Review: And Then Another Sheep Turned Up, by Laura Gehl

9781467711890

Mama set another place.
Papa found an extra seat.
Hannah squeezed to make more space,
Thrilled to have a guest to greet.

Uh-oh! As the sheep family Passover seder begins, more and more guests show up!

For those not familiar with Jewish customs, guests are always welcomed at the Passover seder, even when unexpected - but, goodness, this table is getting crowded! In between each arrival, the rituals and foods of seder are mentioned - but never really explained, so it might help to have a guide or glossary on hand. 

This would be a great introductory book to read to children who have been invited to share their first seder, as long as more explanation is given along the way. Of course it is also just a fun book for the child who is familiar with Passover - and all children can identify with the little ones falling asleep before the grown-ups finish celebrating!

The cadence and refrain would make this a good choice for an interactive read-aloud, and the different characters showing up would lend well to a flannel board. A solid choice for any library or classroom wanting to add titles in this subject area.

Family Coloring Day

Today one of the Adult Reference Librarians, Lisa, and I co-hosted our first annual Family Coloring Day, and we'll have to call it a success!

Our opening rush filled every seat for a couple hours, then people started trickling back out for lunch and other engagements. The rest of the afternoon was quiet but steady, with more than 70 people making their way through.

Of course, we had coloring pages, for both adults and kids:

from dailycoloringpages.com - these are really fun!

As well as zentangle supplies and inspirations, for anyone who preferred drawing: 

We had several small tables set up with a variety of coloring materials - colored pencils, gel pens, thin markers. These were our biggest expense, but they can all be used again.

We also had this table, with some dry erase markers:

One of my coworkers (thanks, Amanda!) printed out this gigantic mandala and taped it together for me. I traced it with black permanent marker on plastic sheeting, which you can buy by the yard at Walmart. We look forward to getting much more use out of this - a nice passive program for either kids or adults!

There were plenty of adults coloring, but they weren't as keen on having their pictures taken!

I also bought a plain white vinyl table topper, and put it out with some sharpies:

I have a plethora of tablecloths for Halloween, but I am always scrambling at Christmas. I thought the kids might get a kick out of seeing their artwork displayed come December, so I sketched out a few things to get them started, and put it near the mandala table.

This white board happened to be left out, and it was easier to make use of it than it was to put it away! Librarians can be lazy like that.

Near our sink, we also had an area for playing with watercolor paints.

Emphasis on water.

I had SO much fun surfing Pinterest and coming up with sample projects!

Something about the black Sharpie on top of the paint makes it look so polished!

Even examples of mistakes can be helpful.

This idea (and the text/photos on the top) came from Nurture Store, which has a huge variety of activity ideas:

I also found some great tips and techniques at Adventures in Making, a community blog that I think is going to take up a lot of my time in the near future!

As a little added incentive, we raffled off two door prizes - contributed by HarperCollins. 

And, of course, there were snacks!

Decorations courtesy of my children, who have to add their own flair to everything.

Can't imagine where that came from.