What fun we had at our Beach Party Finale.  We read a couple of fun beach books and then crafted our own paper crowns, paper flower leis, and shell necklaces.

We had snacks and packed goody bags with some colorful pencils and beach themed stickers.  It’s been a fun summer learning lots about watersheds, rivers, and water creatures.  Join us next summer!

We had a nice turnout today for our Make a Splash at Your Library Summer Reading Program.   Today we read books about sharks, dolphins and whales.

In addition to Cynthia Rylant’s The Whales pictured here, we also read Great Pal Dolphin by Child’s Play and illustrated by P. Adams; Dolphins by the Cousteau Society with wonderful photos, and selections from I Can Draw Sharks, Whales and Dolphins by Terry Longhurst.  We listened to music by Brent Holmes in the background (Sea Tunes for Kids).  After our reading we made mini shark books, fingerprint fish, and fingerprint ocean scenes.

Ed Emberly has some great fingerprint art books but today we used 2 Klutz Press books for our inspiration, “The Most Amazing Thumb Doodles Book” and “Fingerprint Fabulous”.  We learned a lot of fun facts about whales, sharks and dolphins and we all enjoyed getting our fingers inky and making our undersea worlds!

Shiver me timbers matey, we found treasure at the library!  We celebrated with Pirates Booty, Mango Tango Juice, and lots of shiny plastic beads for the pirate treasure bags.  We made and decorated pirate hats, wore our pirate eye patches and beards, read our pirate story and made and followed our own pirate map around the library.  Ahoy!!

Our program next week will be on Fish and Sea Creatures.  Tune in next week, Thursday, 3-4pm.

Mary, Gregg and Falco from the White River Partnership were our presenters today for the Summer Reading Program.  Continuing with our theme of “Make a Splash at your Library” we learned about what is in our rivers and what that means in regards to the health of the river and the watershed.

White River Partnership

In each of those containers behind Mary are river water, rocks and water creatures.  We were able to see different water bugs, find out what likes to eat them, and how what we find tells us things about the river.

Here is Mary showing the kids the bugs from the containers.

Then Gregg showed us how people make fake water bugs, or “flies” to use to catch fish.  He made 2 flies while we watched.

This was his equipment.  Now when we are cooling off in the river we can also see what’s under those rocks and know a little bit about what that means for our river!  Thanks Mary, Gregg and Falco, and the White River Partnership!

We enjoyed another great program courtesy of the Grafton Nature Museum last Thursday.  We learned about amphibians and we got to see some live specimens.  The adults in the room enjoyed it every bit as much as the kids, I know I was so absorbed that I forgot to take pictures!

We were able to witness a toad similar to the one pictured here having its dinner.  This week’s program will take place at 3PM on Thursday, July 8th.  It will feature a representative from the White River Partnership and they will teach us how to keep our local rivers healthy.  Join us with your children between kindergarten and grade 6 for learning and fun!

We held the first of our 7 planned programs for the “Make A Splash at Your Library” Summer Reading Program this past Thursday.  Lillian from the Nature Museum at Grafton enlisted the aid of the children present to build a watershed.  The kids had a great time taking their watershed from bare land, adding rivers and tributaries and mountains, then seeing how what they created affected how they could “develop” the watershed.  Lillian talked with them about the affects of different actions and how we can all take steps to protect our real watershed.  Next week on Thursday from 3-4PM we will have a program on Amphibians.  Join us for the fun!

Join us at the library at 7PM with your portable craft.  Enjoy fun company, get help, inspiration, bring completed or in-progress work to show and tell!  We have rug-hookers, crocheters, knitters, quilters, cross stitchers, and even once, a chain mail creator!

Royalton Memorial Library  Make A Splash At Your Library

Summer Reading Program Thursdays, 3-4PM, 6/24-8/5 At the Library

Children K-6^th Grade – Free

06/24/2010   “ What is a Watershed” Grafton Nature Museum

07/01/2010   “ Amphibians” Grafton Nature Museum

07/08/2010   “     Rivers”  White River Partnership

07/15/2010   “     Boats/Pirates” Books, Songs, Activities

07/22/2010   “     Fish/Sea Creatures” Books, Songs, Activities

07/29/2010   “     Sharks/Whales/Dolphins” Books, Songs, Activities

08/05/2010   “     Oceans” Beach Party Finale

Today we read Today I Feel Silly and Other Moods That Make My Day by Jamie Lee Curtis.

Today’s Story Hour centered on birds and we gave the birds outside the library some nice peanut butter and pine cone feeders.  We read Elisa Kleven’s “The Lion and the Little Red Bird”, Lois Ehlert’s “Feathers for Lunch”, Rebecca and Ed Emberly’s ” Chicken Little” and selected poems from Alice Schertle’s ” Button Up!  The artwork in these books is outstanding, evoking requests from the children to “touch”, as well as look and listen.We also had fun with some fingerplays and rhymes involving movement.  Story hour is held every Thursday at 9:30AM.  Join us!