Literacy Volunteers - Middle Earth "Chinese New Year" Storytime/Craft

 

Plans here: S.T.E.A.M. Storytime - Chinese New Year - Year of the Horse

"Middle Earth" kids & families celebrated with Chinese food:

Stories:

Opened with "This Next New Year" followed by a video version of "Sam & the Lucky Money"

Read "The Race for the Chinese Zodiac" then found everyone's Chinese Horoscopes

And shared "The Dancing Dragon" fold out book which got longer & longer

then flipped over to depict the whole parade...

Crafts -- paper lanterns & walk-through paper magic trick (details here)

coloring dragons and lucky Chinese symbols

Everyone had fun Making Noise-makers....

 & Creating a Giant Dragon!

And taking it on a parade around the cafeteria!!

Video of the Dragon Parade

2/25/26 Bound Brook

S.T.E.A.M. Storytime - Chinese New Year - Year of the Horse

 

Storytime / Craft

Opened by discussing different kinds of New Year
(Jan 1st, Chinese, Rosh Hashonah, Sept school beginning)

Read: This Next New Year by Janet S Wong

Show video Sam & the Lucky Money by Karen Chinn 

(musicalized reading https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nzsvSrtns9g)

(Another good film option: Reading Rainbow: Liang & the Magic Paintbrush)

Read: The Race for the Chinese Zodiac by Gabrielle Wang

(The Great Race; The Story of the Chinese Zodiac by Dawn Casey is another good choice)

then figured out their birth year animals - horoscopes here:

https://carolsimonlevin.blogspot.com/2015/01/chinese-new-year-celebration.html

Finished with fold-out book: The Dancing Dragon by Marcia Vaughan

Craft Stations:

· Group Dragon – Kids decorate bulletin board paper or tablecloth to make a dragon. (materials: scissors, gluesticks, tape, staplers, markers, curling ribbon, crepe paper)

·Cut paper lanterns http://thecraftingchicks.com/2011/06/paper-lantern-kids-craft4th-of-july-style.html (materials: red construction paper, scissors, gluesticks, hole punch or tape, ribbon, optional: sequins)

· Chinese Leisees – red good luck envelopes (materials: red construction paper,  good luck symbol for outside, markers, anything else to use for decorating) - based on Sam and the Lucky Money by Karen Chinn

· Noise-makers (folded paper plates – kids decorate then fold (or use two plates together), fill with beans and staple or tape shut, optional: crepe paper streamers) and/or Dragon’s Breath (toilet paper tubes, kids glue colored paper around the tube, add google eyes and scales, then attach tissue paper streamers to the end of the tube – when you blow into the tube it looks like the dragon is breathing fire.)

· Write Your Own Fortune Cookie (materials: circles cut from manila colored oak tag or heavy paper, folded in half and then in half again, strips of white paper upon which kids write fortunes to tuck inside).

Finish with dragon parade around library (carrying group dragon and using noisemakers) used Lion Dance music https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jORRVTC4M9Q

CDPL 2/11/26

Mock Caldecott - Bedminster School K-2 classes

 

Mock Caldecott 2026

Due to sickness & snow, this was rescheduled twice but we finally got to run our annual Mock Caldecott. We had to combine into two groups, used the technique described here:  https://carolsimonlevin.blogspot.com/2015/01/mock-caldecott-committee-be-judge.html

Group One:
Gold: Cranky, Crabby Crow
Silvers: Moon Song, Nunu and the Sea, Papilio

Group Two:
Gold: Broken, Fireworks, Cranky, Crabby Crow, In the World of Whales

Bedminster School 1/27/26

School Age S.T.E.A.M. Storytime & Craft: What Can You Do with A Dot?

 

Similar program to  Memory Cafe (YMCA) Pointillism

School Age S.T.E.A.M. Storytime & Craft: Very Special Trees

 

A seasonal storytime incorporating history & empathy, fantasy, gratefulness & giving back

Ask who’s seen the Rockefeller Tree?

Book: The Carpenter’s Gift: A Christmas Tale about the Rockefeller Center Tree by David Rubel (Construction workers at the Rockefeller Center site help a a boy and his family in need—then many years the boy, now grown to an old man, donates his enormous tree after learning that it will not only give pleasure but will also be used to help another family.  Afterward talks about the tradition and logistics involved with the Rockefeller Center Trees and notes that since 2007 the wood from the tree has been milled and used for Habitat for Humanity houses.) 

Book- talked: Night Tree by Eve Bunting (Every year a family decorates a tree in the woods with edible ornaments for the animals),

Book:  The Night Gardener by Terry and Eric Fan. (A boy in an orphanage and a rundown town are transformed by the magical topiary creations of the night gardener. Fascinating parallel story to compare with The Carpenter’s Gift – both have boys lives transformed by a generous stranger and the metaphor of the tool passing from generation to generation.) 

Singable Book: The Marvelous Toy by Tom Paxton (hand-me-down toy has special meaning; performed here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BCjslf_a11c)

 

Book: Thankful by Elaine Vickers (A child creates a paper chain listing all the things she is thankful for - a great way to cultivate gratitude - and maybe make a nightly tradition to cultivate resiliance.)

Craft: Make our own "thankful paper chains," also trees and other paper ornaments (supplies: construction paper, scissors, markers, glue sticks, stamps & stamp pads, various things to decorate with)

Afterwards, finished with an indoor snowball fight 

Activity: Snowball fight using plastic bag snowballs, to the music “Sleigh Ride” by Leroy Anderson (on album Season’s Greetings)
Making snowballs for the program:
1) Gather a white plastic grocery bag into a long, skinny tube-like length with the handles on one end.
2) Fold the length in half, then in half again.
3) Wind a rubber band around the middle until it is tight.
4) Cut open both ends to remove any folded areas.
5) Then fluff out pieces

Idea courtesy of:  Susan Dailey, librarian, speaker and author of "A Storytime Year"-  

https://carolsimonlevin.blogspot.com/2014/01/let-it-snow-winter-storytimecraft-ages.html

More ideas at: https://carolsimonlevin.blogspot.com/2013/12/school-age-storytime-very-special-trees.html and https://carolsimonlevin.blogspot.com/2013/12/school-age-storytime-gifts-and-giving.html

Clarence Dillon Library 12/10/2025

Memory Cafe (YMCA) Pointillism

 

 I was invited as a storyteller for the Basking Ridge YMCA "Memory Cafe"  - a place of respite for adults with dementia & their caregivers. 

Talked about how sometimes we are afraid to create art, until somebody shows they have confidence in us.

Read The Dot by Peter Reynolds

Then talked about the Neo-Impressionist art movement "Pointellism" 
Asked who had taken kids/grandkids to an art museum

Said about to read about an art museum visit that turns into a fantasy as the people climb in and out of the paintings! 

Read Katie's Sunday Afternoon by James Mayhew while projecting slides of the works mentioned so everyone could see them in more detail

Afterwards, participants created their own pointillist artworks - supplies: Qtips, washable tempera paint, plastic palettes, cardstock paper (with pre-printed outlines & samples for this group)

More Ideas here

Memory Cafe 11/26/25