Pre-School Story Hour: Dance

The week of July 14th children ages 3-7 learned about dance and made magic slippers.

Books Used: Do Princesses Count? by Carmela Lavigna Coyle
Close Your Eyes by Kate Banks
Most Loved Monster by Lynn Downey
The Frog with the Big Mouth retold by Teresa Bateman
Tap Dancing by Lisa Dillman
Cynthia Gregory Dances Swan Lake by Cynthia Gregory
My Ballet Book by Kate Castle
Ballerina Dreams by Lauren Thomspon



Music Played: The Alphabet Song, Eency Weency Spider, If You're Happy and You Know It, Teddy Bear, and Silly Dance Contest by Jim Gill.



Finger Plays: Poof! I'm Giant, Tall as a Tree, and 52 Programs for Preschoolers by Diane Briggs



Craft: Color Sheets-Magic Slippers, Wings, and Seahorses

Famous Fine Artists

On July 9th school age children were able to become artists and make Matisse like paper collages. They had their pick of paper cutouts, glitter, yarn, markers, and much more to make their collages look great.

Toddler Story Hour

Toddler story time is for children ages 2-3. It is a half hour program that has a variety of stories, songs, fingerplays, and simple crafts.

Books Used: Colors by Baby Gund
Maisy's Fire Engine by Lucy Cousins
Animals by Eric Carle
Say Cheese! by Nancy Smiler Levinson



Activities: Sang the alphabet song and counted to five.



Music Played: Top of the Morning, If You're Happy and You Know It and Teddy Bear from the It's Toddler Time CD.



Nursery Rhymes used: Mary had a Little Lamb, Jack and Jill, Pat-a-Cake, Pat-a-Cake, and Little Bo-Peep from the First Picture Nursery Rhymes book by Usborne.



Finger Plays: Two Blackbirds from Finger Rhymes by Marc Brown



Craft: Made a picture collage by gluing pictures onto paper.

Pre-School Story Hour: Photography

The pre-school story hour the week of July 7th was all about photography.


Books Used: Yellow by J. Jean Robertson
Say Cheese by Nancy Smiler Levinson
Big Bug Surprise by Julia Gran
Mimi and the Dream House by Martin Waddell
Fireflies, Fireflies, Light My Way by Jonathan London

Activities: Sang the alphabet song and counted to ten.

Music played: If You're Happy and You Know It from It's Toddler Time and Silly Dance Contest by Jim Gill

Craft: Photo Collage Windsocks

Tie Dye T-Shirts

This summer school age children got to tie dye t-shirts at the Hobart Library and at the Lake Station New Chicago Library. Hobart did theirs on June 18th and LSNC did theirs July 22nd. Each participant had to bring their own t-shirt or other clothing to tie dye. The rest was provided by the library. We didn't tie dye in the normal fashion, we did something different and used sharpies. You read that correctly, we used sharpies. Who knew, I certainly didn't. What a cool and less messy way to tie dye.

What you need: rubber bands, sharpies, rubbing alcohol, water, and clothing to tie dye.

How do you do it: First start by rubber banding off sections that you want to color. Color in the sections with whatever color sharpie you want. Then you spray the colored sections with rubbing alcohol. This makes the color spread. Dip it or spray it with water and then let dry.

To try varied methods click on the links: www.instructables.com/id/TYE-DYE-made-with-sharpies/ and http://blog.sharpie.com/tag/tie-dye/

The pictures below are from the LSNC program. We forgot to take pictures at Hobart.

American Greyhounds

Who let the dogs in? The Lake Station New Chicago Library let the dogs in, American Greyhounds, to be exact on July 15, 2009.

Mr. Jeff Coggins came with his Greyhounds and educated the audience about the breed, the rescue process, and the adoption process.

These dogs were well behaved and will be back in November for Greyt Reading, for Children's Book Week. Kids get to read to the dogs. How fun will that be? The dogs names are Billy, Logan, Curtis, and Parker.

Low Tech Games

On July 1st the Lake Station New Chicago Library hosted a Low Tech Games party for families. They had a variety of games to choose from: Twister, Uno, Jenga, Trouble, Sorry, Scrabble, and Bingo. From the pictures below you can tell everyone had a good time.