Trick or Treat

Halloween

1.                   Storytime – Welcome Song

Storytime is starting, starting, starting,

Storytime is starting come listen with me.

2.        Read first story "Frank was a Monster who wanted to Dance",  "Mouse's First Halloween" or "Room on the Broom"

3.         Sing: Five Little Ghosts

Five little ghosts flying through the door,
One flew away and then there were four.

Four little ghosts spooky as can be,
One flew away and then there were three.

Three little ghosts drinking Halloween brew,
One flew away and then there were two.

Two little ghosts having lots of fun,
One went home and then there was one.

One little ghost's a real superhero,
Went to help a friend and then were was zero!

4.         Read second story "In a Dark, Dark Wood",  "Skeleton Hiccups" or "The Teeny Tiny Woman"

5.         Sing: Three Black Cats (Three Blind Mice)
Three black cats, Three black cats,
In black hats, In black hats,
They all jumped into the halloween stew,
To tease the ghosts and the goblins, too
Have you ever seen such a hulla-bal-lew?

6.          If You're a Ghost... (If You're Happy...)
If you're a ghost and you know it just say Boo, 
Boo!
If you're a ghost and you know it just say Boo,
Boo!
If you're a ghost and you know it
and you really want to show it
If you're a ghost and you know it
just say Boo!
Boo!
Additional Verses: 
If you're a bat and you know it flap your wings,
If you're a vampire and you know it show your fangs,
If you're a werewolf and you know it give a howl!

7.        Craft: Pop up Ghost

Supplies needed:

Cup, white plastic/tissues, construction paper, popsicle sticks, stickers, string

Directions:  Cover cup with construction paper, decorate with Halloween stickers. Cut square of plastic or use tissue, wrap over stick and tie with string to make a ghost. Draw a face on the head of the ghost. Cut a slit in the bottom of the cup and slide in the stick. The ghost will poke down into the cup and can be pushed up to say boo.

Governor General 2010 Finalists

The 2010 GG Finalists were announced today.

The finalists for English Language Fiction are:

• Waiting for Joe by Sandra Birdsell
• Room by Emma Donoghue 
• Motorcycles & Sweetgrass by Drew Hayden Taylor 
• Cool Water by Dianne Warren 
• Annabel by Kathleen Winter 

The finalists for English Language Nonfiction are:

• A History of Marriage by Elizabeth Abbott 
• The Boy in the Moon: A Father’s Search for His Disabled Son by Ian Brown 
• Lakeland: Journeys into the Soul of Canada by Allan Casey 
• Burmese Lessons: A Love Story by Karen Connelly 
• Just Watch Me: The Life of Pierre Elliott Trudeau, 1968-2000 by John English 

The finalists for Children's Literature-Text are:

• Me, Myself and Ike by K.L. Denman
• Tyranny by Lesley Fairfield 
• Free as a Bird by Gina McMurchy-Barber 
• Fishtailing by Wendy Phillips 
• Scars by Cheryl Rainfield 

The finalists in the Children's Literature-Illustration category are:

• Kristi Bridgeman for Uirapurú: Based on a Brazilian Legend, text by P. K. Page 
• Julie Flett for Owls See Clearly at Night: a Michif alphabet / Lii Yiiboo Nayaapiwak lii Swer: l’alfabet di Michif, text by Julie Flett 
• Matt James for I Know Here, text by Laurel Croza 
• Jon Klassen for Cat’s Night Out, text by Caroline Stutson 
• Renata Liwska for The Quiet Book, text by Deborah Underwood

For the full list visit the website.

Man Booker 2010 Winner

The 2010 Man Booker Prize winner is:

Howard Jacobson

The Finkler Question

Former BBC radio producer Julian Treslove and Sam Finkler, a popular Jewish philosopher, are old school friends who have never lost touch with each other - or with their former teacher, Libor Sevick. Now, both Libor and Finkler are recently widowed. When the three dine at Libor's apartment, it's a bittersweet evening of reminiscence.

The following are the 2010 shortlist finalists:

Peter Carey

Parrot and Olivier in America

From the two-time Booker Prize-winning author: an irrepressible, audacious, trenchantly funny new novel set in the 19th century and inspired in part by the life of Alexis de Tocqueville. With dazzling exuberance and all the richness of characterization, story, and language that we have come to expect from this superlative writer, Peter Carey explores the birth of democracy, the limits of friendship and whether people really can remake themselves in a New World. The two men at the heart of the novel couldn't be any more different: Olivier is the son of French aristocrats who (barely) survived the French Revolution. Parrot is the motherless son of an itinerate English printer. But when young Parrot is separated from his father (after a stupendous conflagration at a house of forgery) he runs into the powerful embrace of a one-armed marquis who will be his conduit — like it or not — into a life as closely (mis)allied with Olivier's as if they were connected by blood. And when Olivier sets sail for America — ostensibly to make a study of the American penal system, but more precisely to save his neck from the latest guillotineurs — Parrot, unable to loosen the Marquis's grip, is there too: as spy, scribe, comptroller, protector, foe and foil. As the narrative unfurls, shifting between the perspectives of Olivier and Parrot, between their picaresque adventures apart and together, in love and politics, prisons and finance, homelands and brave new lands — a most unlikely friendship begins to take hold.

