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Got Crayons? Celebrate National Crayon Day on March 31

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I really hope you have a few crayons lying around because this Tuesday, March 31, is National Crayon Day! I’ll give a few resources that can make this day a learning time as well as an artsy time.

While this unofficial holiday is a perfect day for coloring, it can also be sort of a sad day for some people. That’s because Crayola often retires old crayon colors on this day. Where did crayons come from? 

Currently, no one really knows when crayons were invented. Early crayons were used by adults – artists. They weren’t very strong, so kids would have broken them all the time! By the beginning of the 20th century, several companies were making wax crayons. The most famous company, Crayola, was started in 1902 – almost 110 years ago! These two guys with great mustaches, Edwin Binney and C. Harold Smith founded the company. Mr Binney’s wife, Alice, came up with the name Crayola by combining the French word for Chalk (craie) with the “ole” from oleaginous (the paraffin wax used to make the crayons). They started out with 30 different colors. Learn about Crayola’s history here.

Here are a few crayon facts. Crayola makes 13 million crayons a day and blue is the most popular color. The most popular episode of Mr. Rogers Neighborhood was when he visited a crayon factory! You might also want to watch the episode of the TV show, Daniel Tiger, which has the same theme! How are crayons made? Watch this video!

Now, what should we do on National Crayon Day? Color, of course! Why not color on unusual things like the inside of a paper bag, sandpaper, or warm hard boiled eggs. You can also tape several crayons into a bundle to see what kinds of effects you get! Tape whatever size paper you have on the wall and create a family mural. Older kids might want to get a bit more crafty. For example, you could challenge them to create wearable art using crayons, paper, tape and yarn or string! How about making a paper toy and coloring it? Or, build a fabulous crayon storage system out of what you have around the house!

You can melt broken-up crayons by putting them in silicon shaped mats, then putting them in the oven at 250 degrees for 15 minutes. Don’t forget to put the silicon tray on a baking sheet. Let the melted crayons cool completely before popping them out of the molds. If you need other ideas, check out the Crayola YouTube channel – scroll past the ads to their DIY sections. If you just need coloring pages, go to Pinterest and consider searching for Dover Publications – they have quite a selection!

Read a book that has crayons in it. You can find some of these books on YouTube, ready by the author! 

  • Harold and the Purple Crayon by Crockett Johnson
  • The  Day the Crayons Quit by Drew Dewalt
  • The Day the Crayons Came Home by Drew Dewalt
  • How is a Crayon Made? by Oz Charles
  • The Crayon Box that Talked by Shane DeRolf
  • My Crayons Talk by Bill Martin

Here are some things you can do with crayons that are more action oriented. Take your crayons and paper to the park and draw what you see. Collect some leaves and do leaf rubbings. What else can you do rubbings of at the park?

Have a crayon scavenger hunt – hide crayons around the park or your home! See who can make a paper airplanes that can carry a small piece of crayon the farthest? How high can you stack crayons like building blocks? These are just a few ideas to make your National Crayon Day amazing!

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Attention, Spokane Business Community!

Hello, Spokane business community. I need your help.

The economic impact of our current health crisis has yet to be determined, but by all accounts, it’s going to be rough. That leads me to a question: what are the tools/resources that were valuable to your business a month ago that don’t necessarily pencil going into the future? A subscription to a particular platform? Paid access to a specific block of data? Resources that were great to have in good times but not essential?

Here’s why I ask: The Spokane Public Library has gotten good at crowd sourcing funds to make top-shelf resources available to our entire community. Take PitchBook as an example. Thanks to Greater Spokane Incorporated, Health Sciences & Services Authority (HSSA), Ignite, SPOKANE ANGEL ALLIANCE, CoMotion at University of Washington (and more to come), the library is able to get access to a tool that would likely fall beyond the reach of any one local entity. As it stands right now, we are the only public library in the nation that has access to PitchBook’s data.

So… shout out the resources you’d like to have going forward. It’s my job to try to go out and round them up for you. The more we can pool and share our resources, the stronger Spokane will be coming out of this. Please share widely.

Onward!

