Suggested Family Activity • Painted 🎆🧨 Fireworks With the 4th of July weekend upon us, try out this fun art project with your family to make some painted fireworks: You’ll need scissors, paper, paint, a plate (a disposable paper plate works great!), and several inner carboard tubes from a roll of toilet paper. You can also use the inner cardboard roll from paper towels or even wrapping paper, but you will probably want to cut Read more
Suggested Family Activity • Animal 🏁 Racing 🐢🐇 If you are looking for some fun outdoor activities to do this weekend, check out these instructions for Animal Racing, courtesy of the website education.com: Find a big open space, preferably outdoors, with nothing around that can be knocked over. Warm up and stretch! Have your child warm their joints up and get the blood flowing to their muscles with jumping jacks and arm circles. Set up Read more
Suggested Family Activity • 🦏Zoo 🦍 Cams SUMMER READING EDITION If you can’t make it to a zoo this summer, check out some of the fun Zoo Cams located at many zoos around the U. S. The nearby Memphis Zoo has live camera feeds on their pandas, hippos, elephants, and flamingos that you can watch any time of the day. Check it out at www.memphiszoo.org. The large San Diego Zoo in California has cameras watching Read more
Suggested Family Activity • National 📷 Camera Day National Camera 📷 Day today gives us another opportunity to encourage everyone to take pictures of your Summer Reading Program activities during June and July. You could take a photo of your child (or an adult) reading to their pet or their stuffed animals or your family completing any of the fun activities in the NERL activity packets, watching one of our recorded Story Times, or doing Read more
Suggested Family Activities: National Paul Bunyan Day Today is National Paul Bunyan Day, a day to remember the tall tale of Paul Bunyan and his big blue ox Babe. The giant lumberjack with tremendous strength is one of the most famous figures in North American folklore. To read up on Paul Bunyan and Babe, check out the children’s books Paul Bunyan, A tall Tale by Steven Kellogg (also available in Spanish) or The Bunyans by Read more
Suggested Family Activities: Duck Duck Goose If you can find enough players this weekend, another classic game to try out is Duck, Duck, Goose. All players start off sitting in a circle on the floor. One person is picked to start off the game as the Tapper. The Tapper walks around the outside of the circle and lightly taps each seated player on the head, saying “Duck” with each tap until he or she randomly Read more
Suggested Family Activities: Story Times Join us here LIVE at 2PM today for Virtual Story Time! Our Library Director, Dee Hare, will be reading Duck on a Tractor by David Shannon Have you checked out any of our Summer Reading Program Story Times yet? Various NERL staff are reading (either live or through recordings) lots of animals books this summer – one per day! “Farm Tale” recordings already available include Leigh Hood reading Hensel & Gretel: Read more
Suggested Family Activities: Animal Crafts If your kids love to use play dough or clay to make things, have them mold and create their own animals today. They can stick to familiar ones from around your home, such as favorite pets or the animals you see in your yard. In the spirit of our “Farm Tales” this week, they could also make a variety of farm animals, such as a chicken with a nest of Read more
Suggested Family Activity: Pig Snorting Contest Since we are learning about farm animals this week, have a Pig Snorting Contest today! Gather all your family and friends and have each person take a turn making their best pig snort. Then, decide who has the best snort! Different categories could be Silliest Snort, Loudest Snort, Funniest Snort, or even Least Like a Pig Snort. You could have the same contest with other animal sounds, such as Read more
Suggested Family Activity: Summer Reading National Daylight Appreciation Day Today is National Daylight Appreciation Day – a day that inspires people to take advantage of the positive benefits of sunshine. It is always held on the Summer Solstice – the longest day of daylight we will see here in the northern hemisphere. There are many ways you can enjoy the sun – from going outside for a short walk to finding ways to let sunlight Read more
