Category: programs

Program: Superheroes

Put on your best cape for our superhero party! We’ll make crafts, play trivia, watch and listen to some superhero stories, and do a special obstacle course.

March 11, 2010 from 4-5 p.m.

Age group: Grades K-5, parents welcome

Objective: Increase awareness of/interest in our extensive collection of Superhero books. Draw reluctant readers (especially boys) to the library.

Soundtrack: Chronicles of Narnia

Display: Superhero comics, novels, and early readers (incl. Captain Underpants, etc.)

Budget: $20 (4 plastic tablecloths @ $2 each, 5 packs of stickers @ $0.50 each, 1 bag of Oreos @ $3, 2 packs of prizes – Spiderman erasers and Batman pencils – @ $3 each)

Activity

– Spiderman’s Web!

Make a web out of white yarn. Tape the ends of each string (at least one string for every two kids) to a surface and write a number and corresponding letter on either end (A-1, B-2 etc.). Have each kid pick a number, then race to unravel the web and reach their letter! (They need to take the string with them along the way.) Give the first kid a prize!

Craft

– Superhero capes

Materials: Plastic tablecloths, brightly colored, cut into squares approximately 28” on each side; yarn

Prep: Before the program, use a hole punch or scissors to make four small holes evenly spaced across one side

Kids: Take their piece of yarn from the web and string it through the holes, then tie the cape around their shoulders and trim the yarn. They may need help. (If kids did the web in pairs, cut the yarn in half first.)

– Superhero masks

Materials: Mask templates on cardstock; yarn and/or popsicle sticks; stickers and other decorations

Prep: Cut out masks and eyeholes; hole-punch masks and cut yarn if desired

Kids: Decorate masks. Either glue popsicle stick to mask (easier!) or tie a piece of string to hole punched in either side of mask, then tie around back of head.

– Superhero trading cards

Have each kid fill out the back of the trading card, then draw a picture of themselves as a superhero on the front! Take a look at the trading cards here – you are welcome to use them, but you’ll probably want to take my library’s name off first. 🙂

Book (if crowd skews younger)

Read aloud Traction Man Is Here! by Mini Grey.

Activity

– Pass the Kryptonite

Paint a piece of Styrofoam green. Play Hot Potato. Winner gets a prize.

– Super Vision!

Use super-zoomed-in mystery photos of familiar objects, and have each kid guess what they are. Whoever gets the most right gets a prize.

– Trivia (if time allows)

See attached. Winner gets a prize. (Can do in teams, then the whole team gets a prize.)

Snack (can do at the same time as Super Vision!)

– Kryptonite juice – green Hi C fruit punch

– Spider cookies (double stuff Oreos and either Twizzlers or red licorice for legs.)

– Give out rest of prizes during snack time.

How’d it go?

Attendance: 22 children, 10 caregivers, 1 teen volunteer

This program was a HIT. Everyone loved their capes, masks, and trading cards, and the spider web – the part of the program I was most dubious about – was actually a lot of fun. I wonder if some of this program’s success is attributable to my more-detailed-than-usual agenda…hmm. It also helped to have lots of extra activities planned – it let me customize the program to the group I had. I did read the book, which the kids liked even though it’s sort of a tricky storytime book.

Anyway, this was tons of fun, and I would do it again in a second. Also, pretty much all of the displayed books were gone by the end of the program. That’s what I call a success.

Book Club: Sammy Keyes and the Hotel Thief

As my group gets older, I get to pick some longer, more complex novels (like Bone last month, and now Sammy Keyes). This is a lot of fun for me, as a would’ve-been English teacher. I think it’s fun for them, too. Challenge is good for us!

Sammy Keyes and the Hotel Thief, by Wendelin van Draanen

Discussion Questions

1. Who did you think the bad guy was? What clues were there along the way that led you to believe that person had committed the crimes?

2. Did you solve the mystery before Sammy did? Do you like mysteries that are easier to figure out yourself, or do you like surprising endings to mystery stories?

3. What do you think about Sammy’s family situation? What do you think about her mother’s leaving to pursue her own dreams? What about the apartment building she lives in with her grandma?

