Language Arts

February 10 – Library Lovers Day

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CPB - Jumping Off Library Shelves

About the Holiday

Today I’ve chosen to celebrate a month-long holiday. February is Library Lovers Month! Chances are if you’re reading this, you also love libraries! For readers there’s no better place than standing in the stacks, surrounded on all sides by shelves and shelves of books. In those pages you meet new friends, defeat the bad guys, discover poetry, laugh, sometimes cry, see astonishing art, find new hobbies, and learn fascinating facts about…wow! Anything and everything!

What’s your favorite library or thing about libraries? Mine is the East Lyme Public Library in Connecticut, where they have a fantastic selection of books and awesome librarians who feel like family! Tell me about your special library in the Comments section below.

Jumping Off Library Shelves: A Book of Poems

Poems selected by Lee Bennett Hopkins | Illustrated by Jane Manning

 

From morning, which “pours spoons of sun through tall windows” of a library in Rebecca Kai Dotlich’s poem “Breakfast between the Shelves,” to night, when shadowed mice huddle to read a mystery in Dotlich’s closing poem “Midnight in a Library,” kids can enjoy a full day of poems in this delightful collection. Many of today’s best-loved poets for children are represented here, celebrating the power of a library card, the kindness of librarians, and the enchantment of reading.

Jane Manning’s soft, dreamy illustrations swirl with imagination, shimmer with the warm glow of a reading nook, and enchant with the smiles of children thrilled with the pleasures of reading.

Library Lovers Day Activity

CPB - Bookworm Book (2)

 

Bookworm Bookmark

For all you bookworms out there who love to read, here’s your very own Bookworm Bookmark to color and put between the pages of your favorite story!

Supplies

Directions

  1. Print out the Bookworm Bookmark template
  2. Color the bookworm
  3. Cut out the Bookworm
  4. Cut the Bookworm’s mouth at the dotted line. The top part of the bookworm’s mouth hangs over the page and marks your place!

February 7 – Popcorn Day

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CPB - Popcorn Astronauts

About the Holiday

While National Popcorn Day is often celebrated in January, some people believe that Superbowl Sunday is the perfect day to celebrate this tasty treat. I say why not celebrate it on both days! The history of popcorn goes back to the Aztecs and beyond. Early explorers of the 1500s wrote about native peoples roasting corn until it popped and described it as looking like a “white flower.” The natives ate it and strung it to use for decoration.

Most people now eat popcorn with salt and butter, but can you imagine having it with milk? Way before Corn Flakes and Cheerios came on the scene people ate it as cereal! And popcorn really became popular during the Great Depression, when it was one of the only inexpensive treats people could afford. Why not pop up a batch and snuggle in to read today’s reviewed  picture book. For more interesting Popcorn Facts visit www.popcorn.org.

The Popcorn Astronauts and Other Biteable Rhymes

Written by Deborah Ruddell | Illustrated by Joan Rankin

 

Deborah Ruddell’s rollicking poems celebrate the delicacies each season offers, and they are as fresh and surprising as that first luscious taste of strawberries after a cold winter. For National Popcorn Day, and Ruddell and Rankin offer a unique take on those fluffy nuggets which, like floating astronauts, are as light as air.

In these rhymes that are as fun to say as they are to hear, kids will meet a strawberry queen, a picky ogre, and peaches with “flannelpajamaty” skin. They will also learn the ingredients for an impromptu picnic and wonder what ingredient creates that indescribable taste of the smoothie supreme. And if you’d like to know how a poet orders a milkshake or if Dracula ever gets tired of his nightly routine, you’ll find the clever answers here.

Joan Rankin’s vivid illustrations enhance each poem with plenty of action, humor, and expressive characters to keep kids giggling and lingering over each page.

Ages 4 – 8

Simon & Schuster, New York, 2015 | ISBN 978-1442465558

Popcorn Day Activity

CPB - popcorn1

Popcorn Blast-Off Game

The popcorn is flying! Can you catch it? This is a fun game to celebrate this most delicious day! And if you keep the popcorn socks, it will make a great quick activity for those times when you want to get up and move but just don’t know what to do.

Supplies

  • 6 pairs of girls socks – white
  • A large bag of cotton ballsCPB - popcorn2
  • Towel or small blanket

Instructions

  1. Stuff the socks with a large handful of cotton balls (about 25)
  2. Knot the sock as you would a balloon and fold down the remaining sock
  3. Squish the sock to move the cotton balls until your sock looks like a piece of popcorn
  4. Players hold each end of the towel or side of the blanket so it sags
  5. Place popcorn in the middle of the towel or blanket
  6. On the count of 3, players pull tight on the towel or blanket
  7. Try to catch as many flying popcorn pieces in the towel or blanket as you can