired Senior Volunteer Program will be dressed as clowns and doing face painting! There will be crafts and activities for children and the first 50 children registered will get a copy of the book!

The event will be held at the beautiful historic Twentieth Century Club located at 84 S. Lansdowne Avenue Lansdowne, PA 19050.

Please call Rachee Fagg at 610-623-0239 ext 5 or Susan Borders at 610-586-7310 for more information or to register for this event!

To learn more about the PA One Book program please visit them online at http://www.paonebook.org

>Preschool Playschool…Here Comes the ABCs!

>Our second week of Parent Child Workshop was all about literacy and engaging little ones. We had two professionals today, Youth Services Coordinator Rachee Fagg and Master Storyteller, Carla Wiley.  For Preschool Playschool we invited children and their caregivers to explore a variety of activities to help children get ready to read.

Activities included Chicka Chicka Boom Boom and a tree for the children to send letters climbing, magnetic letters to spell words, an Alphabet Walk in which children searched for letters through environmental print, rhyming games, fishing for letters and free books courtesy of the Book Bank and The Pennsylvania African American Library Association.

Playtime

Sorting through the alphabet

A matching game

Match the rhyming words





Getting ready to fish

Exploring letters

Magnetic letters to sort

Free books from PAALA

Exploring the matching game

Chicka Chicka Boom Boom Tree

Building together

Hunting for letters

More hunting for letters

Placing letters on the tree

Matching games

Children and their parents exploring

>Comic Book Creators Club!

>

Mike Grandozio from Slamtastic Parties contacted us a few months back with an offer we couldn’t refuse: a program designed to merge art and writing with the end result a comic book for fans. The comic wouldn’t necessarily have to be JUST for superheroes, it could be about anything the young author/illustrators wanted.



Mike is a wonderful instructor. He patiently lead the children (and this adult!) through the five basics:
1) Coming up with an idea
2) Designing your cast, setting, everything else
3) Writing the script
4) Penciling Layout
5) Inking, lettering

Each week he held mini contests with comic books as prizes and he encouraged even the most reluctant writers to get ideas on paper.

We plan to host a comic con styled debut to show off the works of these fabulous young authors. Stay tuned for that date, coming soon!
-r

>National Gaming Day!

>

Saturday November 13th was National Gaming Day @ your library. National Gaming Day is an is an initiative of the American Library Association to connect communities around the educational, recreational, and social value of all types of games. Children were invited to join us for video games and board games to celebrate. This year we held an event on Monday (The Marshmallow Challenge), Friday (Wii games borrowed from the Delaware County Library System) as well as the event day, National Gaming Day.

Friday we had an enthusiastic group join us to play Just Dance, Super Smash Bros Brawl, Guitar Hero and Wii Sports. The children who visit the Lansdowne Public Library are amazing! Patiently they would wait their turn, cheering on their friends or giving pointers for how to play.

The excitement continued Saturday with a nationwide tournament. Unfortunately, we did not participate but we rediscovered a love and enjoyment for boardgames. A resident of the community volunteered some of his board games and we were treated to games from, literally, across the world! Genial, a color matching game from Germany, Transamerica, a simple railway game in which each player has a set of 5 cities strung across the US that need to be connected by rail,

Proving that you are NEVER too old to play games! Playing Cathedral.



Who Let the Dogs Out?



The Genial Board

Trans America

The wonderful Mr. Moskowitz!

Join us next year for National Gaming Day or check our calender for upcoming events!

-r

>The Marshmallow Challenge

>Today during a special Prove It! we challenged our young patrons to build a structure using a marshmallow, dry spaghetti, 3 feet of tape and 3 feet of string in 18 minutes. What a creative group! After thinking about it the structures varied from thick bases to carefully measured bases. .
Afterwards we enjoyed (unused) leftover marshmallows.
Thank you to all of the children who participated!

Here are some pictures from the event

>1 + 1 = 5?

>

Today was our first Math Explorers for Wee Read and we were all about patterns, addition and other fun ways to promote math and literacy! The group was introduced to patterns, addition, measuring and counting through a variety of activities.

Stations were created for

Patterns

For patterns we used What’s the Big Idea’s? Pattern and Relationship Everywhere kit.

Children could create a variety of patterns using the shapes. Patterns could be dictated by the shape, color, size or whatever the children wanted!

There was also examples of patterns with missing pieces that children could guess as well as a sound pattern chart in which children had to create a pattern using a sound.

The book included in this kit is Pattern Fish by Trudy Harris

Addition

For addition we used a two books which encourage readers to think outside of the box to solve addition problems. We used What the Big Idea’s Number Patterns kit which includes the book One is a Snail, Ten is a Crab by April Pulley Sayre and a book sent for review by Sterling Publisher, David Larochelle‘s 1 + 1 = 5.

At this station children and their parents could use the plastic animals to create their own addition problems or make ‘traditional’ math questions. We also provided dice to make an addition game. Working with a partner, children will roll the dice and count the total. The first one to get to 2o (twenty) wins!

Counting

Donald Crews Ten Black Dots Special Reads Kit.

We are lucky that our county office offers kits on a variety of subjects that can be checked out for up to ten days. The Ten Black Dots kit comes with a copy of the book, a bag of ‘dots’ (black pom poms) numbers and 10 number boards. Copies of the lady bug from the activity guide were provided for children to color and count their own dots.

Measuring

There is also a Special Reads Kit for Leo Lionni’s Inch by Inch. At this station children and their parents could measure stuffed characters from the story using the interlocking blocks. There were some other measurements noted: how tall children were, how long their arms were and how closely they could stand next to each other.

Foreign Language

We are privileged to have a wealth of resources right here at the library! Staff and one parent counted to ten in German, French, Polish, Italian and Sinhalese. We also learned to count using sign language.

The book used for this station was Can You Count Ten Toes by Lezlie Evans

Vocabulary Power

Using a resource from David LaRochelle we created and drew monsters with a number prefix. The monsters ranged from rainbow septa stripes to pentaeyed monster.

Other resources:

As mentioned earlier, David LaRochelle’s wonderful activity guide provided a wealth of handouts and activities. The foreign language and word power were directly from his sight.

Following are pictures from our storytime.

Set up for the pattern table

Creating patterns

Coloring ladybugs

A Pentanosed monster (couldn’t get the angle right!)

A parent reading to his child

Books available for checkout!

Join us Thursdays for Wee Read beginning at 10:30 AM!