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.