Emma Donoghue

Room
Narrator Jack and his mother, who was kidnapped seven years earlier when she was a 19-year-old college student, celebrate his fifth birthday. They live in a tiny, 11-foot-square soundproofed cell in a converted shed in the kidnapper's yard. The sociopath, whom Jack has dubbed Old Nick, visits at night, grudgingly doling out food and supplies. But Ma, as Jack calls her, proves to be resilient and resourceful--and attempts a nail-biting escape.

Damon Galgut

In a Strange Room
A young man named Damon takes three journeys, through Greece, India, and Africa. To those who travel with him and those whom he meets on the way - including a handsome enigmatic stranger, a group of careless backpackers, and a woman on the edge - he is the Follower, the Lover, and the Guardian. Yet, despite the man's best intentions, each journey ends in disaster. Together, these three journeys will change his whole life. A book of longing and thwarted desire, rage and compassion,In a Strange Roomis the hauntingly beautiful evocation of one man's search for love and a place to call home.

Andrea Levy

The Long Song
A tale of freedom and love, set in Jamaica during the last turbulent years of slavery and the early years of freedom that followed. July is a slave girl who lives upon a sugar plantation called Amity and it is her life that is the subject of this tale. But there are many more persona besides - far too many to be listed here. What befalls them all is carefully chronicled in this thrilling journey.

Tom McCarthy

C
An epochal saga from the acclaimed author of Remainder,C takes place in the early years of the twentieth century and ranges from western England to Europe to North Africa. Serge Carrefax spends his childhood at Versoie House, where his father teaches deaf children to speak when he's not experimenting with wireless telegraphy. Sophie, Serge's sister and only connection to the world at large, takes outrageous liberties with Serge's young body - which may explain the unusual sexual predilections that haunt him for the rest of his life. After recuperating from a mysterious illness at a Bohemian spa, Serge serves in World War I as a radio operator.Cculminates in a bizarre scene in an Egyptian catacomb where all Serge's paths and relationships at last converge. Tom McCarthy's mesmerizing, often hilarious accomplishment effortlessly blends the generational breadth of Ian McEwan with the postmodern wit of Thomas Pynchon and marks a writer rapidly becoming one of the most significant and original voices of his generation.

Giller Shortlist 2010

• The Giller Shortlist has been announced:
• 
  
• David Bergen for his novel THE MATTER WITH MORRIS
• Alexander MacLeod for his short story collection LIGHT LIFTING 
• Sarah Selecky for her short story collection THIS CAKE IS FOR THE PARTY
• Johanna Skibsrud for her novel THE SENTIMENTALISTS
• Kathleen Winter for her novel ANNABEL

The winner will be announced November 9th.

Pumpkins

Pumpkins

1.      Storytime – Welcome Song

Storytime is starting, starting, starting,

Storytime is starting come listen with me.

2.        Read first story "Big Pumpkin", or "Five Little Pumpkins"

3.        Sing: Five Little Pumpkins

Five little pumpkins sitting on a gate
The first one said, "Oh, my it's getting late."
The second one said, "There are witches in the air".
The third one said, "But we don't care!"
The fourth one said, "Let's run and run and run".
The fifth one said, "I'm ready for some fun!"
Wooooo, went the wind
And out went the light
And the five little pumpkins rolled out of sight!

4.        Sing: Five Little Pumpkins

Five little pumpkins at my door,
A neighbor took one and then there were four.

Four little pumpkins under a tree,
Along came a farmer and then there were three.

Three little pumpkins that looked so new
I gave one away and then there were two.

Two little pumpkins out in the sun,
Mother made a pie and then there was one.

Of all the pumpkins, there was just one.
So I made a jack-o-lantern, and that was fun!

5.           Read second story "Dr. Pompo's Nose", "Plumply, Dumply Pumpkins" or "The Biggest Pumpkin Ever"

6.           Verse: Peter, Peter, Pumpkin Eater

 Peter, Peter, pumpkin eater,

Had a wife and couldn't keep her.

He put her in a pumpkin shell,

And there he kept her very well.

