Gulf Beaches Library School Age Kids

Summer? You've GOT to be kidding!

2012-01-08T15:50:00.000-08:00

You know how Santa makes those toys way in advance? That's how I start planning my summer reading program. I'm trying to come up with programs that will make your great brains even larger, and this summer I thought it would be A-M-A-Z-I-N-G if I were to reveal

the greatest library secret ever.

Here's the deal with Dewey: Supposedly, when Mr. Dewey was inventing his method of putting books (and for books, read KNOWLEDGE) in order, he thought like a caveman.

100: the caveman is trying to answer Who Am I? There are a lot of books there about astrology and dreams and that kind of thing.

200: Who Made Me? Religion and Mythology.

300: Who are all these Other People? Books about government, armies, etc.

See here for more info: Dewey and the Caveman

Each week, we'd have a performance about a different SUBJECT instead of just a different...whatever, and we'd cover all the Dewey categories.

It would work like this:
Week 1: 000s. Tony the Balloon Guy is going to give a lecture about the Dewey Decimal System using balloon art! You've never seen this in your school library!
100s and 200s. Week 2, brought to you by Animal Rescue and the following books: Vet Volunteers, Puppy Place and Animal Ark.: 100s & 200s. The 200s are about religion and self help. I'm betting a visit from animals and a speaker from Animal Rescue will make you want to start turning those pages this summer. Because that's who we're going to try to adopt -- an animal shelter!
Week 3: The Police! Bring your eyes and brains to this session, because the police are going to talk about how to use them. Think you're good at noticing things? Get ready to be tricked.
Week 4: Star Wars & Legos. Ms. Travis is breaking the budget and buying Legos! Extra points if you come in character. Not into Legos? Ms. Travis has some wooden castle kits for you to build!

Week 5: 500s. Mathemagic Night! Everyone gets a deck of cards, dice and dominos. And don't think you'll be playing with animal rummy cards! We'll be doing the real deal.
Week 6: Mad Science Would our summer be complete without them?

Week 7: Cesar Domico, our magician. (Didn't think we could have a summer reading program without him)

Week 8: Puppet Talent Show. We'll make some of these cute little bozos, and while we're at it, we might as well learn VENTRILOQUISM!!! And I'm borrowing some gigantic puppets so we can put on our own show.

Week 9: Geocache at the Library. Using Dewey instead of a GPS, see if you can find the treasures hidden here!

Oh, and of course we'll be doing our online summer reading logs again!

Thanks for helping me MAKE IT WORK! I'd love to hear from you.

Halloween Party!!!

2011-10-31T09:07:00.000-07:00

Marlena, the dead safety patrol. Thanks for saving my life at this Halloween Party, Marlena! I couldn't have done it without you!

A beautiful pirate.

A Ninja with swagger.

Menu:

Graveyard salad bar. Mud (chocolate pudding), dirt (1/2 box chocolate Teddy Grahams, smushed), gummi worms, candy pumpkins, gruesome sprinkle candies from the dollar store.

Candy served in a black plastic goblet placed in a black cauldron. Add hot water to the cauldron and then drop a few small cubes of dry ice in. (Dry ice tips: break up into smaller chunks; it stops bubbling when its coated with frozen water, and that doesn't happen as quickly if you use a lot of little chunks instead of one big one. I forgot to add green food coloring to the water, which would have made it bubble green vapor.) Big hit with the kids, of course, who accused me of trying to poison them, although they still, fascinated, reached through the dry ice vapors for the eyeball candies. Marlena passed it around for me.

Witches' Toes. Cocktail franks look pretty disgusting right out of the package, but when you slice out a little nailbed from one end and decorate with blood red barbecue sauce, no Tinkerbell will touch them. Very tasty; full of protein and nitrates.

Craft: Using permanent marker on styrofoam plates, the kids then attached white garbage bags cut into strips to the bottom. The finished product was a ghost with a nice swishy body who could hang outside. The faces were very scary this year. The one I made was an innocent little surprised ghost, but I saw a lot of teeth on the ghosts they drew.

Story: After the kids were all cranked up on sugar, I gathered them up for the last ten minutes for a ghost story. They loved it! It was my favorite The Man Who Tricked a Ghost by Laurence Yep, and they were a great audience.

How about Winter the Dolphin!!!

2011-09-22T09:37:00.000-07:00

Aren't we proud! We knew Winter back before he was a movie star!

Winter the Dolphin

August Adoption Update

Have you ever seen a dolphin paint? If not, you should stop by CMA sometime soon because Winter has been painting up a storm! She has been signing copies of her book Winter's Tail, and decorating picture frames for our summer interns as they prepare to return to school.

