>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!’

>Whose Shoes? Traveling Trunk

>Our celebration of Whose Shoes? A Shoe for Every Job (the Pennsylvania One Book Every Young Child selection for 2011) continued with exploration of the Traveling Trunk. The Traveling Trunk is developed by museum educators to help expand upon the concepts in Whose Shoes? A Shoe for Every Job. Each trunk is filled with fun book-related activities, games and manipulatives for young children, as well as a guide for librarians and educators that encourages use of the trunk contents in activities that are aligned with the Pennsylvania Early Learning Standards.

For Sleepytime Tales and Wee Reads we set up stations for our library friends to explore. Thursday morning we also had the added benefit of Polskie Bajki (Polish Tales) and we had special guest Ms. Margaret read Whose Shoes and A Pair of Socks by Stuart J. Murphy in Polish.

Concepts from the trunk we explored:

Literacy
-books

Shoes/socks
-lacing
-tying
-matching

Careers/Community Helpers
-Storybook Puppet Theater
-puzzles

Math and Measuring
-graphing what size our feet are
-matching
-patterns

Art
-Photography
-designing our own shoes



The stage for Storybook Puppet Theater



Office Friday and Firefighter Frank





More puppets to use in the theater




Lacing area to get lots of practice




Another lacing puzzle




Match the shoes!




Lacing and tying activities to take home




Decorate your own footwear…using animal stamps!




More matching games




Safety materials from a Grandkit




Joey…ready for his next career!




Graphing and measuring station




How big are your feet?




Library friends exploring the stations



Ms Margaret showing us her lacing skills



Storybook Puppet Theater “We’re Friends!”




Ms. Margaret helped us tie and lace




A budding photographer



>Whose Shoes?: Wee Reads with guest Craig Totaro!

>

We continued our week of answering the question, “Whose Shoes? with our special Wee Reads guest, Craig Totaro! Craig is the borough mananger for Lansdowne and he took some time out from his busy schedule to share some stories with us!

With assistance from our group Craig started with Whose Shoes? by Stephen R Swinburne. Since tomorrow is April Fool’s Day we also read some silly books Look Out, It’s Aprl Fool’s! by Frank Modell and Twenty Four Robbers by Audrey Woods.

Join us Thursdays at 10:30 for Wee Reads!

>Wee Reads: Konnichiwa!

>For the past six years the Lansdowne Public Library has been a proud participant in the Subaru Cherry Blossom Festival, and this year’s participation was even more extraordinary as we observed the devastation occurring in Japan. For our story times we had a special guest and we will also collect donations for the American Red Cross Disaster Relief Fund.

We were honored and delighted to welcome guest reader Yoshiko!

Yoshiko-san

She shared with us a Japanese version of

Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes:

(ATAMA, KATA, HIZA, ASHI)

Atama, kata, hiza, ashi, hiza, ashi.

Atama, kata, hiza, ashi, hiza, ashi.

Me to mimi to kuchi to hana.

Atama, kata, hiza, ashi, hiza, ashi.



Chuku from our story

And helped  translate our favorite Kamishibai Play, The Mouse’s Wedding.

We also practiced more origami…a mouse to read our story with us!

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Wee Reads has a bilingual Polish storyhour, Polskie Bajki  the first Thursday of each month. Our theme for Summer 2011 is One World, Many Stories in which we will explore even more cultures and traditions from around the world!

Older children enjoyed origami

Even our preschoolers loved folding!





Ms. Rachee, wearing a crown, showing off her origami cat chasing an origami mouse







If you are interested in donating money to the Japan relief please drop off your checks at the Lansdowne Public Library and we will send them to the Red Cross. Checks can be made out to American Red Cross Disaster Relief Fund with the memo line that states “Japan Earthquake,” which ensures the money is used for the Japan relief.  

>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

>Wee Read Welcomes: Senator Anthony Hardy Williams!

>We had a special guest reader today for Wee Reads!
Senator Anthony Hardy Williams too time from his busy day and visited library where he shared some of our favorite books about bears! He read Sleep Big Bear, Sleep by Maureen Wright and Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What do You See? by Bill Martin Jr, and Eric Carle.

After posing with our little cubs, we completed bear puppets that we decorated and dressed.
Below are some pictures from the day!



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Reading to our little cubs



A huge growl of thanks!





Decorating our bears

A rainy day bear

>Wee Reads: Welcomes Mayor Jayne!

>Last Thursday we had a very special guest reader for Wee Reads…Lansdowne’s Mayor Jayne Young! Mayor Jayne joined us for our preschool storytime and shared her favorite book The Big Orange Splot by Daniel Manus Pinkwater. We were excited that she took time out of her busy day to read with us, share her holiday traditions and what’s exciting about Lansdowne!

Here are a couple of pictures from the day.

Reading The Big Orange Splot

Group shot!