Storytimes and More Saturday Share: January 11, 2014

Welcome to our

2nd

Storytimes and More Saturday Share!

We have lots of inspiring links to share. 

So grab a cup of your favorite beverage and enjoy!

~ Crafting Shares ~

Joining us for the first time this week is Carrie  who says she has no blog but she "google(s) everything!" The craft she is sharing a "super super cute snowman with added bonus of recycling".

The snowmen in the picture were made with water/juice bottles, cotton balls, felt, and buttons. Carrie mentioned that she will probably use Gatorade bottles. 

Thanks for sharing this environmentally-friendly craft, Carrie. We would love to see pictures of your snowmen when you make them. 

~ Fun Facebook Shares ~

Sue is back again this week with a brand new kind of share! She brings us our very first Fun Facebook Share! According to Sue, this Facebook page is a compliment to her blog, Library Village, where she collaborates with her two colleagues, Kristen and Kristie. (You will find another share or two from them in the Spectacular Storytime Shares this week.)

The FB page is where the ladies from Library Village share "everything else that doesn't fit on the blog". I'm really curious to see what "doesn't fit on the blog", aren't you?

~ P-interesting Shares ~

Jane is joining us for the first time this week to share a creative, colorful display that she has pinned on her Library Displays board on Pinterest. This display is for a Tournament of Kids Books during March Madness.

Has anyone ever done a tournament type display/program like this? 

Jane also invites us to have fun exploring her other Pinterest boards that you can find here. Thanks, Jane!

For my weekly share, I have decided to challenge myself to stop "hoarding" pins on Pinterest and to actually start creating and using the things I pin. I am committing to sharing at least two creations a month on my blog, Storytime ABC'S. 

My first creation was one that I pinned awhile back in the hopes of using it this Winter. I am excited that it was an easy one to make and a very popular one for exploring at our Family Storytime and our Stay and Play time this past week.

 It is a large Build a Snowman felt set! 

We called this cool dude our "Florida Snowman".

He was extremely popular!

In my post, I provide a link to the original pin which has directions for making an even bigger snowman than I made. I think the original one is 4 feet tall! I made mine to fit my felt board so it is a little smaller. I had so much fun with this cool guy plus I feel very accomplished since I finally made one of my pinned ideas.

I'm feeling so good that I want to share the feeling of accomplishment ~ I really want to encourage each of you to pick one of your pins and GO FOR IT! You'll be so glad you did!

~ Spectacular Storytime Shares ~

Miss Kristen from the Library Village blog has posted a wonderful storytime plan for Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown. 

This particular storytime is geared towards babies and includes several book recommendations, an action rhyme, several songs, and even a felt board for doing a count-down rhyme with stars. It is a simple but very cute storytime that parents and babies will enjoy from beginning to end, I'm sure. Oh, and if you have time to click around, you will find two more storytime plans for babies posted by Miss Kristie this past week. She has been busy!

Thrive After Three brings us her post on several ways to present the book, The Perfect Gift, written by Mary Newell Depalma. As you can see in the picture, she made flannel board pieces that are adorable. Also included in the post is another video of a puppet version of the book AND a link to some delightful puppet bins that look perfect for outreach or classroom storage of items for story re-telling. You won't want to miss either of these!

Thank you, Thrive After Three! I have not seen this book but it is now on my TBR ( to-be-read) pile.

Jennifer at JeanLittleLibrary (her library and reading journal) is sharing a few ideas with us from her blog, In Short, I Am Busy. I love the blog name because aren't we all busy all the time? 

Jennifer shares a new Winter Reading Program, Paws to Read. 

The program is for independent readers and is based around "reading challenges". Jennifer includes several links to samples of the challenges. She also mentions that there is little work for the staff to do which is a plus at many libraries. I personally like the interaction between staff and young patrons as they meet the challenges. I am always looking for fun ways to connect with my library friends! Thanks for sharing with us this week, Jennifer.

~ Wonderful Website Shares ~

Mom to Zoey is back again this week to share an Author Website that she and her daughter found by Googling one of Zoey's favorite authors. Claire says that she was inspired by a share from last week's collection because she never knew that some authors have their own websites.

Zoey's choice for sharing this week is Eric Carle's official site:

Awesome choice, Zoey! I love Eric Carle, too!

Anne is sharing the blog, The Library Adventure, where she collaborates with other writers to cover a variety of topics. Here is a little information from their About page: "The Library Adventure strives to be a go-to resource for both library patrons and librarians... there is a special focus on children."

This is exactly the purpose behind our group, Storytimes and More on the Go. We also hope to be a helpful resource for parents, grandparents, librarians, teachers, etc. ~ essentially, anyone who enjoys the presence of a child in their lives. So I'm thinking that The Library Adventure will be a site to visit often!

The post that Anne linked us to is very positive and encouraging and ends with a challenge that I think each of us should consider accepting. Thank you for sharing your post, Anne! I enjoyed reading it and I am very excited to explore more of The Library Adventure! Just the name entices me because I love a good adventure!

~ Yearnful Youtube Shares ~

I know! Many of you are probably saying, "What the heck?!??!" but I couldn't find another adjective that started with Y ~ anyway, "yearnful" does mean "desirous". That's good, right??? If anyone has a better name for this new section of shares, please let me know. I will definitely consider something else. ;o)

This new share topic is being introduced by Lisa's second weekly share. Lisa says her afterschool kids voted to learn about polar bears. Something about which she "know(s) nothing!!!" so she decided to head on over to Youtube where she found this video:

Lisa mentions that she likes "how simple the girl makes everything". Lisa also asks "anyone have craft ideas for polar bears???" because she could use a few good ideas!

I love this new topic for our shares ~ maybe not the name though. Lol! Thank you, Lisa, for bringing us our first Youtube video.

Well, that is it for this week. 

Hopefully you enjoyed all of the shares! If you did, why not take a minute and leave a comment below? I'm sure everyone who took the time to share this week would love to hear what our blog visitors are thinking. 

I want to mention how happy we are at Storytimes and More on the Go to have such a diverse group of sharing friends and visiting friends. I have noticed in our first two weeks that we have had librarians, Moms, and teachers sharing ideas. This is exactly what we were hoping for when we started this blog. We want to build a community where we all can work together to bring books alive in the lives of young children every single day ~ whether it is at home, at Grandma's, at school or daycare, or at the Library. Thank you all so much for helping us realize our vision!

Hope to see you all again next week! Be sure to keep an eye out for more awesome shares!