How does she manage to paint you ask? It can be tough to imagine that a creature without hands, arms or legs could be capable of painting, but if you know anything about the staff and volunteers at Clearwater Marine Aquarium, you know we don’t only solve problems, we eat them for breakfast. The way we taught Winter to paint, along with our other dolphins, is by taking a pool ring, wrapping it with a soft but sturdy gauze material, and affixing a paintbrush to it. We then slide the ring around Winter’s rostrum (remember that’s her beak) and ask her to move her head around. We hold a book or canvas up to this moving paintbrush and presto! Dolphin Art! Paintings by Winter are available at CMA's gift shop, and many days you can catch her at her hobby in the main pool!

2011-08-27T10:19:00.000-07:00

Skippyjon Jones Party

On Friday, September 23 @ 4:00.

we had a fun Skippyjon Jones Party.

Thanks for coming!

We made tissue paper flowers, learned some Spanish, listened to some Skippyjon Jones stories, and ate cheese & crackers.

Congratulations to Brannen on ~~guessing~~ estimating the number of jelly beans in the jar. He was right on!

And thanks again to everyone who let me paint kitty whiskers on your faces! I hope it washed off!

Stopping by the library

2011-08-24T12:20:00.000-07:00

Brannen and Delaney with the reading bear.

I thought I would be sooooo lonely when school started, but in the last two days I've seen Danny & Ashley & Brannen & Delaney & lots & lots of good friends.

The Last Day of Summer Party

2011-08-15T08:34:00.000-07:00

The Last Day of Summer Party

Friday, August 19 at 4:00

Enjoy a root beer float with us &

play Ms. Travis’

You Really Wouldn’t Want

to be Going to a One Room Schoolhouse

game

Suncoast Seabird Sanctuary

2011-07-27T11:05:00.000-07:00

we did it we did it we did it
Suncoast Seabird Sanctuary
I went to the Suncoast Seabird Sanctuary last night, and sure enough, there was Miss Kitty. She lives in a big cage with three other owls as you come in. She seemed asleep when I first started watching her, and she was completely ignoring the big dead white rat draped over a branch in front of her. But while I watched, she opened her eyes, spun her head around, and stared at me. I said, "Hey, Ms. Kitty! Enjoy the rat! It's a gift from the kids at Gulf Beaches Public Library!" And I swear she winked at me.

YES!!! We Did it!

Little Gizmo came to visit today, and even though she didn't fly loose, she was pretty darn cute. And when I checked reading-rewards at the end of the day, we were OVER 40,000 minutes! Yes!!!

Ms. Kitty is now officially adopted by the

Gulf Beaches Public Library

Crystal in China!!!

2011-07-26T07:21:00.000-07:00

What's China really like when you are Chinese? Crystal will tell all. We're dishing up the latest -- with noodles. Many thanks to our corporate sponsor, Zom Hee, for supplying us with their delicious noodles to practice chopsticks. Check out their tasty menu at www.zomhee.com. I never knew how to hold them before. Now I can eat noodles with chopsticks!

Get in the mood!
Go to http://www.usdiner.com/Chinese/ and print out your name in Chinese! Here's the name tag I'll be wearing today. Cool, huh?

Mad Science Summer Reading, Tuesday, July 19 at 2:00

2011-07-12T15:21:00.000-07:00

We were spinning, popping and booming this week at Gulf Beaches Public Library!

Ooh, this green slime feels delightful!

No, I'm not scared of that genie in the test tube. Not at all.

Awaiting the Big Boom!

The hard part is stopping...

Face Painting Workshop

2011-07-12T15:13:00.000-07:00

This is the before picture: clean water, fresh brushes, new packs of paint. Oh yeah, and clean faces.

Then Vic arrived and things started happening fast. He demonstrated strokes and sponge work on Sam.

And Ben's mother did a fantastic makeover on Ben!

Annie looks look the sweetie that she is, doesn't she?

And hearts look great on this young lady too!

Most of the faces were beautiful...

Some were funny...

And then some were just plain horrible!

But all in all, we had a great time, and many, many thanks go to Vic for sharing his expertise AND his balloons with us! Vic, you are the soul of generosity!

Do-It-Yourself Facepainting Summer Reading Program, Tuesday July 12 @ 2:00

2011-07-06T08:33:00.000-07:00

Puppet workshop, Tuesday, July 5

2011-06-28T12:50:00.000-07:00

Jerry Bickel from Bits 'n' Pieces Puppet Theater showed us how to draw cats (or draw their heads anyway -- mean square shaped heads, elegant triangular heads, goofy round heads) make puppets out of them -- really just some tape and a piece of cloth! -- and be cats. I heard some brilliant mewing and meowing. Great job, cat puppeteers!
First we drew cat heads.
Then we decorated them & gave them bodies.

Now they're gorgeous.

Jerry is acting out the story with the old woman and the old man whose lives would be perfect if they had a nice cat.

How many cats were there? Oh, yeah, hundreds of cats...

