I love when I fall upon neat articles that encourage me to let my kids explore science and math more.
Kids can be citizen scientists too
In this article in the magazine Popular Science, they encourage kids (and adults) to be "citizen scientists". They say that just because you don't have a science background, you don't have to say no to playing and exploring. For example there is an app where people are studying birds and sending information to the Audubon Society, and the 1 millionth person to send information? ... A twelve year old!
This is where the library comes in! We have tons of science toys that you can learn new science things without even realizing that you're learning something! And this is NOT just for the kids. There is plenty of things for the teens and parents to play with too. We want you to let your citizen scientist mind to flourish as well!
On the second and fourth Tuesday from 2-3pm and the second and fourth Wednesday from 6-7pm we have an open house where you can play with all the goodies in our new makerspace!
On Thursdays from 5:45-6:45pm we explore our imagination in a more condensed format: 1st Legos, 2nd Engineering, 3rd Art, 4th Technology and 5th is a mystery (even to us sometimes)!

Life Size Games Open House
For all ages and families.
Join us for a full day of life-size fun! We will be playing all of our life size games in two hour increments. Stop in anytime to join a game in progress or come at the hour marks to start a new one!

                10am-Noon: Monopoly
                Noon-2pm: Yahtzee and Jenga
                2pm-4pm: Candyland

Yesterday (Thursday) when I normally write my blog post I was recovering from an exhausting morning playing Candyland ... and by exhausting, I mean EXHAUSTING. There was so much running around ... and not just by me, but by all the small children too. They had such a blast! There were about 75 people throughout that hour, roaming the rainbow bridge and gumdrop pass. Didn't get to make it? COME VISIT ON SATURDAY! Plus you'll get to play Monopoly! What could be better?
Miss Valerie and Miss Miranda have gone super crazy and created some amazingly huge games that really need to be played ... BY YOU! (This means you too teens.)

Happy belated Valentine's Day everyone! Plus Happy belated Birthday to my Mom! Thanks to my Mom's birthday, Valentine's Day has always been super special.
Which has been trouble in the past for my kids, because they were always required to make Valentine's Day cards for their classmates and not get purchased ones. It used to also be trouble for my husband, because expectations were high. Luckily, now all it takes is an "I love you" and I'm pretty much set.
How do you celebrate Valentine's Day? Do you even celebrate it?

Onto the next question. So what do you love right now? Any special books, music or food? I definitely am all for the Easter egg peanut butter cups. They are soooo good. Probably a little too good, in fact.
I'm also in love with this musician Mariee Sioux.
Mariee Sioux is an American folk singer-songwriter. Her father Gary Sobonya is a mandolin player of Polish and Hungarian descent, and her mother Felicia is of Spanish, Paiute, and Indigenous Mexican descent. (from Google Music)
My music playlists on Google Music sometimes look totally random to me sometimes. I sometimes wonder what they would look to other people. I might be considered a little crazy. Folk music, electronic music, rap music, hard rock music, classical music ... really just about everything except country music.

It is an incredible book about the struggles of middle school and it even made me cry at one point. What a baby. :)

You get an extra post this week because I am ashamed to say I forgot to do it last Thursday. I was all excited about doing a book order and forgot to keep up with my New Year's resolution. (Shame on you Cathy)

So for Christmas I sometimes accidentally buy presents for myself (I know, naughty Mommy) and I had gotten to thinking about how when I used to work at my previous library I used to have a hedgehog puppet that I would sometimes harass the kids with. Then I got to thinking, I need a puppet here! At first I was a little worried, because the set up from this library is different from my previous library, but I thought, why not? It can't hurt? If it doesn't go over well, I have a puppet to attack my own kids with!
Luckily for me, I found him. My hedgehog. The hedgehog who could be shy at times in front of other shy ones and the hedgehog who could eat fingers, noses and ears off the more out energetic kids. (I also found out that he likes to crochet.) So now he'll make an appearance whenever life calls for him. Keep an I out, because if you know me, you know it could be at any time!