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How to Make Marble Paper

Try some new crafts to spruce up your windows while we spend extended time inside!

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Step 1: Assemble supplies such as a flat pan, food coloring, shaving cream, paper, a stirring tool, and a ruler.

Step 2: Fill the pan with shaving cream and smooth it out.

Step 3: Add drops of food coloring on top of the shaving cream.

Step 4: Gently stir the shaving cream.

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Step 5: Rest a piece of paper on top and press gently.

Step 6: Pull the paper of the shaving cream and let sit for 2 minutes.

Step 7: Use your ruler to scrape the shaving cream off the paper.

Step 8: Let the paper dry and cut into different patterns.

 

Karen

 

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Chai Tea and Poetry

 

My favorite drink is chai tea – whether a simple tea bag with a dash of milk or the sweet dessert called a chai tea latte. I’m drinking at least one delicious cup a day while cooped up at home. I’m about to run out of my favorite liquid concentrate but I am eyeing the chai tea bags in my cabinet and telling them their day to shine is near.

Today I took that delicious mug of chai tea, smelling like heaven, lit a candle, and grabbed a book to read. I have a huge pile of books waiting patiently for the day I will pay attention to them. A book of poetry grabbed my attention and I briefly hesitated before opening it. I may have an English literature degree, and dissected plenty of poems during those studies, but I don’t often find myself drawn to poetry. It’s a rare occasion when I stumble across a poem and get caught up in the beauty of it.

This book of poetry was given to me by a local poet, Stephen Pitters, who frequents my library branch. He coordinates bi-monthly poetry programs at either the Shadle or South Hill branches and always amazes me with his ability to weave poetry, prose, music, sculptures, and other forms of art together to create a multi-faceted artistic experience.

So, I open his book Poems Contesting, sip my tea, and find myself caught up in the beauty of the poetry. The prologue is a poem called “The Light That Shone Brightly”, a tribute to Myrtle Woldson:

 

She was a quiet sophisticate,

a combination of worldliness

and sound community concern,

a rare jewel, a true treasure who built

social awareness.

 

I admittedly do not know much about Myrtle Woldson, so I went online and was impressed by her dedication to the Spokane community. I can see why Stephen Pitters says:

 

My wish was to have met her,

An impossible quest at best,

A meaningful dream, nevertheless.

 

Stephen Pitters is dedicated to drawing our community together around different expressions of art, so it makes sense he would admire another pillar of our community. And what an excellent poem to lead us through this book that delves into how humanity has so much in common.

This initially unwelcome extended time at home has presented me with new opportunities to learn and grow, to slow down and take the time to enjoy new things. I encourage everyone who normally doesn’t seek out poetry to give a poem a try, especially a local poet who writes about the community and the people that we may also know. To see the world around us in a new way.

Learn more about Myrtle Woldson here.

Learn more about Stephen Pitters here and see what books he has available for check out at the library here.

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Simplifying Your Life | Organizing Your Bathroom

If you want to simplify your life, where do you start? Follow Clara’s lead on how to clean and organize your home one room at a time!

Lesson 1 | The Bathroom

Start simplifying your life with the bathroom! Walk with Clara and learn her tips and tricks for cleaning and organizing your bathroom.

Access her tips here.

 

Use Spokane Public Library’s Overdrive or Libby app to download these books on organizing:

You will need your library card number and your 4-digit PIN number.

1.Lose the Clutter, Lose the Weight by Peter Walsh

2.Soulful Simplicity by Courtney Carver

3.The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up by Marie Kondo

4.The House that Cleans Itself by Mindy Starns Clark

5.The 8 Minute Organizer by Regina Leeds

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Learning Opportunities During a Pandemic | Parent Perspective

I have a four-year-old who normally goes to daycare while my husband and I work full-time. We are now in social isolation together learning a new rhythm to life. This presents us with the privilege and responsibility of facilitating more of her preschool learning. We already had a subscription to ABCMouse that we did not use often since we try to limit her screen time at home. Now we are adjusting that set time to accommodate for more learning online. I quickly discovered that the learning level for ABCMouse was too young for her. She was thrilled to move up to the pre-K level. This program has a fantastic combination of learning experiences through different games, puzzles, books, and more. Kids can earn tickets through every activity and then go “shopping” to buy fun things for their avatar. It is a lot of fun but does come with a cost depending on how long you are buying a subscription for. I bought a year subscription to knock down the price each month. The library does not offer this service remotely but, when we open our doors again, feel free to try it out for free in the library on one of our computers!

