This fun and easy project encourages small children to use their fine motor skills and creativity to make a small hanging to celebrate autumn. Small children can sort the leaves by color, shape or texture before attaching them to the paper wreath form. You may enjoy adding colorful leaves you find on a nature walk or tracing your child’s hand onto a piece of paper and adding it to your wreath. Finish your wreath off with a bow and enjoy the results!
Are you sweating yet? If you’re the parent or caregiver of a young person who is entering puberty, this topic probably keeps you up at night. Discussing sex and reproduction can be extremely nerve-wracking for both kids and adults — but it doesn’t have to be! I’ve compiled a list of popular puberty books for children that you can use as a conversation starter about entering adulthood.
“Sex Is a Funny Word” Colorful and inclusive illustrations, paired with short texts, make this a great choice for the curious kid. This primer into the world of body positivity and awareness should ideally come as soon as a child starts to experience adult feelings and their bodies begin the first stages of puberty. There are some illustrations of naked bodies, but this book doesn’t delve deeply into the specifics of puberty transitions. The easy, simple text makes this a good choice for reading together with an adult or reading independently as a conversation starter. Recommended for ages 7+.Continue reading ““The Talk” and Other Awkward Stuff”
As adults, we don’t always understand things from a child’s perspective. This is particularly true when it comes to moving to a new home. We forget how hard it is to say goodbye to dear friends, familiar surroundings and comfortable routines. In the book, “Paper Planes,” by Jim Helmorea, Mia and Ben are best friends, who love to make paper airplanes. But when Ben and his family move away, Mia struggles with her feelings of sadness. At the same time, she wonders if Ben is lonely too. In “Bad Bye, Good Bye,” by Deborah Underwood, a young child uses rhyming words to express their feelings about moving: “Bad day, bad box, bad mop, bad blocks.”
Maybe it’s a bad case of the sniffles, a runny nose, a scratchy throat or a dreaded short-term fairytale curse? Either way, we’ve got some great reads to help your young ones navigate their sick day woes.
In this fun sick day classic from David Shannon, poor Camilla Cream is worried about pleasing everybody. Camilla loves lima beans, but she decides not to eat lima beans at school in case the other kids make fun of her. Once she makes this decision, Camilla suddenly comes down with a bad case of stripes. No one knows where it came from or how to cure it. As the case of stripes gets worse, Camilla is changing at every person’s suggestion. It cannot be stopped until Camilla decides to just be herself. Continue reading “Sick Day Picture Books”
Did you know thatour state lies on the ancestral landsof the Chickasaw nation, the Otoe-Missouria tribe, the Illini tribe, the Osage nation, the Ioway tribe and the Quapaw tribe? Because the federal government does not formally recognize any Native American communities currently living in Missouri, we often forget about this part of our state’s history and culture. It’s important to remember that this is the direct result of forced removal and violence at the hands of the U.S. government. Entire thriving nations were forcefully confined to reservations in neighboring states like Kansas and Oklahoma and stripped of their land, language, culture and most basic rights. Continue reading “Honoring Indigenous Peoples’ Day 2021”
The time of Halloween and all things scary is upon us again, so as a sequel to a blog post I wrote last year, here are some more books that will hopefully deliver a horror fix to older grade-school readers who love being creeped out and terrified:
Starting furthest back in the past, we have Ray Bradbury’s darkly poetic classic, “Something Wicked This Way Comes,” about two boys who witness the arrival of a strange carnival into their small Midwestern town and discover the dark secrets it holds. It’s shelved in our adult fiction section but is appropriate for older kids. Bradbury’s only novel written for children, “The Halloween Tree,” is (as the title suggests) another great seasonal classic about a group of boys who go out trick-or-treating and encounter the mysterious Mr. Moundshroud, who shows them the history and the meaning of Halloween. Continue reading “More Scary Books for Older Kids”
I’m just horn over hooves for all of the fabulous new unicorn books that are magically appearing at the library every day! Unicorns are one of the hot new trends in kids lit right now, and they are soaring off the shelves. Today, I want to take a moment to highlight some of my favorite unicorn books for fantasy lovers of all ages.
Best for Babes
“Uni Paints a Rainbow” written by Amy Krouse Rosenthal, illustrated by Brigette Barrager
On a dreary, rainy day, Uni brightens things up with her magic horn. Littles can name the colors of the rainbow with Uni and then celebrate the rain disappearing with a big rainbow. Continue reading “Unicorn Magic!”
First we pored over the cookbook, which has a lot of great recipes with pictures! It was a hard decision since there were so many great recipes like TIE Fighter Ice Cream Sandwiches, Cloud City Marshmallows and Carbonite Cakes, but eventually we landed on Sith Cookies. (Because, while you can go wrong with the Dark Side, you can’t go wrong with cookies!) Continue reading “Cookbooks We Love: Star Wars Galactic Baking”
Quick, answer these questions without googling the answers! The House of Representatives has how many voting members? We elect a U.S. senator for how many years? Name one of the U.S. territories? Applicants for U.S. naturalization answer questions such as these during the civics (knowledge of U.S. government and history) portion of their test. How did you do? Continue reading “Let’s Talk About the Constitution”
Kids love to watch construction equipment in action. My very active grandson stopped what he was doing to just stand and watch a backhoe at work right outside his house. There is something fascinating about big machines and their movements. Even my brother-in-law said he watched a machine working outside his window for at least 30 minutes. If your child loves big machines and trucks, here are some fun resources to enjoy.Continue reading “Virtual Activity Bundle: Construction Vehicles & Trucks”
This fun and easy project encourages small children to use their fine motor skills and creativity to make a small hanging to celebrate autumn. Small children can sort the leaves by color, shape or texture before attaching them to the paper wreath form. You may enjoy adding colorful leaves you find on a nature walk or tracing your child’s hand onto a piece of paper and adding it to your wreath. Finish your wreath off with a bow and enjoy the results!
Quick, answer these questions without googling the answers! The House of Representatives has how many voting members? We elect a U.S. senator for how many years? Name one of the U.S. territories? Applicants for U.S. naturalization answer questions such as these during the 