 

7.           Craft: Jack-o’-lanterns.

Directions: You will need: paper plates, construction paper, and glue

The fun begins with the tearing of the paper.  Next, glue the pieces of paper to the paper plate. Now add eyes, a nose, a mouth, a leaf, and a stem.

Pirates

Pirates          

1. Storytime welcome

2. Read first story "Captain Flinn and the Pirate Dinosaurs", "Tough Boris"

3. Song:  If You're a Pirate and You Know It
   If you're a pirate and you know it, swab the deck (swish, swish)
   If you're a pirate and you know it, swab the deck (swish, swish)
   If you're a pirate and you know it, then you'll hear the sea winds blowin.
   If you're a pirate and you know it, swab the deck (swish, swish)
   verses two and three
   If you're a pirate and you know it, walk the plank (stomp, stomp)...
   If you're a pirate and you know it, say ahoy Ahoy! (With arm movement)...

One-eyed Jack
One-eyed Jack, the pirate chief,   (Put 1 hand over 1 eye)
Was a terrible, fearsome ocean thief.   (Move hands like ocean waves)
He wore a peg upon one leg.    (Point or touch one leg)
He wore a hook & a dirty look.   (Curl one hand & look mean)
One-eyed Jack, the pirate chief,   (Repeat motions above)
Was a terrible, fearsome ocean thief. 

4. Read second story "Dirty Joe the Pirate" or "Archie and the Pirates".

5. Fingerplay:Five Little Pirates
   Five little pirates hear the gun roar.
   One raised his black flag, and then there were four.
   Four little pirates, sailing on the sea,
   One tumbled overboard, and then there were three.
   Three little pirates swam the ocean blue,
   One swam away, and then there were two.
   Two little pirates fighting in the sun,
   One used a sword and then there was one.
   One little pirate liked to have fun,
   He found a treasure chest, and then there were none

6. Craft

Pirate TP Roll

Materials: toilet paper tube, a printer, a piece of paper, markers, scissors, glue.

Instructions: Print out the template. http://www.dltk-kids.com/t.asp?b=m&t=http://www.dltk-kids.com/crafts/pirates/images/bpirate.gif
Colour (where appropriate) and cut out the template pieces. Glue the large rectangular piece on first to cover the tube. Glue the boots to the bottom of the tp roll (we did it so it looked like the pirate was sitting down). Glue on the head and arms. Glue the curvy sword into one of the hands.
 

Turkey Time

Turkeys 

1. Storytime – Welcome Song
Storytime is starting, starting, starting,
Storytime is starting come listen with me.

2. Read first story "Five Silly Turkeys", "Farmer Goff and his Turkey Sam" or "Run, Turkey, Run"

3. Action Poem: TURKEY DANCE (tune:Turkey in the Straw) 

Oh, you turkey to the left (two steps to the left)
And you turkey to the right (two steps to the right)
Then you heel and toe (do motions with foot)
And you scratch with all your might. (scratch floor with foot)
Now you flap your turkey wings (put thumbs in armpit and flap)
While your head goes bobble, bobble. (wobble head)
Turn around and then you say, (turn around)
"Gobble, gobble, gobble!."

4. Hello Mr. Turkey! (Tune: If You’re Happy and You Know It)

Hello Mr. Turkey, how are you? (Clap, clap)
Hello Mr. Turkey, how are you? (Clap, clap)
With a gobble, gobble, gobble (Make gobbling noises)
And a wobble, wobble, wobble, (Wobble back and forth)
Hello Mr. Turkey, how are you? (Clap, clap)

5. Read second story "I'm a Turkey", "A Plump and Perky Turkey" or "Setting the Turkeys Free"

6. Fingerplay: Mr. Turkey

Mr. Turkey’s tail is big and wide (Spread fingers wide.)
He swings it when he walks (Swing hands.)
His neck is long (Stretch neck.)
His chin is red (Stroke chin.)
And he gobbles when he talks (Open and close hands and gobble.)

7. Craft: Turkey Headband

Materials: Scissors, Brown paper bags, Glue stick, Colored construction paper, 2 wiggly eyes, Black permanent marker
Instructions
1. From the brown paper bags, cut a circle 3 1/2 inches in diameter for the turkey's head. Next, cut a 3-inch-wide band to fit around your child's head.

2. For a beak, fold yellow construction paper and cut out a small double triangle (1 1/2 inches along the fold). Cut a rounded L from red paper for the turkey's wattle.

3. Glue the eyes, wattle and one side of the beak to the head. Let them dry. Then, glue the neck to the center of the headband.

4. Now, wrap the headband around your child's head; mark where the ends overlap, then remove the band and staple the ends. Finally, glue on construction paper feathers and wings.