Saturday Fun at the Library!

Saturdays at the ACPL are full of fun! This Saturday you can make this cool alphabet snake to take home.

You can also find books to check out, hang out and read, color in the coloring room, see how the fish are, use a computer in the Computer Center and more!

See you Saturday at the Library!

Stop Bullying Now!

What do you do if you're being bullied at school? What if you see someone else who's getting picked on? Here's a COOL site that may be able to help -- it's called STOP BULLYING NOW! Kids and grown-ups can find great tips and resources about bullying. Be sure to check out the Tips for Kids, Games, and the downloadable Webisodes , complete with a transcript and discussion questions.

For more great bullying resources, see Children's Services Personal Violence Booklist.

Let's talk about which books should win awards!

Each year, the American Library Association is responsible for awarding some of the most prestigious awards in the world of children's literature.

• The Caldecott Medal is awarded annually to the artist of the most distinguished American picture book for children
• The Theodor Seuss Geisel Award is given annually to the author(s) and illustrator(s) of the most distinguished American book for beginning readers published in English in the United States during the preceding year
• The John Newbery Medal is awarded annually to the author of the most distinguished contribution to American literature for children.
• The Robert F. Sibert Informational Book Medal is awarded annually to the author(s) and illustrator(s) of the most distinguished informational book published in English during the preceding year.

Each year our Children's Services department hosts gatherings at which we try to guess what books will win. We prepare reading lists for our Mock Elections which are held in January. We also have an online discussion board where anyone can post their comments about books we've added to our mock election list.

We'd love to have you join one (or more) of the online discussion!

• Click here to add to the discussion of this year's picture books.
• Click here to add to the discussion of this year's beginning readers.
• Click here to add to the discussion of this year's children's literature.
  
• Click here to add to the discussion of this year's information books for children.

Our actual Mock Elections will be held on January 5th and January 12th. Let us know if you'll be able to join us in person! For more information about these programs, or to sign up for one of them, send an email or call Children's Services at 260-421-1220.

Millie Waits for the Mail by Alexander Steffensmeier

Why would a cow wait for the mail? To scare the mail carrier of course! Check out this book and see if you can spot Millie in her hiding places.

Art Out of the Box: Mail Art

Participants at the November meeting of Art Out of the Box recieved mail art from children in Northwestern Indiana, California, Nevada and Maine!

After a visit with a real, live mail artist, participants made response pieces about ACPL. Here is a great example of our mail art:

Art Out of the Box meets every second Thursday of the month at 2 p.m., January through May. Upcoming topics:

January: Fiber Art

February: African American Art

March: Traditional Crafts

April: Wood Art

May: Photography

For more information about this program send an email or call Children's Services at 421-1220.

Calling All Geronimo Stilton Fans!

Our Geronimo Stilton program is coming up this Saturday, December 1, at 2:30 p.m.! We'll be celebrating the "King of Cheese" with crafts, stories, trivia, and even some taste-tests of his favorite food -- can you guess what that is? Unfortunately, our cheesy friend is currently on another mysterious adventure, so he won't be joining us, but we'll be sure to post photos on our blog afterwards so he can catch up on all the fun. Don't miss it!

Check out Geronimo's website at http://www.scholastic.com/titles/geronimostilton/index.htm!

Learning new words has MANY benefits

What if I told you that learning new words can help feed the hungry? Would you believe me? It's TRUE!

Visit FreeRice.com to find out more. Basically, you play a vocabulary game on the computer. For every word you get right, you "win" 10 grains of rice which are donated to help feed hungry people. Get 5 words right and you've just earned 50 grains of rice to donate. Not only are you enriching your vocabulary, you're also helping people. SWEET!

Concert for the young and the young at heart

On Saturday, December 1st, at 2:00, the Summit City Singers will be presenting a choral concert in the Theater at the Main Library. The theme for this concert is "Through a Child's Eyes." The concert will include songs familiar to both children and adults; there will also be a sing-along! You might consider using this concert as a way to introduce choral music to your children or just as an enjoyable musical experience for the whole family.

RadKIDS update

Last week our group of homeschoolers graduated from the 7 week RadKids program. Today, a proud mom sent me some more pictures from the final class. (Thanks, Janet!) These girls have certainly learned some safety moves!

This program was so very well-recieved, and the information the kids received was so valuable, that we hope to offer another session of RadKIDS during Spring Break in 2008.

Stay tuned for more details.

Winter Wonderland presented by the Fort Wayne Ballet

Look for ballerinas, premier danseurs, princesses and more in this enchanting mini-performance for families with children of all ages. Tuesday, December 11th @ 2 p.m. & 7 p.m. Seating is limited for this FREE performance. All groups must pre-register.

