Because of the Memorial Day holiday week, there will be no storytime on May 27th. But we start right back up in June (can you believe that next week is JUNE?!) All summer storytimes at the Hamilton branch will be on the same days and times that they were during the spring. Toddler Time will continue to be on Thursdays at 11am.
We will have many fun and exciting programs this summer for kids up to 12 years old, so be sure to check out our summer schedule and come visit us at the library!
I hope everyone had a great summer! The fall season is almost here, and storytime season is here right now! This fall, Lane Library storytimes have a new focus. We still plan on having fun with books, songs, rhymes, and more, but we will also be including elements of the American Library Association’s early literacy initiative. This initiative is based on current research on early literacy and brain development which indicates that it is never too early to prepare children for success as readers, and as such that parents are their child’s first teachers. We hope to use storytime to help equip you as parents with tools you can use to further build your child’s early literacy skills.
For more information about early literacy, see previous entries on this blog.
Hamilton storytimes for fall are:
See you at storytime!
Your kids can entertain their brains this summer with the Lane Library reading challenge. For every 20 books OR 12 hours your child reads, they can complete a game card and be entered into a drawing for a brand new bicycle. Game cards are available at any Lane Library, or you can get one at the library’s website. For more information, ask a library staff member or read all about it on the summer reading section of the website.
Summer Reading is here! From bikes to worms, we have it this summer @ the Lane!
If you have kids younger than 6, be sure to join us @ the Lane for storytimes. Toddler storytimes for ages 0-36 months are on Tuesdays and Thursdays at 11 am, and preschool storytimes for ages 3-6 are on Mondays and Wednesdays at 11 am. This summer, as the library is bing remodeled, storytimes are in the temporary children’s area in the library’s basement meeting room.
School age kids get their own programs this summer! The Lane is offering a wide variety of programs for ages 6 and up this summer. School age programming is on Tuesdays and Thursdays at 2 pm. On Tuesdays through July 1, kids can make a v-cast or podcast of their favorite books. This program requires registration, so please call 894-1409 to sign up. Thursday programs are at the Ross Avenue side of Millikin Woods Park on the West Side of Hamilton, and do NOT require registation. The next one is Race Day, so if you have a speedy kid, be sure to rush right over to join us at Millikin Woods!
For more information on summer programs, visit our website or call us at 894-1409.
Each year the group known as ALSC (Association for Library Service to Children) issues a list of the “best of the best” books published for children ages birth through 14. Click here to see the list for 2008. Be sure to check for availability of these titles at the Lane Library website, or call the children’s department at 894-1409, and we will be happy to check on titles for you. Happy reading!
The Caldecott award winners were announced today. The Caldecott medal is given each year to the illustrator of the “most distinguished American picture book for children”. (Click here for more information on the Caldecott award.) This year’s winner is The Invention of Hugo Cabret (Lane Library info) by Brian Selznick, an amazing book that defies classification. The illustrations tell the story in this book as much as the text, and older readers will love to decipher the clues found in the luscious black and white drawings interspersed throughout the novel-sized work. This mysterious and shadow-filled adventure of a young orphan boy hiding in the walls of a train station and trying to fix an automaton will captivate your older child, especially if that child is a graphic novel reader.
Honor awards were given to Henry’s Freedom Box (Lane Library info) , First the Egg (Lane Library info), The Wall (Lane Library info), and Knuffle Bunny Too (Lane Library info). Be sure to check out these award winning titles!
Even though this session of storytime is over, this blog, Storytime Kids, will continue. So be sure to check back each week for more book and web reviews, craft ideas, program information, and more. See you at the library and on the web!
–Miss Tracey
Does your child love music? You can find a variety of CD’s for check out in the children’s department. A few of my favorites are the Veggie Tales CD’s (the newest one is called Boyz in the Sink), Ralph’s World and Ralph’s World: Happy Lemons by Ralph Covert, and Not Naptime by Justin Roberts. What about CD-ROM’s, you ask? The library has those too! Check out the Cars CD-ROM (yes, that’s the same Cars as the movie), or our many Blue’s Clues computer games. You will also find a great selection of books on cassette tape and on CD, as well. There are even puppets that are available for check out! So be sure to check out all that the Lane Library has to offer to your family.
Do you ever feel overwhelmed at the sheer amount of information you get on the internet, or wish that you could somehow organize the number of interesting sites that you read? Pageflakes can help. Not only can you keep track of the blogs that you read, you can find even more by using their feeds gallery. But Pageflakes can do more than that. On Pageflakes, you can access your address book, local weather information, to-do-list, news, blogs and much more – it’s all on one page that you can access from anywhere and any computer. By adding “flakes” or bits of information to your page, you can access almost anything from your email to stock quotes to your favorite bookmarks, as well as play sudoku and get local movie showtimes.
But it gets better. You can share your page with other internet users by entering the email addresses of the people you want to invite to view your page. This means that you can share contacts, to-do-lists and news with your church or playgroups, set up a family page with photos and notes, share a calendar with your spouse – the possibilities are endless! By using Pageflakes, everything you need is in one place on the internet. And, it’s free! Check it out!
During this story time session (and preschool parents, this will be of interest to you, as well), I will be incorporating aspects of a philosophy called emergent literacy. Simply put, this means I will be focussing on helping your child develop his/her language and vocabulary skills, as well as letter knowledge and print awareness, among other things. Read here for some information about emergent literacy, and ways that you as a parent or grandparent can help prepare your toddler to read, and stay tuned to this blog for more information on how I am incorporating emergent literacy into storytime. And of course, if you have any questions about emergent literacy or about any other aspects of storytime, don’t hesitate to ask me.
–Miss Tracey
