Week 6 - A Trick of Light? with the Young Professors!

Time to Colour! Wheeeeew!

So this Wednesday marked the second to last week of our Young Professors programming for the Summer Reading Club! (sad face :( ) The theme we talked about today was "A Trick of Light", so we discussed mysterious and uncertain happenings! We started off talking about sea monsters! So we all coloured some colouring sheets from the Summer Reading Club website: http://www.kidssrc.ca/

This is the colouring sheet we worked on:

After our colouring escapades we read through "Sophie and the Sea Monster" by Don Gillmor and illustrated by Michael Martchenko, a book that I've mentioned quite a few times this week, but you can definitely check out my review for it here: http://beavervalleylibrarykids.blogspot.ca/2012/08/library-childrens-book-review-sophie.html

The kids liked the book, as I read to them I asked them questions and quizzed them on why the moon orbits the earth! Answer: Gravity!

After our story time we went into one of my favourite games, one that I generally call The Human Knot! You've probably played it before, SINCE ITS AWESOME! But here are the rules:

• you probably first want to alert everyone that hands will be held and you will be very very close to each other, so its always good to check that that's okay with everyone!
• now that that's cleared, get everyone to stand in a circle, a fairly close to each other! 
• get everyone to put a hand into the circle and get them to grab another person's hand, only one person should be holding the other person's hand! So no triple holding or grabbing someone's wrist! 
• Once that's done get everyone to put their other hand into the circle and grab someone else's hand, not the same person's hand! OK? OK!
• And now! We have our monstrous knot! Everyone's tangled and bunched and now working together the knot must unwind without letting go of any hands! 
• Make sure the kids don't hurt each other! And for an added challenge tell the kids that not to talk at all! :O It gets tough, and fun! 

Here's some pictures of the Young Professors trying to untie their knot!

After a couple of rounds of The Human Knot game, we moved on to another knotty/tangle game! Look for me explaining it in Week 6's Mad Scientist's post: (will post soon!) 

After that, I unleashed Cody to pick up his prize! He and his sister Kyleen won the draw last week! Here's a happy Cody and Kyleen with their chosen prizes!

And here's Cohen! He has fun with our whiteboard and drew out a whole cityscape for us!

Library Children's Book Review: "Sophie and the Sea Monster"

by Don Gillmor
illustrated by Michael Martchenko

Now in one of my previous posts I mentioned this book, "Sophie and the Sea Monster", Rhonda read it to the Little Einsteins this Tuesday and I loved it so I read it twice this week with the Young Professors and the Mad Scientists - who shared and agreed that this was a good book! You can see the post about the Little Einsteins reading this during their Dragon Week here (but I warn you, like all Little Einstein posts, this post is incredibly and astoundingly adorable!): http://beavervalleylibrarykids.blogspot.ca/2012/08/week-6-dragons-with-little-einsteins.html

So this story, written by Don Gillmor, follows a young girl named Sophie who is pestered by her brother about a sea monster under her bed! From the first page we learn about Sophie's many fears and thoughts. She's afraid of anteaters, pythons, bats! She's afraid of losing her homework! And she's also curious as to what holds the moon in the sky and fears that one day the moon will fall from the sky and land on her house!!

The illustrations, it's worth noting, is outstandingly done by the great Michael Markchenko, you may recognize the style from many Robert Munsch books, of which Markchenko illustrated! And I love his illustrations!  

So, to continue the story, Sophie must get up the courage and strength to look under her bed and discover whether or not their is a monster under her bed!

This is a lovely and heart-warming story that I think a lot of the kids could relate to from the pestering sibling, the elaborate and many fears Sophie has, and the sense of courage and curiosity that she has to grow and discover!

As I said, I read this book with the 6-9 and 10-12 year olds and Rhonda also read it to the 3-5 year olds, we all loved it! So it just goes to show how well this book can transition for all kids! The Young Professors laughed non-stop and the Mad Scientists totally related to losing their homework!

So thank-you Mr. Gillmor for a great, short and cute book about being curious and about finding your courage and not letting your fears stop you from having a good time! I give "Sophie and the Sea Monster" a happy 5/5!

Happy Reading!

Week 6 - Dragons with the Little Einsteins!

Story time with Mrs. Giles! These kids are absolutely adorable!

So this Tuesday the Little Einsteins had lots of fun stretching their imaginations as the theme this week for the little ones was DRAGONS!!!! 

Rhonda started things off as per usual with the Name Box and some classic songs! 

For stories she read through some dragon books! She also read "Sophie and the Sea Monster" by Don Gillmor and illustrated by Michael Martchenko (known to me as the awesome guy who illustrates a lot of Robert Munsch books!

This is such a cute story and hearing Rhonda read it in such an animated and fun way was awesome! The kids enjoyed it immensely - as did I! It has become a favourite of mine this week, as I took it out to read to the Young Professors and Mad Scientists - who loved it just the same! 

Along with that, Rhonda had set up her felt board and did a lovely rendition of 5 little monkeys, re-warped into 5 little dragons! The kids sand along and had a blast!

Even our Mini Einsteins had fun! Rhonda even read the classic Paper Bag Princess! AWESOME! The kids really enjoyed that, I mean, who won't!??!

Rhonda came up with an awesome craft for the kids today! And accordion-like Dragon that the kids got to colour in and then glue onto the popsicle-accordion contraptions that Rhonda pre-prepped for the kids!

The kids - and parents - had fun colouring in their dragons, they added some stickers and tissue paper to adorn their dragons and make them colourfully ferocious!

Rhonda managed to snag herself a little baby Einstein whilst the crafty kids crafted away!

And I managed to get an impromptu photo shoot with brothers Ben and Tim, who proudly showed off their finished masterpieces!

I love this picture!

Some Mini Einsteins! - Veronica managed to make her own dragon!

I was surprised to see an old family friend! Kiara's (see above picture!) grandma has known me since I was a baby! Shockingly, her great-grandmother, was one of my mom's first friends when see moved to Trail ages ago from the Philippines, and she taught my mom how to drive! So I used to babysit Kiara since she was young, and now I feel awfully old!!! Goodness me! But as always, it was nice to see her in our library!

With their newly crafted dragons, the kids joined Rhonda for some more stories and songs!

Brothers Chesney and Corbin! 

And that was the day for the Little Einsteins! They left the library full of books and with their new dragon friends!

I also managed to snap some of the most adorable pictures of Miss Veronica as she waited for her mom and brother to check out some books!

Adorable! I mean really! Such a cutie!

Well as for that, happy reading friends! And don't forget that next week, sadly, will be our last week! GAH! And to end our Summer Reading Club we will be having a party to celebrate! All ages, young and old, come and join us at the Montrose Park on Thursday from 10-1!

Here's the poster for the event! I hope I see you there! Although, if you can please RSVP by phoning us at the library, or telling us beforehand! We'd love to know how many people we will be expecting!

Ciao!