As they arrived they were given a bright yellow hard-hat with their name on it.  Many of the children thought it was to hot to wear a hat, but a few proudly sported theirs’ during our activities.

The children selected a sun-catcher construction vehicle or sign to paint.  Who said construction vehicles need to be orange or yellow?  We had the most colorful dump trucks, loaders, packers, cement trucks and signs you would ever hope to see at a construction site!

Next we learned all about the fictional “little people” that authors like L. Frank Baum, C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien and J.K. Rowling wrote about in so many books throughout the years.  Little people consist of Brownies, Elves, Fairies, Leprechauns, Trolls and Gnomes; to name a few.  Did you know that Gnomes live underground?  Did you know they are 7 times stronger than humans? Or that Gnomes always have twin children?  Bet you can’t tell me how they greet each other as they meet or depart?  These and many more questions were answered before we began making our Hersey Kiss Gnomes.  If anyone is interested in Gnomes, we have a very entertaining and brightly illustrated book written by Wil Hygen entitled “Gnomes.”

Game time came next!  Each child drew a slip of paper with an item on it.  They took turns digging for it in a large laundry bag full of Styrofoam peanuts (thanks to Marsha Harrison for the loan of the peanuts).  The digger had until the rest of us sang a catch song about digging for treasures to find the item.   A few were lucky enough to find theirs, but most came up empty handed.

After dividing into two teams the children tried their hand at the game “Ring-a-ding the Gnome,” where they had to throw a ring around the Gnome pegs.  I think some of these kids have been playing horse-shoes!

Our final game was “Up-Set the Chef Salad.”  That seemed to make us hungry, so we made ‘Dirt’ desert topped with worms and had “Slug Bug Juice” to drink for refreshments.

Click on the 2013 Dig Into Reading page to your right to see the pictures of this activity

We will have the sculptures on dispaly for a week or two, so stop by and see them.  The children each received a prize for competing in our first “Dig Into Reading” activity.  Thanks to each of you for taking part and for creating such neat sculptures!

First & Second Graders need to let us know by Saturday if you are planning to attend the activity on June 12th for your age group.  We want to be sure to have enough supplies and snacks for everyone!

We read the book “Summer” by Alice Low and discovered that may of the thing the children did in the book were things we all love to do in the summer, too!  Summer is a special time to catch a fish, a butterfly, or a firefly; eat things that are cold like watermelon and ice-cream; or ride bikes, swing and play in the water.

After the story, we celebrated summer by have our very own parade up and down the sidewalk while we played our rhythm band.   We hope everyone has a fun and safe summer and we look forward to meeting again the second Thursday in September.

‘Dig Into Reading’ is the theme for the Ness City Public Library’s Summer Reading Program.  The program is free, but the children must be enrolled to take part in any of the activities.

Summer is a time for fun and activities!  But it’s also important that young minds continue to read throughout the summer months.  The brain is like our muscles, if we don’t use them, we loose them!  So in order to maintain or build your reading levels you must keep reading!  The library plans their summer reading around books, but we also have a lot of fun activities to go along with keeping your brain in shape.

Enrollment will be held from May 14 to 28 and our program begins on June 4^th.   Parent may enroll their pre-school through sixth grade children at the library or by using our on-line enrollment form (click on  2013 Summer Reading Page on the right under PAGES).  If you sign you child up on-line you will still need to come in and pick up the book bags and packet information.

Most of our activities are planned for first through sixth grade ages; however, we do offer a few programs that the pre-school and kindergarten kids can attend.  The ages are based on this year’s completed grade level.  For example, if your child finished Kindergarten, he/she will be in the Kindergarten age group for summer reading.

The librarians have dug up some pretty exciting programs for the children to attend – the Conservation District Soil Tunnel Trailer will be here on June 18^th, the Mad Scientist-Journey to the Center of the Earth performance is on June 28^th, and the Smokey Hills PBS – Dinosaur Train program will be here on July 2^nd.  Additional activities will be held for grades 1^st through 6^th.  We are also changing our format somewhat and the readers will be able to earn their very own YARD SIGN for completing the summer reading program.  How cool will it be to see all those signs around town and know that our kids really dug into reading this summer!

Please call the library at 785-798-3415 if you have questions about our summer reading program.  We look forward to six weeks of exercising our brains and have a great time as we DIG INTO READING here at the library!

Mother Nature is playing tricks on us again this week!  However, the weather played right along with our story time selections for this week.

Miss Jean read “Rainy Day!” by Patricia Lakin and “In the Middle of the Puddle” by Mike Thaler.  In the first book, four friends, Sam, Pam, Will and Jill were bored and decided that the rain was not going to keep them inside.  They had quite an adventure until it began hailing!   Due to the storm Ness had several weeks ago, our story time kids could relate to the baseball sized hail stones!  Can you guess where Sam, Pam, Will and Jill ended up?  I’ll let you ask one of the children or come in and check out the book for your self.

The second story was about a frog and toad that lived in a puddle.  When the spring rains came, their home grew and grew and grew and grew.  Then the rains stopped, the sun came out, and the sea they now lived in began to shrink.  Soon frog and toad were back home in the puddle they both loved.

The children each got to paint a ceramic rain-boot with bright spring colors.  The boot will make a nice home for a pretty spring flower.

The kids enjoyed apple juice and brownies before leaving for home.  Six weeks went very fast and we had so much fun with these young people.  Thanks to the parents for seeing that kids got to the library every week for the past six weeks!  We are sorry that we got so busy Tuesday evening that we forgot to take pictures of those boys and girls.

June will soon be here and we will be starting our ‘Dig Into Reading’ Summer Reading Program.  Hope to see kids of all ages attend this six-week program!

I’ll bet you haven’t thought about all the creatures that live everywhere we walk – on the sidewalks, the parks, on the farm, in the woods and forests or at the beach.  We had fun finding and naming the creature we discovered at the feet of the boys and girls in this book.

Following the story the kids painted wooden moveable lizards.  To give the lizards a chance to dry we will send them home with the kids next week.  Thanks to Hunter and his Grandma for the delicious cookies!

Next time you take a walk, look down and see how many creatures you might find!