Celebrate Chinese New Year with these paper lanterns! You will need the following supplies:
This week in Storytime, we learned that “F” is for feelings. Sometimes children have a difficult time expressing or understanding their feelings. When you help them attach a color to a feeling, it helps them understand and how to deal with their emotions. Thankfully there are a lot children’s books to help. Try some of the titles below, or go to the online catalog and do a subject search for, “emotions juvenile fiction,” where you will find many, many stories about feelings.
Ages 2-5
Helping your child put words to feelings develops vocabulary in a meaningful way. You can talk not only about your child’s feelings, but also about yours as well. Children can understand the words long before they can say them.
Ask your children to listen for words related to feelings as you read “Grumpy Gloria” by Anna Dewdney or other books with words that pertain to feelings. Then talk about how those feelings might be translated into a color.
Love grows between two ducklings as they bill and coo around the farmyard.
When Weasel is caught in a storm, he builds a fortress to hide in. But then he meets Mole, who loves to play in the wind and splash in the rain. Wait to see if Weasel learns to overcome his fears and find joy, whatever the weather.
(to tune of “Old MacDonald had a farm”)
Old MacDonald felt so glad (Happy)
HA-HA-HA-HA-HA
And when he’s glad we sign it like this:
Happy Happy Happy Happy Happy
With a Happy Happy here and a Happy Happy there
Here a Happy, there a Happy everywhere a Happy Happy
Old MacDonald felt so glad.
Happy Happy
Repeat this, substituting the following emotions and signs:
Grumpy = Grumpy
Sad = Sad
Silly = Silly
– Jeninthelibrary.com
Print out this coloring page activity!
From the award-winning Ruby’s Studio: the Feelings Show. Learn about feelings and how to express them.
Family members try various ways to cheer up their grouchy bulldog.
Today we learned about pandas with Peter Panda! Check out our books, songs, and activities below.
Ages 2-5
Be sure to share factual books with your young children. Follow their interests, whether in a particular animal, in how things work, in trains, or in anything else that piques their curiosity. The information in nonfiction books introduces new vocabulary words, and we learn right along with our children. Supporting their curiosity goes a long way in encouraging a love of learning. Many children who are less interested in stories are very interested in particular topics- trains, dinosaurs, various animals, how things work, and so forth.
Check out a variety of junior non-fiction books on different topics. Place them in front of your child to see what he is interested in. Then read the book together, look at the pictures, and talk about the new things you learned.
A new reader about cuddly, adorable pandas: what do they eat? What are their habitats like? What does it mean when we say pandas are an endangered species?
Print out this coloring page!
Looks at the eight panda pairs that were born at China’s Wolong Giant Panda Breeding and Research Center in 2005, examining how they live, grow, and play and the steps that are being taken to prepare them for their release into the wild.
Check out our February kid and tween STEAM Take N’ Go kits below. Each will be available through curbside pickup. Instructions will be available on our website and our YouTube channel.
Cardboard Construction craft – available starting February 9th
Make towers with these simple cardboard building pieces.
STEAM magic craft – available starting February 23rd
Are these experiments science or magic? Try them for yourself!
Check out February’s upcoming Teen Take n’ Go craft kits!
Teen craft 1:
Paper lanterns, available for pickup starting Thursday February 4th.
Teen craft 2:
Duct tape pens, available for pickup starting Thursday February 18th.
We explored Pizza Pie Cafe this week and learned more about this tasty dish.
Ages 2-5
Naming and categorizing things can be fun for children of all ages. Help children make sense of their world by grouping things that go together, such as knives, forks, and spoons at a table.
Recite the rhyme, “Ladies, Knives, and Forks” and do the following fingerplay. Repeat the rhyme a few times, so that everyone will feel comfortable saying the words and doing the motions. As you begin to say the rhyme, put your hands together knuckle to knuckle.
Here are my lady’s knives and forks. (Open hands and show fingers)
Here is my lady’s table. (Turn hands over and show knuckles)
Here is my lady’s looking glass. (Face knuckles toward you)
And here is the baby’s cradle. (Sway hands back and forth)
Convinced that pizza is the best food, Pipo will eat nothing else until her fed-up parents send her on a quest to prove that no dishes in their multicultural neighborhood are better.
When a young boy wants to grow his own pizza, he learns where the different ingredients come from and how they grow.
Pat-a-cake, pat-a-cake, pizza man (clap hands)
Make me a pizza as fast as you can (shake finger)
Roll it (roll)
Toss it (pretend to toss in air)
Sprinkle it with cheese (sprinkling motions)
Put it in the oven (pushing motion)
And bake it fast, please!
If you want to eat some pizza, clap your hands!
If you want to eat some pizza, clap your hands!
If you like bubbly cheese then just say, “Pizza please!”
If you want to eat some pizza, clap your hands!
Print out this coloring page and add your favorite pizza toppings!
When Pete feels miserable because rain makes it impossible to play ball outdoors, his father finds a fun indoor game to play with his son.
When Pete feels miserable because rain makes it impossible to play ball outdoors, his father finds a fun indoor game to play with his son.
Make some wire rings! Kits will be available even after this online instruction until they are out, so don’t miss your chance to pick one up!
Today we learned about penguins with National Geographic educator Sharee Barton! Check out our books, songs, and activities below.
Ages 2-5
We often build our on our children’s curiosity but don’t always know the answers to their questions. We can often discover in the answers together in books. Knowledge about the world, even in young children, is key to understanding. Combining a story and a factual book on nature or science helps expand children’s scientific knowledge.
Read aloud “Be Brave Little Penguin” by Giles Audreae and Guy Parker-Rees and a nonfiction book about penguins like “The Penguin, a Funny Bird” by Beatrice Fontanel. You may also want to recite “Three Little Penguins.”
Pip-Pip, the littlest penguin, is teased for being afraid of the water until, with his mother’s guidance, he finally jumps in.
Five little penguins go off to play. Can you count them?
Learn about penguins and how they live. A National Geographic Kids book.
A parade of irresistible penguins from climates warm and cold swim, slide, and waddle across the pages of Penguins, Penguins, Everywhere!
Have you ever seen
a penguin come to tea?
When you look at me,
A penguin you will see
Penguins attention
Penguins begin!
(right flipper)
(left flipper)
(right foot)
(left foot)
(bob your head)
(stick out your tongue)
(turn a circle)
(melody: “Five Little Ducks”)
5 little penguins waddling around,
The snow was slipp-ery and one fell down,
Weeeeeee…. in the water he went to play,
Now there’s 4 little penguins waddling today.
4 little penguins waddling around,
The snow was slipp-ery and one fell down,
Weeeeeee…. in the water he went to play,
Now there’s 3 little penguins waddling today.
3 little penguins waddling around,
The snow was slipp-ery and one fell down,
Weeeeeee…. in the water he went to play,
Now there’s 2 little penguins waddling today.
2 little penguins waddling around,
The snow was slipp-ery and one fell down,
Weeeeeee…. in the water he went to play,
Now there’s 1little penguin waddling today.
1 little penguin waddling around,
The snow was slipp-ery and he fell down,
Weeeeeee…. in the water he went to play,
Leaving no little penguins waddling today.
No little penguins waddling around,
The snow was slippery and none fell down,
Weeeeeee…. in the water they went to play,
5 little penguins swimming today.
– Patty Shukla
Print out this coloring page!
Pick up our Story Time kit today or make your own using felt scraps and googly eyes.
Two baby King Penguins think their friend looks funny… until they start to change themselves!