City of Ember and How We Survive

Sixth and Seventh grade book club was really fun this week. We discussed The City of Ember by Jeanne DuPrau which is great book if you haven't read it. It was compared to The Giver and Maze Runner. After the book discussion we played a game of The Worst Case Scenario Survival Game. It gives you topics of worst case scenarios like, what do you do if the breaks go out in your car? and what is the proper way to jump off a train? It then gives you three choices of what to do. Some of them just seem silly while sometimes more then one of them seems possible. You then guess which option is the correct choice. This is a game from 2002, so I didn't come up with it myself, it was something I got when I was in sixth grade myself. But the kids and I had a lot of fun guessing and coming up with our own solutions to the scenarios. This is the last book of the year, can't wait to start again in the fall!

Book Scavenger and the Hunt

For fourth grade book club this month we talked about Book Scavenger by Jennifer Chambliss Bertman. The book is named after a game that's kind of like a special version of a book scavenger hunt where people hide books and then other people try to find them with only one clue to guide them. The book is about a new game from the creator of the Book Scavenger game. To go with this we did a book scavenger hunt. It had things like find a mystery or find a book with a character the same age as you, stuff like that. The kids had to find the books and bring them to me. Then I had them put the books back afterward, in the correct spot, and I watched to make sure they put the book where it belonged. The kids had fun running around trying to best each other. This is the last book of the year for fourth graders, next set of book clubs will be for the summer reading book groups. Can't wait!

Slight of Hand and Upside-Down Magic

For third grade book club things became magical. We read Upside-Down Magic by Sarah Mlynowski. The book was adorable and the kids really liked it. What they liked more though was learning magic tricks. I gave them each a pack of cards and showed them videos to learn magic tricks. It took a while to find good videos but was totally worth it to see the kids so entertained. Next we are reading Winnie the Pooh by A.A. Milne (the original one). Till next time. Nicole

Treasure Hunting and Seraphina by Rachel Hartman

The same day as the fourth grade book club I also had the sixth and seventh grade book club. Three children attended (1 boy!) and we discussed Seraphina by Rachel Hartman. This is a good time to discuss, what age is too old for a discussion ball? The third and fourth graders love it, but one seventh grader thought it was weird. Should I stick to a written out discussion? Maybe, I'm trying to decide. Anyways, to go with the discussion we had a treasure hunt (treasure and dragons seem to go hand in hand). I bought some prizes that I thought sixth and seventh graders might like (thank you Five Below) and hid them around the gardens. This was great fun for the children, but we couldn't find two items, and I couldn't remember where I put them. So if anybody from my library finds a ping pong ball with an emoji on it, and a sheet of smiley face stickers, feel free to keep them. Overall, this program went fairly well. The last book of the year that this group is going to discuss is The City of Ember by Jeanne DuPrau. Next I will be talking about my third graders, who read a book on magic. All for now. Nicole

Investigative Skills in a Book Club

So last week I had two book club meetings. The first was fourth grade. We had read the book The Detective's Assistant by Kate Hannigan. So for book club we solved a mystery, matching footprints and fingerprints. It went all right, but most of the kids' couldn't get through the first two chapters of the book so we couldn't really have a discussion. I did do a discussion with the one boy who read the book so that was good. What do you do if the kids haven't read the book? I wanted to read a chapter, but its difficult sometimes to work with children, they had a dance party instead and played keep it up with the discussion ball. Not a shining moment on my part, but I'm still learning. Next we are reading Book Scavenger by Jennifer Chambliss Bertman, so hopefully that will be better. More later on 6 and 7th grade book club as well as third grade book club. Nicole

What you've missed with Math Club

So the last two weeks I have been practicing using different mediums for math club.  Last week we used Uno cards to do math. This was a bit of a pain because the numbers don't go very high and you have to separate out the wild cards and things. This week we used dominoes. I liked this medium because each domino was a different problem and that meant there were a lot of problems to go through. This is definitely a medium I would use again. Till later, Nicole

April Vacation Week

A little late but I've been super busy.

Vacation, the perfect time to draw children and families into the library with some awesome programs. This April Vacation (April 22nd-29th) had the theme of Spring Week. We started with the a movie night on the first Friday, we chose the movie Epic. This did not draw a crowd, probably because it wasn't a new movie.

On Monday I did a Spring Science Program. We made Rainbows in water bottles, using different densities of liquid. We also made coffee filter art, and rainclouds using shaving cream and food coloring. This program was pretty popular, 11 kids in our small town, but very messy.

On Wednesday we had a drop-in craft of three crafts: Flower Pots, Butterflies, and Picture Frames. We had very few children come to this program, but they all seemed to really enjoy themselves.  I had a horrible time finding the tiny pots I wanted to use and went to four dollar trees just to get enough and ended having more than enough of them. Oh well, I can save them for next year.

On Thursday we had a Garden Party. There was a waffle bar, fruits, vegetables and pudding with oreo cookie crumbs on it. This program was very popular with 20 kids, and I almost didn't have enough food. We also did a tiny egg hunt game where everyone got to pick a prize from the prize bin if they found an egg.

On our final day, the second Friday, we decorated bird houses. This program was fairly popular but I ended up returning some of the bird houses to save money.

And that was our crazy week! All for now, next I will talk about what we have been up to in Math Club!