Early Bit Lits

October,  2012
Issue No . 30
KDL Blue
 
In This Issue
Harvest Parties
Nursery Nook
Music Minute
Learning with Crafts
Book Review
KDLville Early Literacy Play Spaces

Fall Fun

Celebrate the season with autumn crafts, pumpkin decorating, games and bountiful fun at a Harvest Party program at your local KDL branch.

 

Check the online event calendar for dates and times. For ages 6 and younger. 

Nursery Nook

Eat an Apple

 

Eat an apple (mimic holding an apple and taking a bite)

Save the core (make a fist)

Plant the seeds (use hands to "sprinkle" seeds on the ground)

And grow some more (put hands above head like an apple tree)

 

This rhyme is perfect for fall. You can say it with your child whenever you are getting hungry for a healthy snack. Holding an imaginary apple will help your child think figuratively and imaginatively. Check out a book about apples and talk about how apple trees produce fruit.

Music Minute

Today's world is continually evolving into an increasingly global community. Music can be a fun way to introduce children to new languages and cultures. Visiting websites like Songs for Teaching or the Burnaby Public Library's Embracing Diversity: Sharing Our Songs and Rhymes project is a great way to find songs and/or video in different languages with lyrics included.

 

 KDL has a collection of world music with various CDs for children, like Around the World with Language Stars, that can be borrowed to help expose children to these new experiences. Stop into a branch to browse the children's music section to try a new language today! 

Greetings!

Kent District Library is here to provide you and your child with the skills needed to succeed in school and in life. KDL's Early Lit Bits newsletter is full of FUN and simple activities that will help foster that growth. For more information regarding the skills your child needs before he or she learns to read, visit the Play-Grow-Read section of the KDL website.  You can also stop by any KDL branch to speak with one of our helpful youth librarians. We hope to see you soon!

Learning with Crafts
Play-Grow-Read

Nature Collections

All kinds of wonderful natural items fall to the ground in the autumn. It's a great time of year to start a nature collection. Teach your child the names of trees and talk about the colors of the leaves you find on the ground.  Talk about the texture and color of rocks, seed pods and other items you might find.

 

You can tape the items onto construction paper or index cards and label them with words, or you can store the items in an old box. If you do not want to take natural objects home, take photographs of what you find on your walks and create a photograph collection instead.

 

Materials:

Empty tissue or shoe box

Natural objects collected on walks

Tape

Paper

Crayons

 

Other Ideas for Fall:

Place a leaf under a piece of paper and run a crayon over the top of the paper to do a leaf rubbing. Check out a tree identification guide from the library to help you correctly identify leaves and seed pods you find on your nature walks. Take a photograph of a tree in your yard. Continue to take one photograph of the tree every week during the months of September and October. Print off all of the pictures and talk about how the tree changes each week.

Book Review

Time(out) for Monsters! by Jean Reidy

 

When his time out corner needs a little sprucing up, one little boy's imagination takes over. With the help of a few crayons, time out becomes a lot less lonely and a lot more colorful. Cleaning his new artwork off the wall has never been so fun! This book would be a perfect read-aloud for a group, with bright illustrations and few words. Children can see with one pointed finger and one pouty face that time out is imminent. There is even a fun fold-out page for when the art creation becomes too large for a single page. Talk with your child about how he feels when punished and what he thinks will happen to the character in the story. What would happen if you drew on the walls? You could even create some monster artwork together, but on paper, of course!  Coloring and drawing are both great ways to get your child ready to write. 

   Time(out) for Monsters

KDLville Early Literacy Play Spaces

Go on a scavenger hunt with everyone's favorite Pigeon at the East Grand Rapids branch. Pigeon invites you to find things that begin with the letter "P". During your visit, check out a Mo Willems book so you can share a little bit of Pigeon love at home. 

LetterP