Kids

Looking for a new way to explore the sciences this summer? Stop by the children's area to check out ELPL's new collection of science kits!

Geared toward children ages four to twelve, ELPL's science kits cover a broad range of topics including architecture, DNA, electricity, animation, and more. Each kit is equipped with the supplies and instructions needed to complete a variety of activities. Create your very own weather station at home, build a radio from scratch, defy gravity with magnetic levitation, catch and analyze insects in your back yard, or explore the constellations. For a full list of kits, click here to view our catalog.

Due to popular demand, science kits are limited to one kit per person for a checkout period of 14 days.

Have an idea for future science kits? If there is a topic or theme that you would like an opportunity to learn more about, let us know by filling out our Suggest a Purchase Form.

Did you know that Summer Tutoring begins this Tuesday, June 17?  This program runs from 10:30-12 and will meet in the Children’s Programming Room.   High school students will be available to read, play games, or help with worksheets all in an effort to keep kids reading and thinking during these long weeks of summer.

Something is waiting for many children each summer and their parents don’t even know it’s out there.   It's called the "summer slide," and it describes what happens when young minds sit idle for three months.

As parents approach the summer break, many are thinking about the family vacation, trips to the pool, how to keep children engaged in activities at home, the abrupt changes to everyone's schedule—and how to juggle it all.   What they might not be focusing on is how much educational ground their children could lose during the three-month break from school, particularly when it comes to reading.

Experts agree that children who read during the summer gain reading skills, while those who do not often slide backward.   According to the authors of a report from the National Summer Learning Association: "A conservative estimate of lost instructional time is approximately two months or roughly 22 percent of the school year.... It's common for teachers to spend at least a month re-teaching material that students have forgotten over the summer. That month of re-teaching eliminates a month that could have been spent on teaching new information and skills."

Summer slide affects millions of children each year in this country—but it doesn't have to.  Bring your child to ELPL Tuesday mornings and keep their minds engaged!!

Summer tutoring will be offered June 17, July 1, 8, 15, 22 and 29.  10:30-12.

Tonight, Friday June 13 is a full moon, perfect opportunity for some moon-gazing to fulfill the Go Out or Try Out challenges!  The official challenge form will go live first thing Monday morning.

Complete one of this week's challenges and win the Week 2 prize for your reading program, as well as the Week 2 Astronomy badge on your Summer Reading Personal Progress Page.

Complete two or more of this week's challenges and you will also win the Week 2 bonus prize for your reading program, as well as the Week 2 Astronomy Bonus badge on your Summer Reading  Personal Progress Page.

Week 2 Challenges 

• Check Out -  Read an item from ELPL's list of hand-picked Astronomy/Space titles.  Or find one of your own.
• Find Out - Research the answer to this week's trivia challenge: How far away is our sun's closest neighbor star?  What is the name of that star?
• Try Out - We've pinned lost of Space/Astronomy themed activities on ELPL's Pinterest Week 2 board.  Try one out or design your own activity to explore the universe.
• Go Out - Visit your backyard and look up at the stars.  Or take a trip to the Abrams Planetarium at MSU.  Have the time to travel a bit farther?  Visit the Fox Park Public Observatory in Potterville, or the Cranbrook Institute of Science in Bloomfield Hills.

Mighty Dads by Joan Holub
Roaring Rockets by Tony Mitton
Revolution by Deborah Wiles
Soccer on Sunday by Mary Pope Osborne
Dork Diaries #7: Tales From a Not-So-Glam TV Star by Rachel Renee Russell

Here are the Week 1 Challenges:

• Check Out - Read an item from ELPL's list of hand-picked Animal/Zoology titles.  Or find one of your own.
• Find Out - Research the answer to this week's trivia challenge:  What is the latin name of Michigan's State Fish, the Brook Trout?
• Try Out - We've pinned lots of Animal/Zoology themed activites on ELPL's Pinterest page.  Try one out or design your own activity to explore the amazing field of Zoology.
• Go Out - Visit your backyard, your local park, Potter Park Zoo, Fenner Nature Center, or anywhere else you can find animals and count how many different types of animals you can see.

Still need to register for Fizz, Boom, Read!  Register online.

Have completed challenges that you are ready to record?  Login to your elpl.org account to update your Week 1 personal progress page.

Need help registering or logging in?  Send an email to elpltech@cityofeastlansing.com, we'd be happy to help.

Fizz, Boom, Read! Home Page

The entries for our 2014 Children's Bookmark Contest were impressive! Throughout April, children ages 4-12 could submit an entry in their age group. Two bookmarks from each age group were chosen to be reprinted in color and distributed at the library. Thank you to everyone who entered this year's contest. All the other entries can be found here!

    Cara G                         Nicholas Penn                        Katie F                        Morgan Bower

        Madaline Britton                 Natalie Seitz                        Enid S                          Grace Townley

More new titles available in the Cloud, including...

• Cockroaches by Jo Nesbo
• The Space Between by Diana Gabaldon, a novella featuring characters from the Outlander series, and with an excerpt from Written in My Own Heart's Blood, Gabaldon's next entry in the Outlander saga, which drops on June 10th .
• Fallout by Sadie Jones
• Some great new non-fiction on parenting, cooking and autism.

Here's the complete list of everything new.

The MI Big Green Gym partnership with Blue Cross Blue Shield, the Michigan Recreation and Park Association, and the DNR is putting free state park passes in libraries throughou

This is a Moose by Richard T. Morris
Daisy and Josephine by Melissa Gilbert
Duck and Goose Go to the Beach by Tad Hills
The Boundless by Kenneth Oppel
The 39 Clues Unstoppable Book 3: Countdown by Natalie Standiford

Watching a news story a few days ago featuring filmmaker Steven Spielberg and the 20th anniversary of both the making of the movie Schindler's List and the USC Shoah Foundation reminded me of a wonderful book I had read recently. The Boy on the Wooden Box: How the Impossible Became Possible...On Schindler's List is a memoir written by Leon Leyson, the youngest boy on Oskar Schindler's "list." Mr. Leyson died in January 2013, only seven months before the book was published. This touching memoir is aimed at ages 9-14, but teens and adults would enjoy it as well. To read a wonderful book review on the USC Shoah Foundation site, click here.

Library staff will be performing some routine maintenance on the library's servers between 5-6pm this evening. During that time access to the library catalog, MeLCat requesting, Hoopla, 3M Cloud, Overdrive and Zinio will be unavailable. We hope to be back up and running at 6pm - we'll post again when maintenance is complete.

Eoin Colfer did a marvelous job writing this book. It's all about a genius 12 year old who finds a secret race called the People. These People include fairies, trolls, goblins, and dwarves who all live underground without humans knowing about it. Artemis discovers them and decides to exploit them for their gold. His plan and all around intelligence makes for a great story. The audiobook was very easy to listen to and the guy who read it did an amazing job with all the characters. I'm looking forward to continuing the Artemis Fowl series.