In addition to this, my husband checked out a resource that is currently free during the pandemic…Scholastic’s Learn at Home. This has been a fantastic learning opportunity for my daughter. She enjoys picking a subject and watching a video, listening to a book being read to her, matching words to their meanings, and answering questions about the lesson. There are a variety of subjects and she is learning at a level I was not aware she is ready for! This lack of awareness on my part may sound strange since my husband is a teacher and I am a librarian, but a great deal of her learning takes place at her daycare with amazing teachers. We take time at home to teach too but this is the first time we have both been with her 24/7 since she was an infant. We are amazed at how much she knows and how eager she is to learn more!

Another great resource we are starting to explore together is Tumblebooks, a free digital resource through the library. It has a large collection of story books, read alongs, language learning, puzzles, games, and more. Additionally, through the end of August, Tumblebooks is offering free access to TumbleMath. Both of these digital resources allow us to engage with our children and provide the tools we need to teach our children when we are used to them being in a classroom environment.

Please check out all the free resources available currently – whether that’s through the library or through another free or inexpensive platform. This is a challenging time for sure but it presents us with the amazing opportunity to spend more quality time with our children.

Becky | Librarian

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Other resources you can access from home

In times like these, it is encouraging to see organizations coming together to support their communities! While the library offers a ton of awesome resources for free, check out these free resources from organizations all over the world.

Reading and Writing Resources

Storyline Online | Listen to some of your favorite celebrities read a wide variety of children’s books.

Drawing Lessons Online | Author and illustrator Jarrett J. Krosoczka is live streaming drawing lessons from YouTube every day.

Just for Kids: A Cosmic Exploring of the New Coronavirus | This kids comic is based on NPR interviews with healthcare professionals.

Author Read-Alouds and Drawing Lessons | Author Kate Messner and friends are sharing videos where they read their books aloud.

Authors Everywhere | Authors are sharing anything from read-alouds to writing workshops on this YouTube channel.

Dav Pilkey Drawing Lessons | The brain power behind Captain Underpants brings drawing lessons to you in partnership with the Library of Congress.

TeachingBooks | Find resources for children’s books and YA books. Listen to read-a-longs, author talks, homework help for certain books, and more.

 

Museum Experiences

Seattle Aquarium and Monterey Bay Aquarium | Take a trip to the aquarium to look at otters and other animals without getting wet!

National Women’s History Museum | Women’s History Month doesn’t have to end when March does. Learn about women’s history all year long.

Smithsonian Learning Lab | Find learning modules from the Smithsonian.

NASA STEM Learning | Seek great STEM resources straight from NASA.

Museum of Modern Art | Take a virtual tour of the MoMA’s most popular pieces.

San Diego Zoo | Tigers, giraffes, elephants, and more are available to watch at your leisure.

The Louvre | Take a trip to one of France’s world-renowned museums from your couch. You will need Adobe Flash Player to take a virtual tour.

 

Social Distancing Resources

Social Distancing 101 | Learn more about why we are social distancing at this time.

 

Online services are continuing to offer free temporary access to their services during the emergency. Here are some additional resources you can check out for yourself:

TeachingBooks is offering unlimited access to their new Book & Reading Engagement Kit: Home Edition through 9/15. The site features reading resources for children and teens, as well as teaching activities for educators and caregivers.

Microsoft Digital Literacy courses | Microsoft Digital Literacy is for anyone with basic reading skills who wants to learn the fundamentals of using digital technologies. Send this to friends or family members who may need to improve their computer skills as we all communicate and work online.

Infobase databases are free through 6/18, including The World Almanac, World News Digest, and Ferguson’s Career Guidance Center. If you get asked for it, username is wapubliclibrary, password is washington.

