Please Touch ABCs

Earlier this week one of our library families stated that her children were having trouble with the alphabet, particularly recognizing the letters uppercase and lower case. We spoke a bit more and I thought for the please touch discovery station we would focus on alphabets.

This station has a total of four activities:
Alphabet Bottle Cap match
An Alphabet I-Spy Bottle
Alphabet books to read
Worksheets to practice writing the alphabet.

Alphabet Bottle Cap Match:

This idea was featured on the blog Learning 4 Kids.
For our version we found letters from the dollar store, used the bottle caps we have been collecting and construction paper.
To make the circles we used the bottle caps to trace them and wrote in lowercase letters.
We hot glued the uppercase letters to the bottle caps and used the rules from Learning 4 Kids for our game.
Below is a copy of the instructions we used.

Alphabet Bottle Top Match

Alphabet match

A young library patron matches letters

A group plays together

Alphabet I-Spy Bottle

For this bottle we used alphabet blocks and glitter to create a homemade Find it Tube Game.
There are two sets of letters in the bottle and some other surprises, different colored shaped buttons.
The top was hot glued on to eliminate any glitter being spilled everywhere.

In the video we have a young library user giving the bottle a shake.

Worksheets and books

We shared alphabet books that are crowd favorites and worksheets that we found on the First School website and the Learning Page.

Books included:

C is for Cake: a A Birthday Alphabet by Laura Purdie Salas

Crazy ABC by Judy Hindley, illustrated by Nick Sharratt

LMNOPeas by Keith Baker

N Is for Navidad by Susan Middleton Elya and Merry Banks, illustrated by Joe Cepeda

Old Black Fly by Jim Aylesworth, illustrated by Stephen Gammell

The station will be up through the rest of the month.

Stop by and enjoy!

-r

Please Touch Discovery Center: Words, Words, Words!

For our newest Please Touch Discovery Station we decided to showcase Words. 

There are eight activities available, most of which were found on Pinterest. (Follow our boards for links to the games!)

• The Sweetest Sentences
• Sight Word Sound it out
• Capture the Words
• Shoo Fly! Sight Word Swat
• Dinosaur Sight Word Game
• Sight Word Chutes and Ladder
• Roll a Sentence
• A-Z Literacy Cards

Below is the literature we have displayed for families to read.

Please Touch Discovery Center-Words




We made a video to show a couple of the library children playing with the station:







And here are some pictures of the station.

Markers used for Sight Word Battleship

Building Sight Word Sundaes

Sight Word Chutes and Ladder

Words! Words! Words! New Please Touch Discovery Center

From the website Days of the Year:

Lost for words? Before falling back on your standard, boring vocabularly, why not consider using taking advantage of Thesaurus Day and looking up an exciting alternative?

Words! Words! Words!

January 18th is Thesaurus Day. Thesaurus Day celebrates the birthday of the author of Roget's Thesaurus, Peter Roget, who was born on this day in 1779. To celebrate the library plans on offering special programming to share our favorite juicy words and discover original fresh words.

As we get ready for the day we created a new Please Touch Discovery Center to provide hands on activities for children and their families as an introduction to grammar and to learn more about synonyms.

The center explores just three parts of speech: nouns, verbs and adjectives and we also introduced synonyms. We found the games on Pinterest, a wonderful site that acts as a virtual bulletin board.

The roll a dice game can be found on the blog First Grade Parade. This is a favorite for children in first grade and beyond! The Verb and Noun Town and Synonym Match Up games were found on the on the website The First Grade Sweet Life.

Books added to the display were picture books and several from Brian Cleary's collection and from Capstone's If You Were a series. We also found picture books filled with juicy words. There are some worksheets available to extend the activities introduced. (I apologize! These were from several sources and I did not take note of the website.)

Below are some pictures of the station. We hope you enjoy!
-r

Make a silly sentence with a
 noun, verb and adjective!

File Folder Game found online

Match up found on Pinterest

Take homes to extend the activities

Please Touch Discovery Center: Patterns!

What is a pattern? Simply put, a pattern is a thing that repeats!

Patterns are everywhere. When children start recognizing patterns they see how things fit together and work. Word patterns, art patterns, math patterns, behavior patterns. Patterns help children make connections, learn how to predict more accurately and learn sequencing as a few smaller aspects.

Math and Science Skills and Concepts
When children explore patterns they:

• Create, copy, and extend repeating patterns
• Notice organized arrangements
• Predict what will come next in a sequence
• Practice identifying, naming and copying patterns in their environment

Finding Patterns:

Children learn about patterns and relationships by observing the world around them. Pattern recognition is the first step in understanding how our world is constructed and how it functions.

Even very young children show an interest in patterns.

They:

• Recognize and reproduce simple patterns (they build a tower of blocks that is red, green, yellow, red, green, yellow).

• Imitate sound and physical movements (they clap, jump, clap, jump).

• Recognize and talk about patterns in their environment (daily routines, the seasons, day and night, repeated phrases in books).

• Begin to predict what comes next.



For our station we have three challenges:
Figure out what comes next, make your own sound patterns and figure out what's missing.

Challenge #1
Make a Sound Pattern

For this activity visitors are charged with using the colors as a guide to make sound patterns:

Loud claps or soft claps;  loud stomps or softer stomps!

The choice is yours!

Goal: Children learn to describe, create and extend patterns using shapes

Challenge #2:
What comes next?

Can you guess what the next color/sticker will be?