4. For the most part, the kids in this book do things on their own. Many of the adults treat Sammy as an annoying kid and don’t believe her even when she does try to get help. Was Sammy right to continue working on her own, or should she have tried to find an adult who believed her? What could she have done differently to make Officer Borsch take her seriously?

5. Sammy and Marissa come from very different backgrounds, and both envy the other: Marissa has lots of material things, but Sammy has a grandmother who loves her very much. Which do you think is more important? How do they deal with these differences and stay best friends?

Activity
Solving a mystery from the publisher of Sammy Keyes.

Book Club: Bone: Out from Boneville

Bone: Out from Boneville, by Jeff Smith

Discussion Questions

1. Have you ever been far away from home or lost before, and not sure how you would get back home? How did it feel? What did you do?

2. The cousins are very loyal to each other – Fone Bone and Smiley Bone leave Boneville with Phoney, even though they are not the ones who are in trouble. Once they get separated, they spend a lot of time searching for each other. Would you leave your town with your siblings or cousins if they got kicked out, even if they’d done something wrong? What are the limits to this kind of loyalty?

3. Which of the Bone cousins did you like the best? How are they different from each other? What do they have in common?

4. Fone Bone makes a lot of friends in this book. Why do people get along with Fone Bone so well?

5. Does “Bone” remind you of any other stories you have read or seen?

6. How is reading “Bone” different from reading other kinds of books? Do you like the pictures? Do they help tell the story, or do they sometimes make it harder to figure out what is happening?

7. Because this is a comic book, we don’t get to find out what the characters are thinking. Do the pictures help us learn about the characters and their feelings? How?

8. What did you think about the ending? Do you have any ideas about what will happen in the next book?

Activities

Pick one…

1.Using a learn-to-draw book (or not!), draw your own pictures or comics, using whatever art materials are out on the table.

2.Pick a scene from the book, and try to write it out (or tell it to a friend) using only words. Is it hard to tell the story that way?

3.Think about what might happen next in the story, then write or draw a scene that you think could happen in the next book.

In case you were wondering…
from Wikipedia’s page on Moby Dick

Moby-Dick is a novel first published in 1851 by American author Herman Melville. The story tells the adventures of the wandering sailor Ishmael and his voyage on the whaleship Pequod, commanded by Captain Ahab. Ishmael soon learns that Ahab seeks one specific whale, Moby Dick, a whale of tremendous size and ferocity. Very few whaleships know of Moby Dick, and fewer yet have encountered him. In a previous encounter, the whale destroyed Ahab’s boat and bit off his leg. Ahab intends to take revenge.

Book Club: Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Last Straw

Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Last Straw, by Jeff Kinney

1. Greg starts his year off with a New Year’s Resolution: “to help other people improve”. He does this in ways that don’t make him very popular, like criticizing his parents’ eating habits. Write at least three of your own resolutions (they don’t have to be serious), then pick at least one to share.

2. Greg and Rowley make a time capsule, to be opened in the year 2300 A.D. (or whenever time travel is possible). Think about 5 things you’d put in a time capsule, and imagine what people in the future might think about the stuff that we have today.

3. So we know Greg is kind of a bad kid. If you were going to run his military school and try to make him act nicer, what kind of rules would you have?

Storytime: Monsters!

I love monster stories. You have to be careful, of course, that you don’t pick anything too scary – start with really unscary stories, and keep an eye on how everyone is responding. Tone it down or ramp it up accordingly.

Sometimes there is no helping it, though. I was doing a (non-monster-themed) storytime for five-year-olds and pulled out an old standby, Leonardo the Terrible Monster. When we got to the roaring part, one kid inexplicably totally freaked out and started screaming, and (I was told later) didn’t stop for hours. What can you do?