Denise Hall, stand-up comedian

2011-06-27T08:25:00.000-07:00

Why did the comedian take a pie in the face? Because the elephant was in the refrigerator? Because the chicken had crossed the road? I don't know you tell me -- but remember this, Denise -- LIBRARIANS DON'T TAKE PIES!

Denise Hall

Comedy Workshop

Tuesday, June 28 at 2:00

Why you should come: Denise Hall will teach us how to tell a joke, get a laugh, and throw a pie at someone’s face!

(Hopefully not mine!)

Saturday Extravaganza, June 25 @ 2:00 pm

2011-06-21T15:13:00.000-07:00

Author Sharon Miner,

dog & horse trainer visited this Saturday

and her little guy Woogie

Kevin Manning -- Tuesday, June 21 @ 2:00

2011-06-20T13:59:00.000-07:00

Josiah looking at sunspots through Kevin Manning's telescope. He's not even scorching his eyeballs!

Magician Cesar Domico & his famous rubber chicken!

2011-06-15T14:32:00.000-07:00

Maestro Cesar has found us ready to laugh. "We want the rubber chicken!" we said.

He had a few tricks up his sleeve.

No colors there!

Wow -- now color!

Would you like to buy a chicken? Is it crazy or not crazy?

Oh, we love that chicken!

Sunshine State Readers are in!

2011-06-08T14:45:00.000-07:00

We're received our Sunshine State readers which doesn't mean they're on our shelves. Just the opposite! They're 100% checked out. If you want to read them over the summer, click the Sunshine State website to the right and start requesting them from the catalog. They look like a great batch this year, something for everyone! Esp. Alcatraz vs. The Evil Librarians! I love the title, and I love the book!

Summer Reading begins June 14th! Get your passports and get ready for the journey!

2011-05-16T11:45:00.000-07:00

Summer Reading begins soon! I've ordered some great books for summer reading -- the next Dragonbreath, some fresh Dear Dumb Diaries, and some of you are just discovering the new Vet Volunteers. We've got some nice prizes to give away this year, so come down, get your passport, and start reading!
Some of the rules:

You don't have to read just the books on the flyer. You have to read 24 hours to get the prizes. I will be giving you a neat looking passport. You can jot down the titles of the books you read or just keep track of the check out slips they give at the front desk.
The prizes are a poster; a Rays tattoo; a slap bracelet (I love the slap bracelet), and the ticket.

And your reading hours will count towards adopting this Great Horned Owl from the Suncoast Seabird Sanctuary. Just what you always wanted, huh?

Summer Reading Program: Starts Tuesday, June 14 at 2:00 pm. Special Guest Appearance: Saturday, June 25, Sharon Miner, author and dog & horse trainer, book giveaway, display of international dolls and crafts.

2011-05-03T14:47:00.000-07:00

Cesar Domico will be ~~bringing his rubber chicken~~ working his magic at our 2011Summer Reading Marathon. What a line-up we have in store for you: We're having an astrophysicist (& yes, I have learned to spell that), a comedy workshop where I learn how to throw a pie in comedian Denise Hall's face, puppets, a face painting workshop where YOU learn how to do the face painting and yes, I have bought face paints for 50, Mad Science, a tour of China, and to cap it all, the Suncoast Seabird Sanctuary is bringing us a friend. We are going to have a good time and I can't wait.

Children's Book Week

2011-04-28T07:25:00.000-07:00


Time to vote for your favorite book!

Hi from Winter!

2011-04-14T07:14:00.000-07:00

Thanks for adopting me last summer! I really enjoyed the fish!

Dear Gulf Beaches Public Library,

Spring is here and Clearwater Marine Aquarium had lots and lots of visitors during spring break. I have been entertaining the crowds with moves from the movie, like the "water squirt”, the very distinctive "head nod" and my "vocals". I have also been working a lot with our enrichment team. It's fun to jump around with toys and run back and forth from the window. I love watching the visitors make silly faces at the window… people are totally entertaining!

I hear you are thinking of adopting a seabird or an owl for this summer's reading program. They're a lot like me in some ways -- they like fish too! I also hear you are going to have a really great summer this year! So happy reading!

Dolphin tip of the day: Don't forget to clear your blowhole!

Winter

News from Winter!

2011-03-14T12:07:00.000-07:00

Dear Gulf Beaches,

It has been very busy at the Clearwater Marine Aquarium getting ready for spring. I have been working with my new tail that the doctor made for me. As I grow I have to get re-tailed! I am also getting better at my jumps out of the water, not as high as Panama but she has a tail so that’s not fair! Me and my best buddy Panama are back inside the main building because the new baby calf is in our movie pool. I have had a lot a interviews with the media lately, the Today Show, local TV and newspapers and you know... it is a lot of work being famous.

