Art Out of the Box: Art Cars III

The Art Cars were beautiful! Check out photos from the program here.

Fancy Nancy Tea Party

Join us this Saturday September 5th, 2009 at 2:00 p.m.

Arrive in your dress ups and get ready for a tea party in honor of our favorite fancy book character "Fancy Nancy".

Enjoy some very fancy stories, crafts and treats with your fancy friends at the library.



Check out these photos from the 2008 Fancy Nancy Party

Interactive Storytelling Photos

Great fun was had by all at our Interactive Storytelling Program in Children's Services! Kids were a-dancin' and a-singin', and some even had a chance to be a part of the stories!



If you missed this program, don't fret! We'll be repeating it at the Main Library next week on Monday, July 20th, at 2:00 p.m, or you can still catch it at some of our branch libraries -- click here to view the schedule.

Butterfly Release and Marks Ark Photos!

What a great time we had at the Main Library, making butterfly crowns...












learning cool stuff about caterpillars and butterflies with local butterfly expert Karie Divelbiss-Harding...









watching our Painted Lady butterflies fly off into the summer sky...












and then getting to enjoy more animal fun with Mark's Ark!


Click here to see more photos from our Mark's Ark and Butterfly Release Events.

For those interested in becoming more involved with our local butterfly population, Metea County Park is offering several butterfly events this summer; click here for more information.

A Day in Allen County

Calling photographers of all ages -- it's the 4th Annual Day in Allen County! Folks young and old are invited to take photos of something great that's happening somewhere in Allen County sometime during the day today. Then, submit your photo(s) to the Library by April 23, 2009: digital photos may be emailed, printed photos or media may be dropped off at any Allen County Public Library location.

Click here for the program rules.

We look forward to seeing all the wonderful happenings in Allen County!

Art Out of the Box: Mail Art

In February the Art Out of the Box kids met to learn about and discuss mail art (art that uses the postal service as a medium). We viewed and discussed mail art pieces in a traveling gallery from the Kentucky Museum of Art and Craft and after the discussion the kids responded to the approximately 90 pieces of mail art that they had received from kids at schools and libraries across the U.S. To see all of the mail art photos, click here.

Fabulous Fridays Homeschool Book Club!

Last month, the Early Reader Roundup kids met to discuss Good Night, Good Knight by Shelley Moore Thomas. After talking about the book, everyone made a story spinner like the one that you see pictured here.

Don't miss the Fabulous Fridays Homeschool Book Clubs this Friday at 2pm:

• Early Reader Roundup (Grades K to 2) will be discussing Cowgirl Kate and Cocoa, by Erica Silverman

• Reading Rocks! (Grades 3 to 5) will be discussing Frindle, by Andrew Clements

Time 2 Chime Live

On Tuesday, December 16, an audience of over 100 people enjoyed a concert given by Time 2 Chime, the library's homeschool handchime choir. Both beginning and advanced groups (pictured below) performed several songs and did a magnificent job. Way to go chimers!

Click here to see more pictures of the concert on the library's flickr site.

Art Out of the Box: Indiana Painters

Surrender by Whisper

On Friday, December 12th the Art Out of the Box kids met to learn about Indiana Painters and to create a painting inspired by an Indiana artist. To see the rest of the paintings click here.

Art Out of the Box: Recycled Art

On Friday, November 14th, the Art Out of the Box homeschool group met to learn about artists in Indiana who make recycled art. Then the group turned library trash into wonderful treasure. The drum set shown above is made of broken computer components, VHS tapes & a broken software case! It is pretty amazing what you can do with the things that are thrown away! To see the rest of the recycled art creations click here.

Eco Kids Club: The Water Cycle

On Monday, October 13th, Matt Jones from the Allen County Partnership for Water Quality shared a wealth of amazing information about water with the homeschool kids and parents in the Eco Kids Club. The photo above shows the kids out in the Great Hall getting ready to put together a water time line. We all learned a lot from this informative presentation.

