A Wonderland for Children

Bedtime Math at the New Hampton Community School

With Christine Hunewill

Funny Little Squirrels

In their paws, our squirrels held an acorn made of corrugated cardboard, which many of us thought looked like one of those wavy potato chips! Our squirrels talked to each other in tiny little squirrel voices. Chook-chook-chook!

Books for Belknap House

Students from the New Hampton Community School’s After-School Program visited the Gordon Nash and chose to listen to a reading ofNed’s New Home by Kevin Tseng. After a brief discussion about homes, we all ventured downstairs to choose good used books to donate to Belknap House, our county’s new homeless shelter in Laconia.

Students read through books, then labelled each choice with a post-it note explaining why they thought families might like the book. We hope children and their families will enjoy reading the books we’ve selected!

Trucks!

For a craft at today’s Storytime, we made trucks from rectangles, squares and circles. Each truck was different!

Of course, the stories we read were all about trucks. We readGo, Little Green Truck by Roni Schotter, about a small green pick-up that gets forgotten until it’s time to go to the farmer’s market. The Mixed-up Truck, in the book by Stephen Savage, was a cement mixer that mixed up all sorts of odd white things. Little Blue Truck by Alice Schertle was a story about kindness, helpfulness, and the power of friendship.

STEM Saturday: Magnetic Fun!

Kids dropped in to our first STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math) Saturday of this school year to experiment with magnets and to play with magnetic toys.

We had Magformers that are on loan to our library for the month of September. These building shapes have powerful magnets that hold the structures and cars together.

 

We had a jingle bell game where you had to pick up only one color of bell using a two-sided magnetic wand. It was pretty tricky, but fun.

We had horseshoe magnets, circle magnets, bar magnets, and even a star magnet! There was a fun game with magnetic shapes and another one with magnetic objects to make a scene, like a birthday party and a cake with candles!

With all the magnets, we noticed the invisible force! Some magnets had stronger force than others.

We even played with magnetic putty. Long strings of the putty would dance over the magnets as the force pushed and pulled the magnetic clay. When a ball of putty was placed next to the powerful magnet, it would move in towards it. What force!

It’s lots of fun to experiment with magnetism! We will have Magformers until the end of the month! Stop in and play!

All About Colors

In September when school is back in session (including kindergarten and preschool!), our Storytime population often shifts a little as we make room for younger children. Today we read about colors and had fun gluing and making a beautiful sun catcher.

We read Pete the Cat:  I Love My White Shoes by Eric Litwin. In this funny story, Pete keeps stepping in different places and his new white shoes turn all kinds of predictable colors. Mouse Paint by Ellen Stoll Walsh and White Rabbit’s Color Book by Alan Baker both showed what happens when the primary colors – red, blue, and yellow – get mixed! In Little Green Peasby Keith Baker, the green peas experience all sorts of colors in their world.

The base of our suncatcher was a paper plate with a cut-out center. Contact paper was attached to the back with the sticky side up, so children could easily stick on colorful circles and squares of tissue paper. When the suncatchers were finished, we held them up to the window to see how the overlapped pieces made new colors!

Posted by Christine Hunewell at 8:33 PM

Children’s Programming

Caterpillars & Butterflies

Have you seen butterflies this month? Today we read a few stories about them and looked for symmetry in the drawings. In Don’t Worry Bear by Greg Foley, Bear is concerned about his friend Caterpillar, who disappears into a cocoon one fall day. Clara Caterpillar by Pamela Duncan Edwards, is a favorite among some of the library staff, and sends a good message to children about special gifts we each have.  Waiting for Wings by Lois Ehlert is my favorite, because it shows the entire life cycle of butterflies and has beautiful drawings of many different kinds.

At craft time, we decorated butterflies using stickers, yarn, wiki sticks, markers and and other materials. Many of us remembered symmetry and tried hard to include it!

Posted by Christine Hunewell at 6:25 PM

Children’s Programming

Lions & Tigers & Bears – Oh My!

Storytime today featured some wild and not so wild animals! We read A Beginner’s Guide to Bear Spotting by Michelle Robinson, a funny how-to book about a child and his teddy who head out to bear country. The Lion and the Mouse by Jerry Pinkney is a wordless picture book, so the audience helped in telling the story of a grateful lion and a brave mouse. Mr. Tiger Goes Wildby Peter Brown was another funny story of Mr. Tiger and his very proper friends, and what happens when Mr. Tiger decides to be a little less like a gentleman and a little more like a normal tiger!

