Children, Librarianship, Spare time - Culture

Analog clocks

3 Comments

I’m worried that analog clocks, which I personally prefer to digital, will be going the way of the dinosaurs.

The computer sign-in sheet for the children’s room computers is on the end of the librarian’s desk; I have thoughtfully provided a pencil and an analog clock for kids to log the time when they sign in.  Thoughtfully, because I like to encourage kids to practice their clock reading skills.  But I do get a lot of grief from kids about this clock, and they frequently ask me what time it is.  For the younger ones, I talk them through how to tell the time on the clock.  Sometimes I talk the older kids through, too, but most often I encourage them to think about it for a minute and they usually get it.

Yesterday, an eighth grade girl (a regular in the children’s room) was signing in for the computer, and she casually asked me “What time is it?”

With a smile, I replied, “The clock is right there…”

“I know, but…”  [heavy, heavy sigh]

Me:  “Well, think about what time you get out of school, since you just got out, and see if that helps you figure it out.”

Another heavy sigh.

And then the boy next to her whispered, “It’s 2:26.”

I may lose this clock battle, and, more importantly, the analog clock might lose – sooner than we think.

Cats Dogs Plants Animals, Spare time - Culture

Mommy Cat

1 Comment

There’s been an awful lot of cat action in and around our home lately, from the arrival of Moses to trying to find a new home for my dad’s cat Tabby to the discovery of Mommy Cat and her kittens in our neighbor’s barn.

I’ve been feeding Mommy Cat, who presumably is Moses’ mommy, twice a day on our deck.  She gobbles down two cans of Fancy Feast morning and evening, warily eyeing me through the sliding glass door as she eats.  It’s not clear whether she is feral or a stray, but what I do know is that I think Mommy Cat is beautiful.   Not flashy beautiful, but rather subtly beautiful; I’ve started calling her Mona in honor of her sleek subtle beauty (like the Mona Lisa, get it?).  She doesn’t have that hint of a smile, but she does have the most gorgeous golden eyes.

After a week of trying to connect with the wrong no-kill cat shelter, my vet referred me to the cat shelter who rescued Ophy all those years ago, Guardian Angels Cat Rescue.  I spoke to a woman from the shelter last night, and she’s working on finding someone who can help us capture Mona and her babies.  Perhaps a second one of those babies will come to live with us to keep Moses company (and to give Pippa a little peace); we’ll see.

I’ve gotten used to Mona’s twice daily visits to our deck to chow down, and this morning I felt almost a little sad when I thought she might not be coming around anymore.  Almost, but not really, because I’d like this little family to be saved and placed into loving homes.  I was happy, though, when I was able to get a couple of photos of Mona: one as she left the deck and her breakfast, the other as she headed back through our yard to her clan.  I think she’s gorgeous; I hope you do, too.

Library events, Summer reading

Ice Cream!

The ice cream is in the building!

Just arrived from Erikson’s Dairy of Maynard (many thanks to them for giving us a generous discount on the ice cream):  seven tubs of ice cream and one tub of raspberry sorbet.  Yum!  Now we’re almost ready for next week’s Ice Cream Social…all that’s still needed are the toppings and good weather.  Surely we’ve had enough rain for a while and are ready for a dry spell?

Cats Dogs Plants Animals

More kitten photos

Our little handsome boy needed his picture taken by a pro during the height of his cuteness, so on Wednesday my friend (and photographer) S——-  came and did a photo shoot.   Below are some of the awesome photos she took of our cutie!

Children, Storytime, Teaching

Best art project ever…

4 Comments

Well, ok, maybe it’s not the *best* art project ever (how could I pick a favorite, really?), but today’s process art project was phenomenally fun, and also a great example of the cool things that you can do with art in a preschool storytime.

I’ve never been a fan of craft projects as part of storytime, since it pains me to limit the imagination of those beautiful four and five year old minds: one predetermined “right” final product teaches kids early on that there is a right way and wrong way with art.  How dismally depressing for the child who struggles to achieve the perfect final result while others are creating exactly what the teacher/librarian/adult prescribed.  And how limiting for those who are more dextrous, those who have the fine motor skills to really push their artistic bounds.

