ArtNight Art Contest Winners: Ages 8-12

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This year, we asked young artists in our city to create a work of art that was inspired by illustrations found in children’s literature. Winners were announced on March 8, 2024, and their artwork was displayed in the new art gallery at Jefferson Branch Library through the end of the […]

ArtNight: Coding And Art

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We had a wonderful group of smart, creative kids come to do some coding and art at our ArtNight program last Friday, April 16th. Kids 8 and up did the Artist Tutorial together on Code.org. The tutorial contains nine easy puzzles to solve, each one introducing a new concept about […]

Read Around the World Visits Germany

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This month, the Read Around the World book club for 3rd through 5th graders read and discussed the book Emil and the Detectives by Erich Kästner. (The book is available on hoopla as an eBook.) This is a delightful romp through 1920s Berlin with a bunch of boys who are […]

Minecraft Designer Hour of Code: Kids’ Coding Club

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We had 198 participants in our Zoom coding workshop today! For today’s workshop I walked everyone through a Code.org Hour of Code tutorial on video game design with activities based on the game Minecraft. Kids learned how to code creatures like sheep, chickens, cows, golems, creepers and zombies, to: “spawn” […]

Kids’ Writing Workshop: Summer Reading Inspirations

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On Friday we read excerpts from the middle grade books that are available as prizes for Summer Reading Challenge participants. Then we explored how those books can teach us something about writing. Hooks To learn about writing a first page that will “hook” the reader, we read the first page […]

Read Around the World Visits India

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At today’s virtual Read Around the World book club meeting, we took a tour of the Sundarbans in West Bengal, India and discussed the book Tiger Boy by Mitali Perkins! Mitali Perkins was born in Kolkata, West Bengal, (also known as Calcutta), which is a few hours’ drive away from […]

Making Flappy Bird Games on Scratch: Kids Coding Club

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Our first coding class for ages 7-12 on May 29 had a total of 115 attendees! 115! Not all of them could be there for the entire time. But still, 115 new or fairly new users were brought to the fountain of free learning and creativity that is Scratch! So […]

Citizen Science Anyone Can Do at Home

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For many kids and teens, summer is a time for traveling and expanding their knowledge of the world. For some it’s also about doing something helpful for their communities, getting involved in volunteer projects. But with travel restrictions and in-person volunteering opportunities limited, Summer 2020 is going to be different. […]

Educator Night 2020

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On Monday, February 24, we held our fourth Educator Night at Pasadena Public Library. 48 teachers, librarians, and administrators from 27 schools came to learn about the resources available at our libraries and enjoy lots of giveaways and opportunity drawings! Around 20 new educator cards were opened. Participants came from […]

Exploring the Night Sky

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On Thursday, February 27, we had a special astronomy festival for the whole family! People of all ages got to learn something new and inspiring about the way our understanding of the universe has grown, and also the ways that you can help scientists track changes in night sky visibility. […]