At craft time we made our choice of animal: a lion, a tiger, or a bear! All were made with cut paper plate bodies, a paper head, and cardboard tube legs. And they were all different! Oh my!

Posted by Christine Hunewell at 12:13 PM

Children’s Programming Summer Reading Program

Summer Reading Program: The Wizard of Oz!

It was an exciting night at the Gordon Nash as The Hampstead Stage Company came to help us celebrate the end of this year’s Summer Reading Program. We watched as just twoactors presented the play The Wizard of Oz.* They were great! Some of us got to help by being Munchkins and Flying Monkeys.

Dorothy finally meets the Wizard of Oz – and you know the rest of the story!

After the show, the actors answered all our questions. Then we each made our own sundaes, with ice cream courtesy ofThe New Hampton School.

What a fun way to conclude our Summer Reading Program!  Thanks to all who attended!

* Funding for this Kids, Books and the Arts event is provided by the Jack and Dorothy Byrne Foundation, CHILIS, Cogswell Benevolent Trust, and is supported in part by a grant from the NH State Council on the Arts & the National Endowment for the Arts as well as funds administered by the NH State Library and provided by the Institute of Museum and Library Services.

Posted by Christine Hunewell at 12:32 PM

Children’s Programming Presentations Summer Reading Program

JUL

29

2016

0

Animal Antics!

This week we read favorite books that featured funny animals. The funny book If All The Animals Came Insideby Eric Pinder tells the things that would happen if animals came into a house and the terrible mess it would make. Chris Van Dusen’s The Circus Ship tells the sometimes sad story of circus animals that washed ashore on an island after their ship sank – and how they lived happily ever after!

Next we worked on our craft. Kids decorated a white paper animal shape to be a horse, cow, donkey – even a unicorn! Dots, paper stripes, and collaged paper made markings for the animal and yarn made manes and tails. The final touch – clothespin legs so the animal could stand…and run and trot and gallop and canter…

Posted by Christine Hunewell at 9:29 PM

Children’s Programming Summer Reading Program

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SATURDAY STORYTIME

October 29th

10:45-11:45

Join us for

Halloween stories and a craft!

LIBRARIANS

• Cathy Vincevic
• Christine Hunewell

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The Gordon-Nash Library

69 Main Street

New Hampton NH 03256

603.744.8061

email: chunewell.gnl@gmail.com

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It was a nice warm day when we read these books about eggs, just in time for Easter! Hurry! Hurry! by Eve Bunting showed a hen calling all her barnyard friends to her nest to meet her new chick. It’s Quacking Time by Martin Waddell was about a family of ducks patiently waiting for their newest member. In Duck & Goose by Tad Hills, two acquaintances become friends as they wait for their “egg” to hatch. And The Perfect Nest (my favorite!) by Catherine Friend told about Tom the cat trying to lure birds to his nest to lay eggs for his meals!       

Next, plain paper eggs for everyone – to color, decorate, and cut.  Inside, a cute chick with a single feather. Open the egg to see!

Here’s a link to some good information about eggs – all kinds of eggs!

An Egg Is Quiet.

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Brandie was a good sport and wore her new PJs to Storytime the morning we all heard stories about bedtime! We read about our friends Bear and Mouse having a sleep-over in A Bedtime for Bear by Bonny Becker. In Tiger Can’t Sleep by S. J. Fore, a child has trouble getting to sleep because there’s a noisy, silly tiger in his closet! In What! Cried Granny by Kate Lum, Patrick is preparing to sleep over his grandmother’s house. He finds he’s missing a few things but his clever grandmother quickly provides them in a funny way!

We made a mobile of the foil-covered crescent moon with colorful decorated stars hanging from the bottom. We can hang these in our rooms or over our beds to help us have good dreams at bedtime!

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Gordon Nash Library has a specified section for children. We provide a lot of interesting activities and entertaining books for children. One of the activities is the Children’s Story Time on every Thursday from 10:45 to 11:45 a.m, where a reader narrates stories to children. There is also an Art Club hosted on the 2nd and 4th Friday of each month. Here, children have fun drawing and coloring.

Our current children’s blog can be found here:  www.gordonnashkids.blogspot.com