The Alphabet Train- Week #3

Fall Story Time (Week #3)
Weekly Theme: The Letters O & P

Books: The Little Old Lady Who Was Not Afraid of Anything by Linda Williams, Old Black Fly by Jim Aylesworth, If You Give a Pig a Pancake by Laura Numeroff, Pigs to the Rescue by John Himmelman, The Pout-Pout Fish by Deborah Diesen

Activity: Popsicle stick color match-up

Craft: crepe paper octopus

Pictures of the third week of story time are up in the next post, so... 

Keep reading!

Shaen

The Alphabet Train- Week #2 Photos

We played a simple game this week using movement dice.  Can you jump like a mouse?

Practicing our scissor skills by cutting out triangular mountains.

Pasting down our collage scraps.

Getting the details just right...

...before adding some snow to the picture (we made our puffy paint snow by mixing one part white glue with one part shaving cream).

Almost finished!

Keep reading!

Shaen

The Alphabet Train- Week #2

Fall Story Time (Week #2)
Weekly Theme: The Letters M & N

Books: Looking for a Moose by Phyllis Root, Laura Numeroff's Ten-Step Guide to Living with Your Monster by Laura Numeroff, The Napping House by Audrey and Don Wood, If You Give a Moose a Muffin by Laura Numeroff, Leonardo the Terrible Monster by Mo Willems

Activity: movement dice game

Craft: snowy mountain paintings

Pictures of the second week of story time are up in the next post, so... 

Keep reading!

Shaen

The Alphabet Train- Week #1 Photos

Playing our leaf pickup game.

 

Ms. Pat reading Kitten's First Full Moon.

Getting ready to make paper collage kites.

A colorful and creative kite!

Keep reading!

Shaen

The Alphabet Train- Week #1

Fall Story Time (Week #1)
Weekly Theme: The Letters K & L

Books: Koala Lou by Mem Fox, Library Lion by Michelle Knudsen, Leaf Man by Lois Ehlert, Goodnight Lulu by Paulette Bogan, Kitten's First Full Moon by Kevin Henkes, Let's Sing a Lullaby with the Brave Cowboy by Jan Thomas

Activity: leaf pickup game

Craft: colored collage kites

Pictures of the first week of story time are up in the next post, so... 

Keep reading!

Shaen

Fall Story Time 2013: The Alphabet Train (Letters K-Z)!

Get ready, because the Alphabet Train (Letters K-Z) is headed your way!  Fall Story Time for  toddlers and preschoolers starts on Monday, September 16!

Each week, Pat (see our welcome post for Pat here) and I will be visiting Ozark Regional's eight library branches with a box full of supplies- hello to eight weeks of stories, music, games, activity tables, and craft projects.  Some things to look forward to: reading about koalas in week one, painting with shaving cream in week two, playing trashcan basketball in week six, and making a crepe paper volcano in week seven.

You can find a complete story time schedule in the left-hand column of this blog or at the library's website under the "Programs and Events" tab.  If you're more of a paper person, you can also stop by your local library in person to pick up a colorful, printed calendar of events. 

Stay tuned for info and pictures from our first week of fall story time; we hope to see you there!

Keep reading!

Shaen

Drumroll, Please...

Please help me welcome Pat Lewis to the Youth Department! 

Pat Lewis

I'm very excited to announce that Pat is going to be joining me in providing children's and teen programming at our Ozark Regional Library branches, beginning the first week of Fall Story Time on September 16th (check out a complete schedule in the left-hand column of the blog, if you haven't already)!  She'll be taking Miss Michelle's place in the Job Share and covering every Monday, Tuesday, and alternate Wednesday story time program, as Michelle is going to be working full-time at our Ironton Headquarters as Circulation Librarian (Michelle is also now in charge of our new adult programming schedule and is the go-to gal for any genealogy questions you might have!).