While you are waiting for this wonderful performance, visit Children's Services and stop by our ballet display to find some great books to read.

I Want To Be A Ballerina by Annabelle Blackledge is a wonderful introduction to the art of ballet. This early reader is perfect for children to read on their own and it also works well as a preschool read aloud.

The story follows Jamie as she attends her first ballet lesson, learns about basic ballet steps and meets the other boys and girls in her class.

Over in the Meadow at the Big Ballet by Lisa Shulman is lovely picture book about a little swan who feels a bit of stage fright before performing in her first ballet.

Enter the National Geographic Planet Contest!

Illustration by David A. Aguilar

National Geographic has a fun contest going on. All you need to do is create a mnemonic slogan to help kids (and adults!) remember the order of the planets in our new solar system— including dwarf planets Ceres, Pluto, and Eris.The first letter of each word stands for one of the planets. The order of the planets is: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Ceres, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto, Eris. For example: My Very Excellent Mother Can Jump Slowly Under Nelly’s Plastic Elephant. You can click here for more information. Good luck!

Hoppy Happy Frogs

This coming Wednesday the storytime will feature FROGS as a theme. Gosh, there are a LOT of good frog stories! Think about all the Froggy stories by Jonathan London; my personal favorite is Froggy Gets Dressed.








The Wide-Mouthed Frog by Keith Faulkner is a great pop-up storybook to read aloud and retell over and over again. (It gets funnier each time!)








And I've always loved The Frog Who Wanted to be a Singer by Linda Goss. Who says birds are the only ones that can sing in the forest?





Wednesday at 10:30 in the morning, our preschool storytime should be hopping good fun. We'll see you at the Main Library!

Only You, by Robin Cruise

Only You by Robin Cruise is a lovely book, beautifully illustrated by Margaret Chodos-Irvine, that uses lilting, rhyming text to describe various happenings to young children and their parents throughout the day and throughout the year. A great read-aloud, appropriate for babies on up!

"From sunrise-rose to bedtime-blue...I love my one, my only, you!"

Babies & Books and Toddler Time

Every Friday morning Children's Services librarians present Babies & Books storytime for babies from birth to 18 months at 9:15 a.m. and Toddler Time for toddlers 18months to 3 years at 10 a.m. and 10:45 a.m.

This week we read about food. One of the books that we read, is one of my favorite new picture books. Orange, Pear, Apple, Bear by Emily Gravett is a charming story, beautifully illustrated and told with only five words!

Children's Book Week Party

Wow! What a blast we had celebrating Children's Book Week!






We dressed up like book characters, listened to stories, ate some book-related snacks, and even had a (noisy!) book character parade.










Fun times!

Old Farmer's Almanac for Kids

I've just come across a great website! Check out the The Old Farmer's Almanac for Kids site. Pop in your zipcode and you can find out the current weather. Type your birthdate and you can find out what was happening on the day you were born. There's lots of fun information and puzzles about pets, astronomy, and more. Check it out!

If you want to read the book, you can get Volume One of The Old Farmer's Almanac for Kids at the Library. You can put Volume Two on hold and we'll let you know when we have the book for you to read. (We have it on order, but we don't have it in the Library yet. )

radKIDS Graduating Class

For the last 7 weeks, the Children's Services department has offered a radKIDS safety program. This program was taught by a trained instructor from the Fort Wayne Women's Bureau. The purpose of the program is to teach kids ages 5 through 12 how to Resist Aggression Defensively. Topics discussed included:

• Home, school and vehicle safety

• Out and about safety

• Realistic defense against abduction

• Good, bad and uncomfortable touch

Yesterday we celebrated the graduation of our entire radKIDS class.

We hope we will be able to offer this important safety class again.

It's Time for Snow!

We had great fun tonite making snow-related crafts. We even had a chance to create our own snow to take home! Too much fun!

Fox and His Friends

Edward Marshall knows comedy! This classic early reader is full of laughs and surprises. What happens to Fox when he goes to the beach with his friends but forgets his swimming trunks? Read Fox and His Friends or any of the other wonderful Fox books to find out!

Day of the Dead

Over 500 people visited Children's Services to celebrate Day of the Dead this past weekend. Children's Services staff used 168 pounds of sugar to make sugar skulls and icing in preparation for the program. Families decorated sugar skulls with colorful icing, beads, spangles and sequins.



Many people added a memory about a loved one to the "Board of Memories". Tissue paper flowers were created to add to the ofrenda. Other activities included coloring masks, building skeleton toys, making buttons and eating Bread of the Dead (pan de muerto). Yum!
Plan to join us for the program next year.