If you are concerned about the environment, join the Eco Kids Club now! Just come to the next meeting on Monday, November 10th at 2 p.m. to learn about Trees, Beautiful Trees with a speaker from Trees Indiana.

Or if you can't make it to the program, check out some of the books on our Environmental Issues Booklist to learn what YOU can do to make a difference!

Early Reader Roundup: On the Go with Mr. & Mrs. Green

The Early Reader Roundup kids met on Friday, September 5th to discuss On the Go with Mr. & Mrs. Green by Keith Baker. After the discussion, the kids created their very own board games with words from the book. Check out more pictures of the program here.

Art Out of the Box: Printmaking

Art Out of the Box: Printmaking took place on Friday, October 10th. We had the wonderful opportunity to meet local artist Kay Gregg and hear her speak about screen printing. We then talked about several other printing methods, discussed art works and practiced a few techniques. The kids each made a styrofoam print and a sponge print. Check out more photos of their amazing work here.

Art Out of the Box: Art Cars II

On Friday afternoon, the Art Out of the Box kids met to talk about Printmaking, but since it was such a beautiful day we took a few minutes to finish up the Art Car portion of our program out on Library Plaza. To see more photos of the cars & the kids at work, click here. To see the miniature cars that the kids painted in September, click here. If you would like to see the car that the kids painted in 2007, click here.

Check back in a few days to see the photos from the Printmaking portion of Friday's program.

Fancy Nancy Tea Party

Over 110 kids and grown ups attended the Fancy Nancy Party on Saturday, September 13th. They read Fancy Nancy stories, drank pink lemonade with their pinkies up and made many fancy accessories. Check out more photos of the tea party here.

Art Out of the Box: Art Cars

The first meeting of Art Out of the Box was a car painting success! Around 60 kids and their grown ups came to learn about art cars and paint a car to take home. Unfortunately, the weather was too drippy to paint the real car on the plaza, but we'll just postpone that project until next month's meeting (pending weather).

So, join us next month on Friday, October 10th @ 2pm to learn about printmaking, interact with works of art, try out some printmaking techniques AND paint an art car or two.

To see more photos of kids and their cars, click here.

Baby and Toddler Storytime

If you like to edit photos on your computer, check out the free photo editing website Picnik. I was able to add a speech bubble and change the shape of this photo, but there is a lot more that you can do. Check it out!

Don't miss the fun at Babies & Books and Toddler Time every Friday morning!

Babies & Books - every Friday at 10am
Toddler Time - every Friday at 10:30am and 11am

Ballet Dreams Storytime

This morning's Ballet Dreams storytime was so much fun! We read Angelina Ballerina by Katharine Holabird, Over in the Meadow at the Big Ballet by Lisa Shulman, and Ballerina! by Peter Sis. We danced the entire List of Dances with Jim Gill and we Put Our Hands Up in the Air with Hap Palmer. After the stories and songs, Lucia Rogers from The Fort Wayne Ballet taught us the five ballet positions, showed us jumps, leaps and arabesques. She also answered all of our questions about ballet and then she posed for photos with us. See the rest of the ballet-tastic photos here!

Our Children's department has changed through the years!

This is what the Children's Services department looks like now:




Click on this link to see what the Allen County Public Library Children's Services department looked like in 1928.

Check out the Allen County Community Album to see other great pictures of our Library and of our community.

How to Eat Fried Worms - Taste Test Results

On Friday, June 27th, at our Fabulous Friday Book Party, we celebrated the book How to Eat Fried Worms, by Thomas Rockwell. We had a wormilicious time creating wormy art, investigating real earthworms, and trying out some "wormy" snacks.

















We even collected votes on our favorite wormy snack! The votes have all been tabulated, and the winner was....
Gummy Worms in Dirt Pudding!















Coming in a close 2nd place, behind by only one vote was....
Tootsie Roll Worms!

Our next Fabulous Fridays Book Party will be Friday, July 11, when we will celebrate the Junie B. Jones series, by Barbara Park.