• Activities

    Storytime Theme: Concept Books

    storytime

    Black History Month is here! And beyond sharing the deep and rich history of African American families, I also wanted to make sure I was able to share diverse picture books about everyday life. So for today’s storytime theme, we’re looking at concept books. Concept books are basic books for…

  • Activities

    Storytime Theme: Jazz

    piano

    Black History Month is here! And I wanted to share a way you can celebrate this special month with some of your youngest patrons, students, or family members. Today I wanted to focus solely on one specific music style – jazz! I love taking the time to introduce young children…

  • Activities

    Storytime Theme: Black History Month

    March

    Black History Month is here! And I wanted to share a way you can celebrate this special month with some of your youngest patrons, students, or family members. Trying to make a rather complicated celebration as simple as I could, I wanted to highlight more than one individual. This storytime…

  • Activities

    Storytime Theme: Lunar New Year

    dragon

    Happy New Year! Today I’m celebrating Lunar New Year by offering a beautiful storytime to ring in the new year. What many used to call Chinese New Year, Lunar New Year is actually celebrated by many Asian countries including China, Korea, Vietnam and more. This year we celebrate the Year…

  • Activities

    Storytime Theme: Hibernation

    bear

    With classic favorites like Bear Snores On by Karma Wilson and nonfiction titles like Why Do Bears Sleep All Winter? by Mary Englar, this storytime theme: hibernation is an easy one to create! You can incorporate as much weather-related science as you want to create a STEM storytime, or shift…

  • Activities

    Storytime Theme: Snow

    snowflakes

    It’s kind of ironic that I’m posting my Storytime Theme: Snow today. In my neck of the woods, our high today is 66°F which means I’ll be outside walking the pup with a sweatshirt on instead of my winter coat, hat, mittens, and boots. I have a love-hate relationship with…

  • Reviews

    Odd Dog Out

    dachshund

    Synopsis: “It’s a dog’s life in the big, busy city, but there’s one lonely pup who doesn’t quite fit in. She behaves differently from the rest, sports rainbow in a sea of gray, and marches to the beat of her own drum. She’s one Odd Dog. Join Odd Dog as…

  • Lifestyle

    Professional Development with the Cardigan Newsletter

    cardigan

    I know as a former children’s librarian how difficult it can be to find quality professional development content to keep learning and growing in the job. It’s almost a second job scouring the Internet, reading articles only to find out that it really doesn’t apply to your work. I really,…

  • Activities

    Sun Storytime

    sun

    Here’s the last storytime for my outer space theme – the sun! It’s been fun combining fiction and nonfiction books for the past few weeks to create a great list of outer space titles that are perfect for reading aloud to young kids or as options for older children to…

  • Activities

    Aliens from Outer Space Storytime

    space

    Today’s storytime theme focuses on the fantastical aspects of outer space – Aliens! It’s perfect for this year’s Summer Reading theme – A Universe of Stories or could be used as part of a theme around other fun creatures like unicorns and monsters, maybe for a Halloween theme! If you…