And so I’ve gone with process art projects, which have been incredibly fun and satisfying for everyone, adults and kids.  [Thanks, as usual, to Mary Ann Kohl and her book Preschool Art for providing the projects and the inspiration.]  Today we went with more of a group project than usual and made salad spinner art – page 217 in Kohl’s book – and I have to admit I was a little worried before storytime by how this project would work.  I never know exactly how many kids will be at the preschool storytime (today we had five), and it can be hard for kids of this age to work together and have patience while everyone has a turn creating.  But I also felt that it was important to try, and so we all shared one salad spinner to make our art.

It was fantastic.  Truly fantastic.  All five kids were great about taking turns, and everyone was fully involved in the process of each piece of art.  How would those two colors work put next to each other like that?  How would the super fast turning of the salad spinner by the child in charge affect the end result?  What about the child who chose to turn it slowly – would the paint look different than the super fast turning?  And, best of all, the questions about why the paint was doing what it was doing – moving us into a gentle discussion of force and motion.

It was so much fun, in fact, that even the adults were anxious to take a turn after the kids were finished.  One adult discovered the magic of turning the spinner first one way, then the next, which gave a completely different look to the paint on the paper.  Which then drove some of the kids to ask to make just one more, please, in which they experimented with alternating rotation and also with more bold placement of color on the page.  So we talked not just about art, but also about science and color mixing (I got out the color paddles from the STEM kit) and we also learned how to use an eye dropper.*

We kept at it for a full forty-five minutes, and I think many of the families will be going home and finding an old salad spinner to experiment with on their own.  It was awesome.

*  N.B.:  the eye droppers were the one change I made from Kohl’s directions in the book; we have eye droppers on hand, and I thought it would be cool to introduce the kids to using them.  And it worked!

Cats Dogs Plants Animals

A Grand Distraction

3 Comments

Well, obviously my commitment to post regularly has been disrupted by something…partly by the elementary school visits, partly by the awesome training that I went to on Monday (with Betsy Diamant-Cohen – more about that in a post on another day), and mostly by the appearance at our house of Puck.

Saturday night, after having spent the whole day cleaning (lots of loud vacuuming) and after having gone out to an excellent dinner, I was standing at our sliding glass door enjoying the view when I heard something: mew mew mew mew.  “Must be a cat bird or a mockingbird,” I thought to myself.  “Couldn’t possibly be a kitten, right?”

I went out onto our tiny deck that overlooks our neighbor’s yard and listened some more.  mew mew mewmewmewmewmew.  It sure sounded like a kitten, but I convinced myself that it was actually a bird, since it was only 7:00 PM and still light out.

And then, after dark, as we were watching the hockey game, I heard it again.  mewmewmewmewmewmew – a little more desperate now, a little more miserable.  So I went outside with a flashlight and looked around as best I could, not finding anything, still hearing the meowing.  No kitten.  And I remembered that we have lots of skunks in our neighborhood, so I decided to go back inside.

Those mews cut into my cat lover’s heart for the rest of the evening, but there was nothing that I could do about it, and I also half-thought that maybe I was crazy and hearing things.

Sunday morning came, and I had actually forgotten about the meowing…until Jim and I sat on our back steps (the other side of our small house) to drink tea and eat fresh cider donuts.  mewmewmewmewmewmewmewmew.  “Did you hear that?!?!”  I said to Jim, who had not.  “It IS a cat, I know it is!!!”

And thus began the Sunday project:  locate and rescue the cat.  I called my animal wise sister for advice, and she recommended that I put some food out by the patch of dense brush by our deck and then sit out on our deck and talk to the kitty.  I did this for a couple of hours, and Jim joined me for lunch (and, thankfully, he too heard the meowing as he ate).  After lunch I saw a tiny tiny little grey tiger or tabby kitten sneak out of the brush towards the food bowl – and then the kitty saw me and slunk back quickly into the underbrush, not to be found.

I tiptoed around our yard and our neighbor’s yard, searching for this tiny little kitten, but to no avail.  I emailed Kitty Angels for kitten capture advice.  And then I waited some more on the deck.