BookBrowse is offering free access to their book reviews and reader’s advisory tools through 5/30.

CareerExplorer is offering free access to their site for the remainder of the school year.

SkillSoft business training is offering 60 days of free access to their business skill courses.

 

 

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Library resources you can access from home

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You may be experiencing some cabin fever or be seeking distraction with everything going on in the world. Keep yourself busy with a variety of digital resources from the library.

Early Learners/Kids/Teens

Kanopy Kids | Kanopy Kids has great choices for your kids to watch, including Arthur, Sesame Street, Ready Jet Go, Wild Kratts, and other PBS shows. You can also learn about historical figures and encourage language learning. Watching items on Kanopy Kids doesn’t take any credits!

hoopla | Find kid appropriate movies, TV shows, eBooks, and audiobooks. Literary adventures await through kid favorites like Percy Jackson, Pete the Cat, Winnie the Pooh, Dork Diaries, and more. Stream up to 10 titles per month with hoopla.

RBDigital | Keep teens reading while they’re not in school with some literary classics like The Hobbit or 1984. If they want to keep their science skills sharp, magazines subscriptions to National Geographic, EARTH Magazine, Smithsonian Magazine, and more are available.

Tumblebooks | Access kids eBooks with Tumblebooks. Tumblebooks is also granting free access to TumbleMath and TeenBookCloud through August 31, 2020.

OverDrive (Libby) | Choose from our selection of kids books to keep minds active. Browse by subject to find books about coding, reptiles, space, ancient Rome, ancient Egypt, rocket science, the civil rights movement, and more.

Learning Express | Continue to work on critical thinking, math, science, and writing skills outside of the classroom with Learning Express. Appropriate course level work is available for elementary, middle, and high school students.

Pronunciator | Brush up on your language lessons through Pronunciator.

Explora | Find magazine articles for elementary students to practice mathematics, geography, science, history, and much more.

CultureGrams | Explore geography from the comfort of your living room. Find various facts about countries, states, and provinces.

Educational Online Games for Kids | Find a variety of great games from PBS kids, NASA kids, National Geographic kids, and many more.

ProQuest Student Resources | For parents or other caregivers who are using our ProQuest databases such as CultureGrams or SIRS Discoverer to help their children with school work, ProQuest has updated their resource pages with training videos, research topics, and instruction sheets on how to best use these resources.

ProQuest Research Companion is a resource that helps high school students develop the crucial critical thinking and information literacy skills they need to do scholarly research. Free to access through 6/30.

 

 

Adults

Kanopy | Find popular movies and thought-provoking documentary films from Kanopy. Watch up to 8 films a month.

AudioBookCloud | Access a small collection of audiobooks for free through August 31, 2020.

Open Library |  Access nearly 40,000 eBooks from Open Library. Open Library is a partnership with The Internet Archive and participating libraries that have selected digitized books from their collections that are available to be borrowed by one patron at a time from anywhere in the world for free.

OverDrive (Libby) | Read the latest and greatest eBook titles from the literary world.

hoopla | Watch movies, listen to audiobooks, and read eBooks all from the palm of your hand. Stream up to 10 titles per month.

Freegal | Download 8 songs or 2 music videos per month that you keep forever.

RBDigital | Get caught up with your favorite magazines or choose a popular eBook or audiobook.

Lynda.com/LinkedIn Learning | Add another thing to your resume! Lynda.com/LinkedIn Learning has a ton of courses in business, marketing, development, design, and more to help refine your skills.

Pronunciator | Take this time to learn a new language! Pronunciator has 160 different languages to choose from.

RomanceBookCloud | Read a variety of Romance novels for free through August 31, 2020.

Spokesman-Review Digitized Newspaper | Take a trip into the archive and read any Spokesman-Review from 2010 and beyond online.

Northwest Room Digital Archive | Explore local history and look through photos from Spokane’s past. Things look pretty different now! Take a look for yourself.

Gale Teacher Resources | Gale is offering free access to their teacher resources for parents who need educational support while teaching their children at home.

