Library Halloween Party!

In a Dark, Dark Room accompanied by a BOOkmark craft 

This Saturday, I am hosting our library's Halloween party for kiddos, family, and friends.  Halloween is only my FAVORITE so I am pretty excited about it.  We will have a Spooky Storytime, Creepy Craft, and trick or treating all day (I am mostly excited about this part-- there is nothing cuter than little munchkins in costume)!

Books we will read:

Brown Bat, Brown Bat Flannel

• In a Dark, Dark Wood by David A. Carter (pop-up book)
• Five Little Pumpkins by Iris Van Rynbach
• If You're a Monster and You Know It by Rebecca and Ed Emberley

Two Little Ghosties Flannel

Flannel Fun:

Brown Bat, Brown Bat, What Do You See?

(I see a yellow moon, a white ghost. a red leaf, an orange pumpkin, a green apple, and a black cat looking at me!)

Two Little Ghosties (based on Two Little Dickybirds)

Two little ghosties, looking at you!
One named "Peeka", the other named "Boo!"
Fly away Peeka, fly away Boo!
Come back Peeka, come back Boo!

For our craft, we are going to make BOOkmarks. (See what I did there?!)

Preparation for this craft was too easy.  I cut some card stock into strips, cut lengths of various ribbons, and bought a Value Pack of Halloween foam stickers from Michael's (on sale, of course!).  We tend to get a wide range of ages at our storytimes so I needed something that would be simple enough for tiny hands (cutting and pasting usually doesn't work, but stickers are great), that wasn't too "baby-ish" for the older kids.  I think this will fit the bill.

Happy Haunting, little ghosties!

Thanksgiving in the Library

Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays.  Yes, it is because of the food and the fact that my mom is an incredibly good cook.  Thanksgiving dinner is the best meal of the year!  This wonderful holiday also gives me the opportunity to have all sorts of fun with construction paper.

For our large bulletin board, I created a "Cornucopia of Books".  This was especially fun for me because I got to showcase many of my favorite titles that I have read as a child and throughout the years... Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little House in the Big Woods, Judi and Ron Barrett's Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs, and Ludwig Bemelman's Madeline, just to name a few! 

I also created little paper pilgrim hats for our library giraffes, Miss Mildred and Humphrey. Could they be any cuter?

Humbug Witch

Our Halloween party yesterday was so much fun.  We had Trick or Treating around the library's various department, and awesome photo booth, a scavenger hunt, and make your own spiders, mummies, and monster crafts.  We kicked off the party with a special Halloween storytime for all ages.

 For the storytime, I adapted Lorna Balian's Humbug Witch to a flannel board display.  This story adapted well because at the end, the witch starts to take off her "witchy" gear, finally revealing that she was a little girl all along.  It is a fun surprise ending the for the kiddos, and is definitely not a scary book so it is suitable for all ages.  I had fun telling the story and I think the kids had fun listening to it!

"Leaf Man" Flannel Story

Happy Fall!  The air is crisp, the wind is blowing, and the leaves are falling.  What a perfect day to read  Leaf Man by Lois Ehlert for today's preschool storytime.  As I read the story, I periodically "found" leaves along the way, creating my own leaf man for the children to see.

We talked about how leaves are different shapes and change different colors.  A lot of the kids eagerly explained that they had read this already, but the flannel board story kept their attention throughout this quiet and melodic text.

Book Review: "Fall Ball" by Peter McCarty

I picked up this book off of our "New Books" shelf for a few reasons.  One, I love Peter McCarty's simplistic inky illustrations.  Two, its title is a pun (need I say more?).  Three, my favorite season is FALL and it's here!

This book makes me want to put on a cozy sweater and make hot cider over the stove.  It is sweet and simple, a story of changing seasons and playing in the leaves outside.  The sun goes down early, but that won't spoil the children's playtime, because there's pie, pajamas, and warm blankets at home.  I think that this would be a great bedtime story.  In fact I think I read it way too early in the day, because now I've got snuggling on my brain.