Visitors can guess what comes next!

There are several to choose from

Goal: Children must figure out what comes next in the pattern

Understanding geometric shapes is more complex than just knowing

the names of common shapes such as circle, square and triangle.

 

Challenge #3

Make your own!

Make you own!

Strips are available for you to make your own patterns to take home and practice.

We also have books available to check out and explore more!
Hop Jump by Ellen Stoll Walsh
Zoe's Hats (a book of Colors and Patterns)
The Doorbell Rang by Pat Hutchins
Icky Bug Numbers 1 2 3 by Jerry Pallotta
Patterns What Comes Next by Michele Koomen
Ready for Math, I Know Shapes by Susan Nations, M.ed.
 
Let us know what patterns you make!

-r

Please Touch Discovery Center: Shapes

We are pleased to present our newest Please Touch Discovery Center: Shapes!

With our Shapes Center we introduce Geometry for young children.

Geometry is the area of mathematics that involves shape, size, position, direction and movement.

The National Council of Teachers of Mathematics says, “As [children] become familiar with shape, structure, location and transformations and as they develop spatial reasoning, they lay the foundation for understanding not only their spatial world but also other topics in mathematics and in art, science and social studies.”

Exploring Shapes

Understanding geometric shapes is more complex than just knowing the names of common shapes such as circle, square and triangle. When children explore shapes, they:

• Find the right shape for the right space in a puzzle.
• Create designs: Put shapes together to make new forms.
• Recognize shapes and spaces: Locate circles in the supermarket or observe that this room is larger than that one.
• Create different shapes and sizes by folding a single sheet of paper or using string or other objects.
• Describe shapes: Identify a shape’s attributes such as number of sides, corners or faces.
• Compare and match shapes of different sizes.

Math and Science Skills and Concepts
When children explore shapes and use spatial thinking, they:
• Learn to name, build, draw, compare and sort shapes.
• Describe the attributes and parts of shapes.
• Predict and test the ways shapes can be combined or taken apart in order to make other shapes and patterns.
• Compare changes in shape that take place when objects are slid, flipped or turned.
• Discover symmetry when arranging shapes into designs.
• Build spatial memory and visualization by forming mental images of geometric shapes.
• Recognize and represent shapes from different perspectives.
• Locate shapes in the environment and describe their location by using positional words.


This information is from the What's the Big Idea? Mother Goose Programs

Books we recommend:
Shape Capers by Cathryn Falwell
Mouse Shapes by Ellen Stoll Walsh
Round is a Mooncake by Roseanne Thong, illustrated by Grace Lin
Grandfather Tang's Story by Ann Tompert, illustrated by Robert Andrew Parker

Tangram website:
http://www.tangrams.ca/

File Folder Game:
Preschool Printables: http://www.preschoolprintables.com/filefolder/gingerbread/filefolderginger.shtml



Match the gingerbread people!




A Perfect match!





Are you up for the challenge?



Complete the puzzle!
Courtesy of the Parks family



String puzzles...



...we made a diamond!



Tangrams to take with you!

We're waiting for you to explore!

New Please Touch Discovery Center: Counting!



Counting!

This month we are exploring Counting!

Visitors can explore counting by fixing the mistakes or they can complete a number match.

Children are encouraged to explore this area independently or together with their parents or guardians.

The Activities:

Fix My Mistake

Here the goal is for children to arrange the picture cards in numerical order. There are also numerals to be arranged in the correct order.
An additional challenge is to arrange items first by counting up, then by counting down.

What's wrong?



Mistake fixed!



The second activity is the number match.

Here the goal is for children to match the numerals to the picture card. The puff balls used in the Braille activity were so popular that they were added to the station to be used as manipulatives to help the children count!

Number match

Book List
Anno, Mitsumasa. Anno’s Counting Book
Archambault, John. Bioom Chicka Rock
Ayelsworth, Jim. One Crow. A Counting Rhyme
Bang, Molly. Ten, Nine Eight
Boynton, Sandra. Hippos Go Berserk!
Christewlow, Eileen. Five Little Moneys Series
Crews, Donald. Ten Black Dots
Ernst, Lisa Campbell. Up to Ten and Down Again
Evans, Lezlie. Can You Count Ten Toes?
London, Jonathon. Count the Ways, Little Brown Bear
These are SOME of the books on display with the station. The above titles and other books are available for checkout!

Let us know what you think about the stations!
-r

*NEW* Please Touch Discovery Station

When you visit the library next, take a look at our Please Touch Discovery Center!
Our new Discovery Centers serve to extend activities from our storytimes.

Children are encouraged to explore this area independently or together with their parents or guardians.

This week we are learning all about Braille.

Braille is writing system which enables blind and partially sighted people to read and write through touch. It was invented by Louis Braille (1809-1852), who was blind and became a teacher of the blind. It consists of patterns of raised dots arranged in cells (a small grid in a block) of up to six dots in a 3 x 2 configuration. Each cell represents a letter, numeral or punctuation mark. Some frequently used words and letter combinations also have their own single cell patterns.

We have created a station designed to allow you to write in Braille and experince the Braille alphabet.

Let us know what you think!
-r


Academic Standards:
Academic Standards for Science and Technology: 3.2. Inquiry and Design: 3.2.4. GRADE 4: B. Describe objects in the world using the five senses.:
» Recognize observational descriptors from each of the five senses (e.g., see-blue, feel-rough). (Grade: K-4)