fun friday, 5.17.13...

I was panicking.  It was 2:54, H was very much antsy and not interested in PBS kids anymore, C was about to get up from quiet time and I STILL did not have any clue what we were going to do for fun friday.  Now I have been in this situation before and I can always count on playing at a park, except that it was raining...hard!  Not even pull out the umbrellas and boots fun kind of rain, because I thought of that too.  I realize that we can't do super special things every Friday and it was ok to play iPad games or let them watch extra Wild Kratts, or even just go out for a treat like ice cream or Panera muffies.  But no.  Maybe it was because of the cold and the rain, but there was part of me that wanted today to be better than that, to show some effort on my part and I was running out of ideas that I had supplies for (no time to run to the store) or that didn't depend on the weather!

Then there it was.  An post from the library talking about Children's Book Week.  We hadn't been to the library for a while (especially with G!), so what better way to spend a rainy fun friday afternoon.  I hoped it would be fun too, as lately on our library trips, H is destructo-boy and I spend all of my time trying to wrangle him.  So I thought maybe to help the big kids have something besides pick out books to do I would print out a scavenger hunt for them (saw it on a blog last summer and liked the idea!).  BUT our printer does not work so I had to book it (ha! pun intended!) to write out questions long hand on a paper and clipboard.  Then I quick changed H, had bathroom breaks for C and myself, and grabbed some water bottles and TJ's bars for snack in the van and we were out the door just a couple minutes late.

The kids were a lot more excited about the scavenger hunt than I though they would be!  Maybe it was the officialness of the clipboard...

1.  What is the name of the Library?

   - Anoka County Library, Crooked Lake Branch

2.  What is your favorite Dr. Seuss book?  Is it checked out?

-G: The Butter Battle Book, nope!
-W: Scrambled Eggs Super, nope!
-C: How the Grinch Stole Christmas, nope!

(btw, they are total favorites of the moment as these are the last 3 we had checked out. =)

G was the official recorder of the answers, but she drug the boys away from super hero and Star Wars books to help her answer each question.  And have you been wondering where H is?  Thanks to a new program at the library called "Play is important!" there is a BUNCH of new play things in the children's section.  So that really kept him busy checking everything out.

  Here H made us a snack...

3.  What is the call number for the Veggie Tale DVDs?

- DVD
     E
  VEG

4.  Who is the author of the Clifford books?

-Norman Bridwell

(and C surprised the other 2 by knowing exactly where the Clifford books are; in a special "collections" section with Dr. Seuss books, Curious George books, etc.)

Here H played with this fun magnet toy...

5.  Find a kids book on CD whose author starts with C (we talked about how authors names are categorized by LAST name here).  What is the title?  

- Five Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed by Eileen Christelow  

(they picked it because they know it is one of cousin E's favorites...Hi E!!)

I didn't get a picture of number 5 because here H tried to take all the books off the shelf...

 On to the back!  Ha, they thought they were done too...

6.  How many Elephant and Piggie books (we love Mo Willems!) are on the shelf today?

- nine  

(but after we left only five =)

7.  Find a children's magazine and write down the title and how many pages are in it

- Ranger Rick, 39

(W: "Look momma!  It is a proboscis monkey!"  thank you wild kratts and my sweet boy's insane ability to know everything about every animal and bird)

After distracting him from the full book shelves, here H played with the magnet letters...

8.  Find a book with animals for characters and write the fifth word on the 21st page.

- "for"  
from Rhinos who Rescue by Julie Mammano

(and see what did I tell you about Star Wars and super hero books?)

(last one! and probably our favorite, or at least mine because I love our children's librarian!!)

9a.  What is the name of the children's librarian?

- Miss Jenn!

(she does storytime for the kids too so we have gotten to know her well over the past few years.  she is so sweet and we love talking with her...even H pulled himself away from the toys to help with this question!) 

9b.  What is her favorite kids book and is it in?

- Miss Rumphius by Barbara Cooney, and yes!

 and here H tried to check himself out....(yep!  time to go!!!)

Miss Jenn gave the kids stickers for completing their scavenger hunt (thank you!), and after hugs all around, we loaded up our big pile of checked out books (I love our library because they will still help you check out, you don't have to use the self checkouts if you don't want to =) into G's & W's backpacks because it was STILL raining, and headed out.

Happy Children's Book Week!  Thank you to Miss Jenn and all our librarians who encourage the love of reading in our kids, and make our library and our little part of the world a more beautiful place.  (Everyone should read Miss Rumphius, regardless of your age!)