Why should you come to a Young Writer's Program?

Have you wanted to write a novel in a month? Do you want to meet others who are interested in writing? What about just wanting like-minded individuals to correspond with? Want to push and challenge yourself? Just like being at the library?

Come to October's Novel Prep Sessions on Tuesdays @ 3:30 pm. The Library is providing laptops for who can't bring their own and writing devices for those who like to hand-write everything!

The First Meeting, on October 6th, will go over what NaNo is, what most people do to prepare, signing up for the Young Writer's Program, find our Virtual Classroom, and outlining what our goals are for our October Prep and for November .

Then we will have an activity to help us lock away our Inner Editor and start to relish the insanity that will be November.

Some Key Notes: The point of this program is to push yourself on your creativity, make you fulfill a self-made promise, and nothing you write will be public. Also, everything done inside of the virtual classroom is self-contained. If at the end of November you wish to edit your novel and try to get it published, I will aid you as much as possible!

Closing Party (Use Your Senses, Scientist!)

Check out all the fun pictures from Monday's Closing Party!  Our fledgling scientists conducted experiments on the five senses: sight, smell, touch, taste, and hearing.

In this hearing game, one kid (in the center of the circle) was dubbed "the listener".  He had to close his eyes and then identify which friend in the circle was clapping.  After he identified a few, he had to repeat the experiment with one ear covered.  Without the use of both ears to hear, it was much tougher to identify the direction the clapping was coming from.  We learned that our ears work in tandem.

Holding our nose while tasting dried fruit to see how how sense of taste and smell work together (or in this case, don't work together!) to create what we call "flavor".

Crafting paper thaumatropes.

Crafting paper thaumatropes.

The thaumatropes feature a bird on one disc and a birdcage on the opposite.  When we spin the discs, our eyes are tricked into seeing an optical illusion: the bird is suddenly in the cage!

We practicing throwing and catching with our eyes open, and then with one eye closed.  Guess what?  Our depth perception was affected and we missed more tosses with one eye shut!

Kids tried to identity objects in the drawstring bag by touch only and no visual.

Keep reading!

Shaen

Back to School Fair TODAY!

After lots of prep work this week, we're ready for the Ironton Back-to-School Fair!  The Fair will be at First Baptist Church of Ironton and run from 10-2:30 pm today.  Stop by and see Miss Pat and me- we'll be signing families up for new library cards, handing out giveaway books, and passing out goody bags to the kids!

A view of the library conference room yesterday.  We now have 150 goody bags ready to go!

Keep reading!

Shaen

Teen Event- Doctor Who

First of all, a HUGE thanks to Miss Pat, for gamely taking over the Doctor Who Teen Program last week while I was out sick with the flu!  We had to cancel our Ironton session in order to give her enough to time to finish prepping materials (though if you were signed up originally to attend the event at Ironton, please drop by the front desk to pick up a craft kit to take home with you), and our Fredericktown session was packed to the brim!  Check out all the photos below (plus the cool handmade Tardis one of the attending adults brought).

Gathering before the program starts.

Getting ready to make bowties (in keeping with Matt Smith's Doctor, who proclaims "bowties are cool".).

Yep, they're cool :)

And cooler still!

The group also made paper cubee-style Tardises.

A finished Tardis (in the perfect shade of blue).

Check out the fez (if you're a Whovian, you get the reference!).

A finished paper cup Dalek.  This kid's an artist (and a superfan!).

One lucky winner found a Doctor Who picture taped under her seat during a game of Unmusical Chairs- and earned some Doctor-approved metallic glitter slime!

Posing in front of the Tardis with a finished project.

More Tardis pictures.

Keep reading!

Shaen

Dino O'Dell

As usual, children's musician, Dino O'Dell, put on a great show at our Ste. Genevieve, Ironton, Cuba, and Steelville branches over the past couple of days!  At some of the smaller shows, the kids even got to try out Dino's guitar!

Dino's stickered-out guitar case!

Music in the making.

Don't forget!  TOMORROW is our Teen Event focused on everyone's favorite Time Lord, Dr. Who!  We'll be making cool bow ties and paper cup Daleks and test our show knowledge with some Whovian trivia!  Join us at the Ironton Library at 10 am or the Fredericktown Library at 1 pm.

Keep reading!

Shaen

Mad Science

Check out all the photos from the awesome Mad Science program with Dr. Goo!

Talking about science.

Experimenting with chemical reactions.

Experimenting with sound.

More sound experiments.

We had lots of great science books to check out after the program, as well as free balloons and ice cream sandwiches donated by a story time mom!  Thanks to her if she's reading :)

Keep reading!

Shaen

Tween Event (Wild Weather Scientists)

Check out all the photos from our summer tween event, where the kids learned about weather phenomena and conducted hands-on experiments related to tornadoes, thunder storms, and blizzards!

At the first station, we learned about the factors that form a tornado- and then created our own!

Miss Pat explaining about tornadoes.

 

We cut out paper snowflakes at station two, and then taped them to a circulating box fan to simulate a blizzard.

 

At station three, we learned how a balloon and static electricity can light up a light bulb!  We also learned about the mechanics of thunder and lightning.

Keep reading!

