Another Puppet Show

Yesterday afternoon, kids @ the WRL were treated to a puppet performance of everyone's favorite story about a cookie!  Yup, it was "The Gingerbread Man."

Afterwards, we got in the holiday spirit by decorating our own gingerbread men.

If you dare to make your own fiesty little gingerbread creatures, you might want to try this recipe.

Gingerbread Men

3 ½ cups all purpose flour

1 ½ teaspoons ground ginger

1 ½ teaspoons ground cinnamon

¼ teaspoon salt

½ cup vegetable shortening

½ cup granulated sugar

1 large egg

1 cup molasses, warmed

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 ½ teaspoons warm water

1. Combine the flour, spices, and salt.
2. In a large bowl, cream the vegetable shortening and sugar.  Beat in the egg.  Beat in the molasses.
3. Dissolve the baking soda in the warm water and add to the molasses mixture, beating until smooth.
4. Gradually blend in the dry ingredients.
5. Cover and chill for 24 hours.
6. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
7. Lightly grease two baking sheets.
8. On a floured surface, roll out the dough to a thickness of ¼ inch.
9. Using cookie cutters, cut out gingerbread men and place 1 ½ inches apart on the prepared baking sheets.
10. Bake for 10-12 minutes, until dry looking and firm to touch.
11. Transfer to wire racks to cool.

H is for...

house!

Today, we made gingerbread houses after preschool storytime;  unfortunately, they were only made of paper...but at least no one's sweet tooth could get the better of 'em!

By the way, if you like books about houses, you should give Eric Carle's A House for Hermit Crab a try!

Getting in the Holiday Spirit

It seems that the residents of the tiny village on our model train display are getting in the holiday spirit.  We discovered these festive looking lights when we came to the library Monday morning.

Live Animals in the Library?

Yes!  (For a couple of hours anyway!)  Tomorrow, at 11 AM, folks from the Jax Zoo will be visiting the WRL Children's Deparment with some animal friends.

B is for Bears!!!

During today's preschool storytime, we read some awesome books about bears:

,

,

and

.

Our art project? Panda bears...circle panda bears, that is.... We love circles almost as much as we love bears and the letter B.

T is for...

Yup, you guessed it: turkey!

We shared a couple of our favorite turkey stories during preschool storytime this past Wednesday morning.  The funniest one was Turkey Trouble by Wendi Silvano and illustrated by Lee Harper.  You would not believe how the turkey in this book tries to escape being eaten!

We decided to keep things simple, so our art project for the week was a turkey card/place holder.

V is for Vegetables!

After reading three of our favorite books about veggies--- ,

,

and

---we made our own alpha-veggie soup. It was just the right thing for a cool Wendnesday morning!

Star Pictures by Star Students

This morning, a group of fifth and sixth graders from Cedar Hills Baptist Christian School visited.  After touring the library and learning how to search the online catalog, we decided to celebrate Thanksgiving and Native American cultures by reading S.D. Nelson's The Star People and making our own star people and creatures to guide and care for us.