Tie Dye & Patriotic Flags

We had a huge crowd at last week's Fun Friday on July 29th with about 35 kids making flags and tie-dying t-shirts. Here are some photos from that day.

Duct Tape Hula Hoops a Hit!

Take some 1/2 " tubing, cut 7/16" dowels into 1.5" pieces, cut tubing into 9'4" lengths and insert dowel piece into each end to make a circle. Use a staple gun to connect the two ends and hammer the staples in. Voila! A homemade hula hoop. Now bring lots of hoops to Fun Friday and let the kids cover them with colorful duct tape!

4th of July Crowns a Hit at Storytime

 Storytime has started up again on Wednesdays at 10:00. The craft today was 4th of July crowns. Here are the kids (and an older sibling) modeling their creations. They are all ready to march in a parade!

Owen Brooks Visits the Library

Our big friend Owen was quite anxious to come in the library, hoping to see Louie, but Louie had not yet reported to work. We were happy to see Owen, but Louie probably wouldn't have been that thrilled.

First Graders Visit the Library

We enjoyed another visit from the Freedom Elementary first grade class, accompanied by their teacher MaryEllen Holmes, parent Ann-Marie Knox and a little sister. They picked out some books and listened to some stories and then back to school in time for the bus!

Making Airplanes at Storytime

The kids worked hard on their airplanes at storytime today!

A visit from the 2nd grade

The 2nd graders at Freedom Elementary have been coming to the library every 3 or 4 weeks throughout the school year. They get to choose a book to check out and then Elizabeth reads them some stories. The day of their most recent visit was Dr. Seuss' birthday and Brianna B. asked to read Elizabeth's favorite Dr. Seuss story, "Why Was I Scared" about the pale green pants with nobody inside them. She did a first rate job reading the story (which she had never read before that day), with great inflections and feeling. Here are some pictures from the visit. Click on pictures to see their larger size. Enjoy!

A Traditional English Tea

The 2nd graders from Freedom Elementary came for their monthly visit to the library on February 9th.  Afterwards, Judy, Irene and I were fortunate enough to be invited to afternoon tea at Petula Plunges' house. She treated the 2nd grade class to a traditional English tea complete with finger sandwiches, fancy cookies, biscuits, fruit and brownies - a real feast!  The second graders had superb manners and we all had a fine time. Sounds like it may become a 2nd grade tradition - I'm already looking forward to 2012 if so!

Imogene woke up the next morning and instead of antlers she had a peacock tail!

Andrea Wright brought her "Books Alive!" program to Freedom Old Home Week again this year and it was another GREAT SHOW, enjoyed by all. Here is the Thomson's 4-year-old granddaughter Judith playing Imogene from "Imogene's Antlers" by David Small. So many children got to participate in bringing the children's books to life. Click here to view the entire photo album.

Norman Ng at the Library

What perfect weather for a show on the back lawn of the library!  Norman Ng was terrific - we laughed, we smiled, we were amazed! Here are a few pictures from the performance.  Go to our Picassa photo page to see the whole set at http://picasaweb.google.com/rhymedog/NormanNgPerformance?feat=directlink

Ode to the Freedom Public Library

Elizabeth Marx led this week's writing workshop for students going into 5th grade and older.  They learned all about odes, wrote one together as a group, then each wrote their own.  Click here to read some of the individual poems.  Here is the group project "Ode to the Freedom Public Library"  I love it!

ODE TO FREEDOM PUBLIC LIBRARY
Written by the Writer's Workshop Group
Jeffrey C. Cieslikowski, Brianna D., Lauren Gambon, Liam Gambon, and Nathanael Mathieu

Oh Library, what will I win today?
T-Shirt or MP3 Player, perhaps Go Carting or a Bobbie Sue Kiddie Cone?
Please, please, please pull my raffle ticket, I so need an iTunes card
(but a piece of maple candy will work).

No peace and quiet here.
This library is for fun and games. Preschoolers in town
dance and sing with rhythm sticks, shaking eggs, and stomping feet.
Top it off with glitter glue, finger paint, and stickers
(and a piece of bubble gum candy).

Boring Friday nights perk up
A room full of hungry moviegoers of all ages.
Big screen, loud speakers, hanging out with friends.
Pause the movie for pizza.... and cookies
(and sneak a piece of green apple candy).

Chill out on Teen Night
with the kicking Air Conditioner blasting full speed.
Beading, Tie Dyes, Frozen T shirts, Duct Tape.
ìWiiî rock the Guitar Hero before the movie and pizza
(and a fistful of lemonade candy).

Oh my local library,
What shall I do with you today?
1000 piece puzzle, unlimited internet wifi, DVDs, magazines, comfy chairs.
Listen to music, browse the art, scan old photos, savor some candy
(and check out a book or two).

Scenes from the School's Out Party

We had 35 kids come to the library's Schools Out Party on June 22nd.  That's nearly half the school!  We were so swamped that I didn't take many pictures but here are two.  We played many games. This one - I put some money into two medicine containers, then taped them up, then covered the bottles with newspaper, then taped that up with duct tape and other tape, and continued adding paper and tape and some string until they were great big balls of tape and paper. The children got into two circles and one by one rolled a pair of dice.  If they rolled doubles, that person went into the center and began trying to open the package.  The other children continue rolling the dice until someone else rolls doubles. That person then gets a chance to try to get into the tape ball. Whoever is the one to finally get the money out of the container got to keep it!  There was quite a lot of screaming and excitement during this process, let me tell you! 

John Porcino at the Library

Many thanks to the Freedom Elementary School and the NH State Library's Kids, Books and the Arts grant for making it possible to bring storyteller John Porcino to Freedom to kick off the library's Summer Reading Program. It was a great afternoon and I hope it got the kids excited about all the great things happening at the library this summer... starting with the School's Out Party tomorrow after school!  Here are a few of pictures from John's performance.  Go to Photo Album on the library's website www.freedompubliclibrary.org for more.

The Library's First Tele-gathering

Green Mountain Conservation Group's Research Committee met at the library today to discuss research goals for the Ossipee watershed water quality monitoring program. They used Skype, the library's projector and a committee member's computer webcam to include participants from UNH who were not able to come in person to the meeting. The Skype participants were scientists from the University of New Hampshire who complemented the local PhD research scientists on the committee from this watershed.  The GMCG Executive Director, Program Manager and science program interns were also present.

My face still hurts from smiling

We had LOTS of laughs at the Freedom Public Library last night as Rebecca Rule told her stories of New England life and invited members of the audience to tell theirs.  Here she is pictured with Dwight from Madison.  Dwight told a very funny story about a woman (of "ample proportions") who brought a picnic basket on the bus and put it in the rack above their seat.  When a drip came down from the picnic basket and landed on Dwight's nose, he tasted it and and said, "Pickles?" to the woman.  What do you think she said? 

The girl and the chick

One of the little Buff Orpington chicks nestled into Hannah's hair last week. The chicks have been moved from the library to larger quarters at the Rhymer's house, but for now you can still watch them live 24/7 by going to http://www.ustream.tv/channel/chick-clicks.