I’m also a big fan of The Monster at the End of this Book – it was one of my little sister’s favorites, and it’s still a hit today (although I’ve had a few kids ask why Grover, and not Elmo, is the star of this book). There are lots of opportunities for interaction, which is fun, but can definitely rile the kids up. Read this at the end of storytime and then send them home with their caregivers. 😀

Younger Children

My Monster Mama Loves Me So – Laura Leuck

Where’s My Mummy? – Carolyn Crimi

The Monster at the End of this Book – Jon Stone

Go Away, Big Green Monster! – Ed Emberley

The Monster Who Loved Books – Keith Faulkner

Go to Bed, Monster! – Natasha Wing

I’m Looking for a Monster – Timothy Young

Older Children

Leonardo the Terrible Monster — Mo Willems

The Gruffalo – Julia Donaldson

Monster Goose – Judy Sierra

The Gunniwolf – Wilhelmina Harper

The Very Worst Monster – Pat Hutchins

Snip-Snap! What’s That? – Mara Bergman

Program: Make Some Noise!

Join us at the library as we make our own musical instruments out of household items. We’ll have lots of things to experiment with at the library, and you’ll get to take home an instrument of your own!

June 23, 2009 from 4-5 p.m.

Grades: Going into 4-6

Budget: $8: $3 for three bags of jingle bells (on sale at Target!), $3 for one pack of 20 plastic plates, and $1.50 for a pack of 25 combs at Walgreens. Pie tins are really expensive, so we used plastic plates instead.

Activities

Bring some stuff for them to play with – a guitar, keyboard, glass blowing thing etc. Once they finish making their instruments, let them experiment with these other instruments. Once everyone is done, it is time for the least shy among us to parade through the library with our new instruments.

Instruments

Tambourine

  • Pie tins (1 per craft) or paper/plastic plates
  • Pipe cleaners
  • Jingle bells (8 each)
  • Ribbon

Instructions: Each kid gets a plate with 12 holes punched in it, evenly spaced. Cut several pipe cleaners in half. Feed pipe cleaner half through a bell, then push through one of the holes.

Guitar

  • Cereal or tissue box
  • Rubber bands
  • Paper towel roll (optional, if they want to attach it to the box to make a “neck”)

Instructions: If using a cereal box, cut an oval-shaped hole in the top before the program. Let the kids place rubber bands of various sizes across the box, and glue a paper towel roll to the end of they want. Decorate and play.

Harmonica/kazoo

  • Wax paper
  • Comb

Books

The Kids Can Press – Jumbo Book of Music – Deborah Dunleavy (J 780 DUN)

Book Club: The Witches

The Witches, by Roald Dahl

Discussion Questions

1. Did you think this book was funny? What parts of it were funny? Did you think it was weird?

2. Could you relate to anything in the story?

3. What did you think about the grandmother telling the boy all these scary stories about witches? Was this mean, or was she doing it so that he would be prepared to meet witches? Would you have believed the stories?

4. What do you think happened to Bruno (the other boy who is turned into a mouse)? Why weren’t the boy and his grandmother worried about him?

5. Did you like the ending? Do you think it was weird that the boy didn’t mind being a mouse? What do you think about their plan to rid the world of witches?

6. What other witch stories do you know about? How are Roald Dahl’s witches different from other witches you’ve heard about? Do you think there are real witches?

Activities

First, we’re all going to write a super-short book review of any book (or comic, or whatever).

Second, we’re going to play a game called “Witches”. I will explain it – it’s a little complicated so you have to pay attention. (Note: This was the game Mafia, but with witches instead of mafia members as the bad guys.)

Third, we’re going to hand out the book for next month (you’ll like it).

Book Club: Sideways Stories from Wayside School

Sideways Stories from Wayside School, by Louis Sachar

Discussion Questions

1. Who was your favorite character? Which story was your favorite?

2. Did you think the book was funny? What made it funny? What was the funniest part?

3. Could you relate to any of the characters, or were they just too weird? Do you know anyone who is like one of the characters? Would you want to be friends with any of the students in the book?

4. If someone were going to write a story about YOU, what kind of quirks would they write about? (Joe doesn’t know how to count, Rondi doesn’t have front teeth, DJ smiles all the time…)

5. What would your ice cream flavor taste like?

6. Would you want to go to Wayside School? Do you think you’d learn a lot there? Do you think it would be fun?

Activity

First: TRIVIA!

Next: While we eat PIZZA, pick a partner and make a list of funny things that have happened at YOUR school, then tell a story about it to the rest of the group!