Winter

April Fool's Day Marathon

2011-03-07T07:53:00.000-08:00

Drop by on April Fool's Day. We're serving an April Fool's day buffet -- jokes, funny books, a practical joke workshop & some weird snacks

New math corner

2011-02-17T13:54:00.000-08:00


Calling all you young geniuses! Come and see some of the great & funny new math picture books we have.

Fancy Nancy Party marshmallow explosion

2011-02-15T10:36:00.000-08:00

A bag of mini marshmallows, toothpicks, and edible pens...

a little imagination...

and you can have a very good time.

This party began the way any normal Fancy Nancy party should begin: with a lot of cupcakes.

Ashley & Kiley, icing and eating.

Then something kind of happened when we started making our craft, which was marshmallow bears. At first they turned out great:

Cole's bear

In addition to pink invitations and posters, I made up some fancy words on slips of paper:

delightful splendid fabulous

delectable ensemble refreshments

gorgeous fantastic delicious

superb spectacular unique

I put them in a pretty gift box on my desk with a big pink flower on it and a sign that said:

Help yourself to a Fancy Word.

It was fun offering likely looking Fancy Nancy-ers a fancy word, and it was nice watching them proudly reading them.

Fancy Nancy Party compilation from pubyac Date: Mon. 25 Apr 2011

From: "Kelli Brazier" <kbrazier@athenslimestone.lib.al.us>

Decor:
boas, streamers, tulle, giant print-outs of book characters
Games:

Pin the jewel on the tiara, pin the tail on the posh puppy
Charm School, princess wave, curtsey & bow, etiquette lessons, ballet exercises, French lessons
Dress up w/items brought in by staff, including jackets and glasses and hats for boys for those who didn't come dressed up.
I told them I didn't own any fancy clothes and they accessorized me from a basketful. Very silly.
"Trick and treat" around library by saying "bonjour and merci"
Fancy Bingo w/ French words
Waltz. Dance with scarves (to Cinderella's Bippity Boppity Boo!)
Make a life sized Nancy with a hole cut out where her face should have been so the kids can have their pictures taken as Nancy.
A meet and greet with Mrs. Devine. Dress a conspirator with a fancy blonde wig and a small fake posh puppy. Let the kids meet and talk with her.
Manicures, temporary tattoos, "parfum"
Fashion show w/music. Announcer describing outfits (use nametags or something). Red, purple or pink carpet out of wrapping paper or tablecloth. wrapping paper.Parents can snap pics. Posture practice. Fancy poses on catwalk. Can serve as transition out of the room.
Card for them to sign for people who donated time and goods

Crafts:

Accessories: Tiaras made out of cardboard or foam from Oriental Trading decorated with self-stick "gems"; necklaces; pipecleaner flower rings; tutus; fancy crowns (made with craft wire and ribbon), felt pocketbooks from Martha Stewart or Michaels; wands, We made paper wrist corsages, like the one demonstrated in this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7U8wo79zhOQ; crowns http://www.firstpalette.com/tool_box/printables/princesscrown.html fans decorated with doilies; Making fancy hats using pretty plates as the base and then decorate with scraps of ribbon and artificial flowers
ttissue paper flowers.
We had an area where the kids could get their pic taken. At the other one we made decorated wooden picture frames with jewels & sparkly foam stickers.
Flower Pen - green tape on the pen for stem and then tape flowers to the top (like those popular feather/flower pens)
Fancy Fan- just use two different colors of paper (one bigger than the other) and then tape or staple a couple of curling ribbon to the bottom to fancify.

Refreshments: Cupcakes, sugar cookies, or parfaits, which they can decorate or not, fruit kebabs they assemble. Pink lemonade served from decorated fancy plastic wine glasses, from real glass punchbowls (they just gather dust in a corner!), or from borrowed teapots.

Favors: Oriental Trading tiaras or feather boas as they arrived.

Here is a link to a Fancy Nancy program hosted by another pubyaccer:

http://3tnar.blogspot.com/2010/06/fancy-nancy-father-daughter-tea-party.html

<https://mail.lis.illinois.edu/hypermail/public/pubyac/17495.html>
https://mail.lis.illinois.edu/hypermail/public/pubyac/17495.html

If you go to this site: <http://www.fancynancyworld.com/>
http://www.fancynancyworld.com/ and click on parents, you can find all
kinds of great ideas. <http://fancynancybooks.blogspot.com/>
http://fancynancybooks.blogspot.com/ looks like another great site.

Valentine Doings

2011-02-13T06:43:00.000-08:00

Fancy Nancy

Valentine’s Day Party

Monday, February 14

3:30 – 4:30 pm

cupcakes, valentines, and other fancinesses

This is one of the crafts we'll be doing:

. Adorable, yes?!! And SOOOOO easy.

Mrs. Priss' felt rosettes