This week at the library; or, We started back too soon!

Let's see how long I keep up blogging about the week's programs...

My Reading in the Middle book club on Tuesday night was a flop - nobody came. Too soon after school started, plus it was a very cold night! However, it's not a time-intensive or expensive program, so we'll just try again next month.

After Tuesday night, I was worried that the strong numbers for my after school programs over the fall were a fluke...but 25 people, kids and parents, showed up at my new Messy Art Club! We used Godeleine de Rosamel's book, Drawing with your hands. It shows different ways to position your hands for tracing so you come out with different animals! We traced lots of fun shapes and then painted them. Minimal mess, maximum fun!

For preschool story time I went with animal themes this winter/spring semester. Sometimes I do themes, sometimes I don't. I was in a theme-ish mood, so....

As always, I like to start the year with butterflies! It's cold and snowy outside, and glittery inside! We're still starting story time with Jim Gill's Jumping and Counting (which reminds me I need to exercise more if I'm going to be able to jump up and down for 10 minutes since we play it several times) Then we sing "The more we get together" using all the kids names, which is for me to learn names! We didn't do any other singing or action rhymes today, just some of our favorite butterfly and caterpillar stories - Houdini the amazing caterpillar by Janet Pedersen is a favorite, especially when the kids get to tell me what he's doing in his tricks! Lois Ehlert's Waiting for wings is, of course, a classic. I belatedly discovered that our copy was horrendously torn, another book for the replacement list! We finished off with The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle and the kids were all very pleased to see a book they recognized and help me read it! We made butterfly masks and are looking forward to next week!

I'll be in San Diego when this posts, dreaming of galleys....