Shaen

Monday's Tween Event at Ste. Genevieve Library

The Ste. Genevieve Library is getting ready for their Go Live!/Automation Open House event and will be closed this coming Monday, June 16th in preparation.  Please pass along the word to your family and friends that even though the library is closed, the Youth Department will still be hosting our Tween Event: Wild Weather Scientists at 10 am in the Ste. Genevieve Community Center's Conference Room #1.  We'll have lots of fun trying weather-based experiments related to blizzards, thunderstorms, and tornadoes.  Hope to see you then!

Keep reading!

Shaen

Story Time #1- The Science of Music

This week, we held the first of three weeks of summer story time and made a lot of noise figuring out the science of music!  Check out the pictures below!  Also, don't forget that if you are participating in Ironton's special Reach for the Stars Reading Club that your pledge money and completed reading logs are due this coming Monday, June 16th.  You may turn in your materials at the front desk of the Ironton Library any time between 8 am and 5 pm on the 16th; then, be sure to visit us again to pick out your prize books at our giant Book Fair/Reading Celebration on Friday, June 27th at 1 pm.  We'll have lemonade and freshly popped popcorn, free balloons, and lots of great books to choose from!

For our activity, we honed our percussive skills by box drumming different rhythms.

We also tried floor drumming.

Then we used plastic drinking straws to make pan pipes.

This was a detail-oriented craft that utilized scissor and ruler skills.

But all our hard work paid off...

And we finished making our musical instruments!

Trying to play our pan pipes.

The vibration of air through the different-sized straws creates sound- our pan pipes have a one-octave range.

Musicians in the making!

Keep reading!

Shaen

Playing Catch-Up (AKA Most Rambling Blog Post Ever)

Summer has just started, and already, things are busy, busy, busy at the library!  Pat and I have both been out on the road with programming this week, so we're just now getting a chance to download some photos from the last week's events.  We'll just call this post a three-in-one special :)

Reach for the Stars Kickoff
Our first event for the summer, the Reach for the Stars Kickoff, happened on Monday and was a success with seventeen participants attending.  Usborne Books & More rep, Connie Fain, explained how the pledge-based reading club was going to work, and Pat Lewis handed out reading logs and program information to those who were interested.  The Reach for the Stars Reading Club will be open to readers from now until Monday, June 16, when reading logs and pledge sheets are due, and the Club will culminate in a gigantic Book Fair at the Ironton Library on Friday, June 27, where kids can choose prize books and help the Library pick out new books for our Youth collection.  You don't have to be from Iron County to participate; anyone with questions about the program can contact the Ironton Library for more information.

Reach for the Stars Reading Logs.  Thanks to The Mountain Echo and Cole's Funeral Home for being sponsoring businesses this summer!

The Library set up thematic book displays so the kids could check out and get reading right away!

Local Usborne rep, Connie Fain, explaining the details of the RFTS Reading Club for our patrons.

Opening Party (Look Like a Mad Scientist)
Our Opening Party took place at four branches (Steelville, Bourbon, Ironton, and Fredericktown) on Tuesday and Wednesday, and the kids made "mad scientist" costume kits to get ready for our science-based Summer Reading Program.  We had three stations set up: an Einstein wig table, a lab goggles table, and a lab coat table.  You can see the evidence of their creative crafting below!

Attendees of the Opening Party rotated between three different craft stations: Make a Lab Coat, Make Lab Goggles, and Make Einstein Hair.

Cutting out lab coats from plastic bags.

Decorating lab coats with stickers (it might not be the most scientific thing, but we had fun!).

A few patrons got creative: meet the double threat- a scientist athlete!

We also made cotton ball wigs and cardstock safety goggles.

We got a little creative with the wigs, too!

Almost finished!

We had great crowds at Crawford County...

And Fredericktown, too.

Some super scientists.

More mad scientists!

What a group!

Grow a Reader
This morning, despite a few raindrops, we held our second annual Grow a Reader story time at the Iron County Community Garden.  Linda Lane of the Community Garden gave an intro and reminded everyone about the upcoming Garden Tour, Pat and I read garden-themed stories and helped the kids make paper Mr. or Ms. Potato Heads, and Debra Henk of the University of Missouri Extension Council showed the kids how to plant potatoes in the Garden and send each child home with their own purple bush bean plant.  Much thanks also goes to Rev. Catherine (Kitty) Hillquist, who graciously invited us to use the parish porch for our crafting session, as well as provided refreshments for all the families in attendance.

A nice crowd showed up, despite the threat of rain!

Reading garden-themed stories: Jamie O'Rourke and the Big Potato by Tomie DePaola and this one, White is for Blueberry by George Shannon and Laura Dronzek.

We played "Hot Potato" for our game.

The group gets whittled down during our game.

Down to two players!  Who will win...?

And we have a new "Hot Potato" champion!

We moved onto the covered parish porch to color and cut our Mr. and Ms. Potato Heads.

Lots of coloring and cutting for this craft!

Then we enjoyed light refreshments and headed out to the Garden to get a tour of the planting beds and to plant some potatoes of our own, to be harvested later for the local Food Bank.

The kids (and parents) hard at work in the Garden.

Also, on a sidenote, if you'd like to see a few photos from the Last Tuesday Creative Writing Event, head on over to the Ironton Facebook page.  There's talk of putting together a teen and/or adult workshopping group in the near future, so if you're interested in joining either group, please send us a message through our Facebook page with your name, age group (teen or adult), and if possible, the best weeknight evening, Monday through Friday, that you would find it most convenient to attend classes.  With enough interest, we'll be putting together a schedule soon!

Keep reading!

Shaen