Tag Archives: amelia

Children’s Book Week 2013

Leave a reply

cbw2013 Established in 1919, Children’s Book Week is the longest-running national literacy initiative in the country. Every year, commemorative events are held nationwide at schools, libraries, bookstores, homes — wherever young readers and books connect!

Celebrate at the Amelia Branch. Stop in anytime during regular library hours Monday-Saturday, May 13-18 to find a craft featuring characters from some of your favorite children’s books!

Children’s Book Week originated in the belief that children’s books and literacy are life-changers. In 1913, Franklin K. Matthiews, the librarian of the Boy Scouts of America, began touring the country to promote higher standards in children’s books. He proposed creating a Children’s Book Week, which would be supported by all interested groups: publishers, booksellers, and librarians.

Mathiews enlisted two important allies: Frederic G. Melcher, the visionary editor of Publishers Weekly, and Anne Carroll Moore, the Superintendent of Children’s Works at the New York Public Library and a major figure in the library world. With the help of Melcher and Moore, in 1916, the American Booksellers Association and the American Library Association sponsored a Good Book Week with the Boy Scouts of America.

Children’s Book Week is administered by Every Child A Reader, a 501(c)(3) literacy organization dedicated to instilling a lifelong love of reading in children.

April is National Poetry Month

Leave a reply

ricoApril is National Poetry Month! Poetry can be an exciting way to share great vocabulary and new concepts with children. It’s also a fun way to explore the early literacy practice of writing.

Read poetry together and write down interesting or new words, rhyming pairs, or all the words that start with the same letter.

After reading some poetry, try writing a poem with your child: think of rhyming words or write about an object or their favorite topic. If your child is older, help him or her spell out the words. You could also try writing down what your child says and pointing out each word as you write it, then let him or her trace over your letters or copy the words onto his or her own sheet.

Some picture books have text that could be considered poetry. You can also find poetry books in the nonfiction section of the library, in the Dewey Decimal section of 811. Here are some great poetry books:

The Lucy Cousins Book of Nursery Rhymes by Lucy Cousins
Yum! Mmmm! Que Rico!: Americas’ Sproutings by Pat Mora
Goodnight, Goodnight, Construction Site by Sherri Duskey Rinker
Dr. Seuss
Red Sings from Treetops by Joyce Sidman
Runny Babbit: A Billy Sook by Shel Silverstein
Follow, Follow and Mirror, Mirror by Marilyn Singer
Here’s a Little Poem: A Very First Book of Poetry by Jane Yolen
This Little Piggy: Lap Songs, Finger Plays, Clapping Games, and Pantomime Rhymes by Jane Yolen

Thursday, April 18, 2013 is national Poem in Your Pocket Day. Help your child write down his or her favorite poem to keep in his or her pocket and share with friends throughout the day.

There are many ways to enjoy poetry with your child. Try some of these suggestions, or come up with your own ways to explore poetry. Happy National Poetry Month!

Pizza Party!

Leave a reply

This summer at Amelia, we’re putting on our PJs and celebrating the summer reading theme, Dream Big!, with Pajama StoryTimes. Our first session was a big hit, especially because we had a delicious theme: pizza!

We read some great stories about making pizza, including The Pizza That We Made by Joan Holub, and even one about a boy who became a pizza, in Pete’s a Pizza by William Steig. Sam of Sam’s Pizza by David Pelham baked some yucky surprises (hint: they were all creepy crawly) into a pizza for his sister, and Curious George tried his hands (all four of them) at making and delivering pizza in Curious George and the Pizza by Margret Rey.

Because we also sang songs about making pizza, the literacy tip for this StoryTime involved one of the five practices for developing literacy skills, Singing. Kids can learn many things by singing songs, but two aspects that will help them get ready to read are new vocabulary (like the terms for pizza and baking) and hearing how smaller sounds work together to make words (such as the rhymes “man” and “can” or “cheese” and “please” in the song below). Singing with your child is a fun and easy way to develop these important skills.

Our favorite song of the evening turned out to be this adaptation of Pat-a-Cake:
Pat-a-pie, pat-a-pie, Pizza Man,
Make me a pizza as fast as you can!
Roll it, and toss it, and sprinkle it with cheese,
And don’t forget five pepperoni please!
The best part is acting out each step to make a pizza.

We concluded our pizza party by making two types of (paper) pizza. First, everyone helped decorate three large pizzas; with all the sauce and toppings we added, they became rainbow pizzas! (The pizzas were made from hula hoops and butcher paper.) After these gigantic pizzas went in the oven, the kids made their own personal pizzas to take home, paper plates cut into four slices (we also talked about fourths, halves, and wholes, a great early math lesson!) that everyone decorated beautifully.

I had a great time sharing stories in my jammies, and I hope you’ll join us for the next Pajama StoryTime at the Amelia Branch on Monday, July 23 at 6:30 PM, when we’ll be talking about the Tooth Fairy.

Amelia Branch Summer Reading Kick-Off Party

Leave a reply

Amelia Branch
Saturday, June 9 at 2:00 pm
Call (513)752-5580.
Help us welcome the Cincinnati Zoo for a special presentation of Wild Life Comes to You: nocturnal animals.  Attendees will meet four animal ambassadors during the visit and discover more about the animals and their habitats. Staff will also demonstrate how to register for summer reading this year online!

StoryTime: Miss Cara’s Favorites

1 Reply

should I share my ice cream?Welcome to your first peek at StoryTimes at the Amelia Branch! We’ve just wrapped up our spring session, but we can’t wait to see everyone this summer to explore the Dream Big! theme. You can join us by signing up for All Ages StoryTime on Thursdays at 10:30, starting June 14th.

During the last week of April, we ended our spring StoryTimes with the best books of all (according to Miss Cara, anyway). Because we were celebrating my favorite books, our literacy skill this week was Print Motivation, which basically means that kids learn to love books and reading by having fun experiences with books, especially if the adults in their lives spend time reading and enjoying books with them. You can develop this skill by bringing your kids to the library, having many books available for them, and spending time reading to them.

In ToddlerTime, we read books by some of my favorite authors for toddlers:

Preschool StoryTime featured some longer stories that are by more of my favorite authors:

We wrapped up both StoryTimes by creating huge butcher paper murals that we rolled out on the carpet so that all the kids could draw their favorite things about StoryTime. These murals are hanging on the walls of our meeting room at Amelia, so the kids can enjoy their artwork when they visit the library. I hope to see you this summer at Amelia; until then, happy reading!