I hope you'll all help me welcome Pat to the Youth Department.  She is genuinely a fun lady and a great co-worker, and I'm looking forward to everyone meeting her next week!

Keep reading!

Shaen

Flashback (Demystifying the Youth Collection- Reference)

The last stop in our tour of the Youth Collection is the Reference section, a perfect place for the student researcher or inquisitive mind!

Overview
Reference books are non-circulating, meaning that they are not available for check out from the library, though readers are welcome to take notes or make copies of the pages they need.  Comprehensive encyclopedia sets and subject guides are often included in the reference collection. 

What It Looks Like
Since reference titles don't check out, they don't contain blue or white check-out cards inside their front covers; instead, they have "REFERENCE" written in bold letters.  Reference books do still have white spine labels (clearly marked with an "R" for "Reference", followed by a "J" or "Y" age designation (for Juvenile or Youth material), a Dewey Decimal number, and the first three letters of the author's last name (or as happens more often with Reference titles, the first three letters of the series, such as "COM" for "Compton's").  So, a spine label for the encyclopedia pictured below would be "R J031 COM".

Left: The cover of a reference title. Right: The inside cover of a reference book.

How to Find It

Here's an image of the catalog card for the encyclopedia mentioned above:

Title card for the full Compton's set.

Reference books are so easy to find, you don't even really need to look up their locators in the card catalog!  At most of the libraries in the Ozark Regional system, reference titles are shelved on top of the regular Nonfiction bookshelves.  Books are grouped together in complete sets (see the picture below of the full Compton's set).

If you've missed any part of this eight-part series on demystifying the youth collection, you can catch up on Board Books, Picture Books, Easy Readers, Juvenile Fiction, the Paperback Collection, Teen Fiction, or Children's/Teen Nonfiction when you have time.

Keep reading!

Shaen

Flashback (Demystifying the Youth Collection- Children's and Teen Nonfiction)

Today, we're moving on to explore the Nonfiction section of the Youth Collection!

Overview
The nonfiction section of the Youth Collection houses tons of factual titles for juveniles and teens covering a variety of topics, from outer space to the inner ear!  Like most public and school libraries, Ozark Regional uses the Dewey Decimal system to organize its nonfiction books (for a great overview of how Dewey Decimal Classification, aka DDC, works, visit this site).  Readers beeline for nonfiction for lots of reasons: to complete research for a school paper, to learn about a favorite hobby, or just to read for fun!  The nonfiction section also hosts a growing collection of kid-safe graphic novels (if you don't know what GN's are, Scholastic has a great overview of graphic novels they offer for elementary through teen readers).

What It Looks Like
As mentioned in the Overview section above, juvenile and teen nonfiction are shelved together, interfiled to make them easier to locate.  They boast white spine labels that contain the age designation ("J", "Y" or "YA"), the Dewey number (i.e. 741.5), and the first three letters of the author's last name. 

Left: The cover of a Nonfiction title. Right: A close-up of the spine label.

How to Find It
Here's an image of the catalog card for the above book (which happens to be one of the kid-safe graphic novels our library shelves under the 741.5 Dewey designation)...

Title entry card for David Peterson's Mouse Guard: Winter 1152.

We know this title is Juvenile Nonfiction because our catalog card locator contains a "J", followed by a Dewey number.  We know we can find this book shelved in the nonfiction section, shelved first by the Dewey number (since it's a "700", it's located about three-fourths of the way through the collection, after the "600's" and before the "800's"), and then by the first three letters of the author's last name.

Mouse Guard can be found with the other graphic novels and cartooning/drawing books located under the 741.5 Dewey number.

And there you have it- a brief overview of how the Nonfiction section is organized and how to located items on the shelves!  If you've missed any part of this series on demystifying the youth collection, you can catch up on Board Books, Picture Books, Easy Readers, Juvenile Fiction, the Paperback Collection, or Teen Fiction at your leisure.  Next up, our last stop in the series: the Reference section!

Keep reading!

Shaen