Storytime From Space

Have you guys heard about this? It's the COOLEST storytime ever. Which is saying a lot, because I have some pretty cool storytimes (I'm so humble). But this storytime?

It's from astronauts. In the Space Station. Yeah.

They have already sent one collection of picture books and had a set of storytimes filmed. Totally awesome, you could show them in a classroom or a space-themed storytime or just watch it in your underwear before bed. So are they going to do more?

Well guess what tomorrow is?? Launch day for a second set of picture books! More info can be found on their home page. Seven books will be included, but I want to highlight my favorite and share some coordinating activities.

Three Halloween Crafts & Stories

Happy Halloween! I'm going to be extra festive today. This here is a post with Halloween crafts and corresponding Halloween stories all in one! We had an awesome party at the library with stories and crafts as the main event.

Fire Safety Storytime

Bonus storytime idea today!

Since it's Fire Prevention Month, we invited the local firefighters out to the library to talk to kids about fire safety.

Eric Carle Spotlight & Craft

At a recent youth librarian training conference, I got to see an awesome documentary on picture book author, Eric Carle. He's a brilliant author/illustrator who is most famously known for The Very Hungry Caterpillar.

Here's a trailer for the documentary:

Eric Carle, Picture Writer: The Art of the Picture Book (Trailer for 32 minute short film) 

from Kate Geis on Vimeo.

If there is some way you can get your hands on this dvd, I would highly recommend it. Some libraries do carry it, or you can purchase it from Eric Carle's museum shop.

What I was most impressed by, in the end, was how simple his art really is. Anyone can do it. Especially kids! So I think we should try it out. There is a simplified slide show of how he does his work on his web page. He uses a razor to cut out the shapes of tissue paper he's painted. He then glues all the shapes together on some art board to create his characters.

We can take his method a variety of ways. If there's time, painting tissue paper all kinds of colors is really fun. After it dries, you then trace each shape and glue it all together.

But say you just have one storytime. Basically, it's time to cut out some colored tissue and make some fun collages.