Now I've decided that my Girls Who Code club is officially here and officially awesome. Right now we have five girls (I am mad that our Buffalo girl wasn't here) and they were all absolutely fantastic. They gave me such enthusiasm and energy that I totally didn't want it to end. They were all so excited that we are going to work on creating a website.
The girls decided very quickly that the topic was going to be soccer and that part of it was going to be letting everyone know how many amazing female soccer players there are. *** I WANT YOU ALL TO KNOW *** Yes, our girls have started, but they are a very friendly group of girls and I know that they wouldn't mind having more people to join them. I'm just letting you know now that you must like popcorn and sour patch kids because I promised the girls that I would have some.
Also I want you all to know that you DO NOT need to know anything about coding, computers or creating websites. What you do need is to: 1. be a girl between 9-13 years and 2. be friendly and willing to make new friends!
Hope to see you there on February 7th at 6pm! (We meet the 1st and 3rd Wednesday every month.)
Happy Thursday everyone!

I feel bad sometimes because I find these crazy things that I want us to do at the library and I manage to make Miss Jill's hair stand up on end. I really do have the best of intentions, but sometimes ... well I get started and then I just the temptation gets too great.
This is how I'm feeling right now with podcasting and video storytelling. I went to a library conference where librarians are sharing all of the things they are doing at their own libraries ... and there were two that I KNEW I wanted us to do.
This video below is the first of what I want to do.

I would love to have kids or teens come up with either book that they would like to recreate, or their own original piece of work. Then I would love it if they created the artwork and narrated their stories using the equipment that would also be used for podcasting.
Lots of learning would be required, from learning to use image editing software, powerpoint, voice over software, and an assortment of other things, however, I think this could be a great experiment for all of us ... including Miss Jill. :)

You who come will be the first to see our new "toy". I use quotes due to the fact that this is more than a toy. I expect lots of learning to come out of this.
The Friends of the Chili Library are super supportive of us here in Youth Services and for a while now we've been discussing other ways that we can play and learn here in Chili.
Make sure that you listen to the sound in the video. Its AWESOME!

My blog is one of those ones that you don't read because the person is too "lazy" or distracted to write a new post. Well, I am probably a little of both, but I hope I'm more distracted and busy coming up with new programs to entertain everyone with and that is the reason I don't have time to post.

So for those of you that actually read the blog (probably just me as I type) the Friends of the Library are buying us a 3d printer! We have been wanting one for quite a while, but you have to do lots of research in order to get one. When you're going to be having a lot of awesome people using it, you want it to be good! ... and I am positive we are going to have lots of awesome people using it!

Onto the really awesome stuff. So we want you guys to create pieces of art. Yes, you can copy other people's work, but we want you to bring out your artistic abilities!
So here it is! We need you to use an online software that is called Tinkercad.

How it works:
1. Place: Shapes are basic building blocks of Tinkercad. A shape can add or remove material. Import your own, or work with existing shapes.
2. Adjust: Move, rotate and adjust shapes freely in space. Use tools like the ruler to input exact dimensions.
3. Combine: Group together a set of shapes to create models as detailed as you want.

Easy peasy lemon squeezy! Now we need you to learn how to use it and create your own artistry. Its going to be awesome! I know it.

I just found out about this website that we have access to!

DaybyDayNY is a website for young children and their families. It is part of the New York State Library early literacy initiative Ready to Read at New York Libraries.
 
Libraries are essential to Family Literacy. In New York State, libraries bridge the gap for those who may not have access to resources for a variety of reasons. Libraries educate the whole family by providing computer and internet access, materials such as books and music, access to health information, and interaction with staff that are skilled in programming to engage young children to learn.

The New York State Library hopes that families across New York State will use this interactive calendar to develop a love for books and learning that will last a lifetime. The calendar uses multimedia to enhance books, songs, and family health and bring these components to life.  If families can only spend a few minutes together, this calendar will give them something they can use to make sure that this is quality time as well as educational time.