At one point Jim saw the kitten curled up in a spot of sun in the midst of the brush, and he called me over.  By the time we got over our amazement, the kitten had skulked away again, disappearing totally in the brush.  Agh!!  And throughout it all, always those intermittent, sad little mews that were like a knife to my heart.

And then, finally, around three in the afternoon, I heard the mews coming from the side of brush closest to our neighbor.  I grabbed a flashlight and strode over into our neighbor’s yard (thankfully she is a very nice neighbor) and shone the flashlight into the brush.  It didn’t work, of course – I couldn’t see anything.  My frustration level was pretty high by this point:  I needed to rescue the kitty, and I also needed to do some other things with my day.

And then I went around a corner of the brush, and there was a tiny little kitty curled up sound asleep in another patch of sun.  I snuck up quietly, grabbed him by the scruff of his neck, and got my first good look at his beautiful little face and blue blue eyes.  It was love!

And so we now have this little kitty, tentatively named Puck, living with us.  He got his first vet checkup on Monday, weighing in at eight ounces.  The vet declared him healthy, if a little undersized for his age (four weeks).  Pippa isn’t TOO sure about him yet, although she did touch noses with him last night.  And we, of course, love him.  He is affectionate, sweet, smart (took to his litterbox right away), and oh so cute.

Next thing we need to figure out, though, is what to do about his mommy and at least one sibling, who Pippa spotted last evening at eight walking through our neighbor’s yard towards the same spot of brush.  Mommy was carrying her baby in her mouth, and mommy (or someone) ate all of the can of sardines that I put out on our deck last night.  We’ll see how this part of the story plays out…  And meanwhile, here is a photo of Puck:

Children, Library events, Summer reading

In praise of elementary students

I never, never, never post on this blog from work – but I have to take a brief moment today to say “hurray!” for the three great classes that just visited from the elementary school.  Two second grade classes came for a visit together, and they were so fun and so well behaved – I had a great time with them.  And then a third grade class just came for a tour of the library, and I was blown away by how attentive they were and by what great questions they asked.

What a great morning I’ve had with these visiting students!  And I can’t wait to meet the terrific first and fourth graders who will be visiting me this afternoon!

Librarianship, Spare time - Culture, Summer reading

Procrastination…the fine art of

1 Comment

I turned on the computer to work on the library tour that I’ll be giving to the elementary school students this week, starting with two third grade classes tomorrow.

“Why don’t you get your work done now, in the morning, so that we can enjoy the rest of the day?” said my wonderful and wise husband before heading outside to work on installing the cedar decking on our new back steps.

That was about an hour ago.  In that hour, I’ve checked Facebook (both my account and Pepper B. Collie’s account), checked my email, read something my sister sent me, checked my work email, looked at a shirt on Garnet Hill, drunk two cups of tea, sent an email to my friend, turned on a McAfee scan on the computer, and now logged in to write a blog post.  And my flashdrive and the hard copy of the library tour that I printed out on Friday are both sitting next to me on the chair, unused so far today.

Sigh.

Etc., Librarianship

Saving a day with silliness

1 Comment

Today was one of those days, and when I got home I wrote a rather self-pitying draft of a blog post.  It made me feel better, which was good, and I had the sense to save it as a draft and come back to it later and delete it, which was even better than good.

The thing is – and you won’t often hear this because it’s hard to put these feelings out there – that it’s tough being a public servant.  Every day is public, which is usually ok, and then there are days like today when there are brief moments where you truly feel the servant part of the job description.  It really was the briefest of moments today that I felt servile, but like most negative things, it outweighed all the positive moments of the day for quite a while and got me down.

So I made myself do two things this evening to get myself out of my little funk:  I reminded myself that it is impossible to be universally liked at all times by all people (yes, that’s a bit redundant, but I don’t care), and that what’s important is that I try very, very, very hard every day to do the best job that I can with the best attitude and a smile on my face.

And then there’s the second thing I did to get myself out of my funk:  I watched an online clip about the exercise video that I saw a tease for on the Today Show this morning…Prancercise.  Thank goodness for that.  I instantly felt better.

Reflections on children, literature, libraries, and life…and cats.