NewsBank | Find news on any topic from a massive collection of media resources.

Ancestry Library Edition genealogy database is usually only accessible from within a library building, but has extended their remote access through 3/31/2021.

Rosetta Stone language learning is offering our library users free access to their service through 6/30. You will need to enter your library card number.

 

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Reading List About Viruses and Pandemics

http://bit.ly/Covid19SPL

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Reading List About Viruses and Pandemics, not specific to Covid-19
If the coronavirus outbreak has you wanting to better understand infectious disease, here are some titles that may help.

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Kanopy’s Programming Guide for Black History Month

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February may have come to a close, but Black History Month doesn’t have to! Kanopy has a variety of films that focus on Black History in the United States, African and African American arts and culture, discussions on race and sports, and much more – available to watch now or later.

Take a look at Kanopy’s programming guide for Black History Month and watch the films today with Kanopy.

 

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Black History Month 2020

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In recognition of Black History Month, Spokane Public Library is hosting a variety of events throughout the month of February. A range of topics will be discussed from the cultures of Nigeria and Malawi, to movies, art, food demonstrations, and more.

View the calendar for Black History Month at the library here.

 

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SPL’s Recommended Reads of 2019

Can you believe it’s the end of the year? And an end to a decade? 2020 is right around the corner, but we want to share our recommended reads of 2019 before we move on.

The Other Americans by Laila Lalami 

“Beautifully written from the perspective of a number of different characters, it tells the modern story of the immigrant experience,” Riva D.

“I loved the format of it with each chapter from a different character’s point of view. Also, many of the characters were not native to America and seeing their perceptions of being ‘American’ was really interesting and put a spotlight on the feelings of immigrants and how they are treated. It was a well-written, character driven book. HIGHLY RECOMMEND,” Eva S.

The Dutch House by Ann Patchett 

“Another beautifully written book by Ann Patchett. It tells the story of a dysfunctional family and the role of their house over generations,” Riva D.

Erotic Stories for Punjabi Widows by Balli Kaur Jaswal

“This is a phenomenally written book that covers a variety of women’s topics from sexism and ageism to finding where you belong in your own community, and it somehow still manages to throw in a mystery to be solved. Exciting and endearing,” Amanda M.

The Curse of the Boyfriend Sweater by Alanna Okun

“An incredibly relatable series of memoir essays from a modern young woman who crafts. Some of it made me laugh out loud, and some of it was just a little too true to be comfortable. I enjoyed every part,” Amanda M.

Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells

“This series starts with All Systems Red and is five books long. It is also wonderful. Read them all,” Becky M.

My Sister, the Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite

“I listened to this book and, first of all, the reader was great. This really makes a difference with audiobooks and she did a super job. Also, I love reading books about places I’m not familiar with and this book is set in Nigeria. I loved the relationship between the sisters and the crazy things that happen. Also, there’s a sort of joy in the revenge of the beautiful woman in this book that, while crazy, makes me smile,” Eva S.

“This is a darkly hilarious, satirical little piranha of a book. A neat vivisection of sisterly love and protection, of vanity and expectations, told with spare, stark prose,” Kathryn I.

The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead

“This is the story of a cotton plantation slave, Cora, and her incredibly painful attempt to run with Caesar, another slave, to escape their bondage. This is an important and necessary read on the historic treatment of Africans and our shared history. The lyrical writing is at once mesmerizing and terrifying,” Sarah B.

Chasing the Scream by Johann Hari

“Amazing portrait of the failing drug war, the roots behind it and the people it affects,” Rae-Lynn B.

Strange the Dreamer by Laini Taylor

“A beautiful, unique, adventure story. If you enjoy books like The Name of the Wind by Patrick Ruthfuss, you will like Strange the Dreamer,” Gina F.

The Broken Earth Trilogy by NK Jemisin

“NK Jemisin’s Broken Earth trilogy (The Fifth Season, The Obelisk Gate, The Stone Sky) features fantastic world-building, a fascinating protagonist, and a narrative twist that will make you want to re-read the series. It’s no wonder all three volumes won the Hugo Award three years in a row,” Dana D.

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