Miss Casey, new MPL youth services director, interviews Queenie, and vice versa.

Aggie McPooch is Miss Michelle’s new early literacy sidekick.

Here’s a version of the video without the roll:

I’ll be posting all of my early literacy program activities, reading recommendations, and videos to this new blog, using the Library website’s early literacy blog to post links and videos only.  Good cross-pollination using online social media is a marketing stalwart.

Why a new blog, you might ask?  I wanted my patrons to be able to conveniently subscribe to my blog, and this required hosting on a free “outside” blog host like Blogger.  (There is no way to subscribe to blogs hosted on the Library’s website.)  We aim to please our patrons and keep them informed, and so a new blog on Blogger was the best and easiest solution.

To subscribe to my new blog, just type your email in the “Get Fun in Your Inbox” line (shown inside the red box in the screenshot above) and click the Submit button.  A confirmation email will arrive in your email inbox (check the spam folder in case it is misdirected by your email spam filters), and you should click the hyperlink in that message to confirm your subscription.  That’s all there is to it!

We talked about cats, leaves, candy, and other sorts of fall things in story time this week. Let’s start with cats: We read Moonlight: The Halloween Cat by Cynthia Rylant this week. Moonlight loves the night, especially Halloween night! We followed her as she strolled through the neighborhood and observed the Halloween happenings. We were happy for Moonlight at the end of the book, because she found a piece of candy to eat!

In one 4’s and 5’s class, we read Arthur’s Halloween by Marc Brown. Arthur, the beloved aardvark, gets stuck with the task of taking his sister D.W. trick or treating. She wants to go to EVERY house, but Arthur is frightened to even look at people in costume. Then ending is a happy one, however: it teaches us that you can’t judge a book by its cover, or a house by its overgrown hedges.

In the second 4’s and 5’s class, we read Red Leaf, Yellow Leaf by Lois Ehlert. This is another wonderful fall-ish book by Ehlert which tracks the life of a maple tree. Ehlert includes many facts about trees alongside her beautiful watercolor and collage illustrations.

We made these nifty candy corn magnets from foam pieces to hang on the refrigerator. The foam pieces were precut to candy corn shapes, but you could definitely cut them yourself at home. We used glue dots to hold everything together, including the magnet on the back of the black rectangle.

For a fun, easy craft, I let the 4’s and 5’s peel leaf stickers and place them on a fall background. This activity is helpful for fine motor skill development, as well as creativity: “Look at my tree! It has been windy and all the leaves are in a pile!”

Next week is Halloween, so don’t forget to dress up for story time! We will have spooky stories, games, and treats! In the meantime, watch out for black cats…and give them a nice pet when you see them.

Now is the time to cast your vote for your choice as Sammy’s replacement!  Let’s review the candidates on the ballot:

• Doctor Hooticus (Whoticus?) Maximus
• Bippidy Bag
• Cap’n Arrrrrgyle the Pirate
• Dude, you need to interview more puppets

Cast your vote by emailing Miss Michelle.  Easier than voting in real-world elections.

Need to review the other candidates’ video interviews?  Easily done.

This week, the kids helped me read Footballs and Falling Leaves: A Fall Counting Book, by Rebecca Fjelland Davis. This book features fall items as they are counted from 1 to 10. I asked the children to help me count, and then we discussed each item at length. I learned that most of our story time patrons still need to get their Halloween pumpkins, at least 2 have been on a school bus before, most like apples, and I am the most enthusiastic football fan in the room. The kids really enjoyed the simplicity of this book, as well as the counting aspect.

Speaking of simplicity, we have been doing some complex crafts lately, so we went back to basics this week with some leaf coloring pages. Most of my story time patrons enjoy the delight of coloring, so I let them go wild with the crayons. The picture below was abandoned on the coloring table, so if you’re the owner…great job! I used your picture as an example.

 I also let the older kids pick what craft they wanted to do. It’s fall break in our local school system, so we had a drop in attendance this week…which just means we can do some in-depth crafts with the 4’s and 5’s. I let them choose between the puzzle piece tree I offered for Pajama Time last week, or a stuffed football, as shown here with Mickey.

The football is easy to make, just make a football shaped cutout out of brown paper. Staple them halfway around, then stuff with scrap paper. Continue stapling until it’s closed. Glue white paper to one side to make the laces. Touchdown! You just made your own awesome football!

 Next week, we’ll be talking more about autumn! I just can’t get enough!