Explore Art With Children

by Dara Cain for Rowan Public Library

Is art just fun and games for children to participate in?  Look further and you will discover that children are actually learning a great deal when they do art activities. Art provides some of the building blocks of child development.  The best part about art is that children have so much fun creating that they don’t even realize that they are learning!

Art projects provide plenty of opportunity for children to work on their fine motor skills. They will learn how to use a pencil to write carefully, use crayons to draw, and hold a paintbrush to make the desired marks. They may use scissors to cut paper into definite shapes and squeeze glue from a bottle in a controlled manner.  These tasks help a child learn to control materials and are essential to the growth of fine motor skills in young children. 

Art is a way for children to practice their communication skills and also a great way for children to express themselves.  A child might document an actual experience by drawing a picture of a fun day at the zoo.  He may emit feelings of joy or sadness by the choice of colors and types of lines he creates.  He can share an emotional experience by painting a portrait to reflect the loss of a pet.  In some cases art is the presentation of an expression, but it may also be that the physical process of creating is the expression. Art allows a child to communicate feelings he might not be able to express verbally.

Art education strengthens problem-solving and critical-thinking skills when children have the freedom to engage in projects without having to follow specific directions.  Instead, they can focus on the discovery of “how” and “why” when given the free will to make choices and work through challenges.  An example of a challenge might be a child who made the color brown when he intended to make the color orange. He now has to think about what he did and make the appropriate corrections. Another example is a child who finds out that the glue he is using isn’t holding down his project and has to decide what to try instead.  Art allows children to make their own assessments and to discover that a problem may not have just one answer.

            Encourage your child to get creative and use his imagination. Art helps to develop a child's creativity by giving him or her the freedom to think independently, experiment, and to analyze.  Get out the art supplies and let them explore so that their creativity has a chance to blossom. You may want to check out Rowan Public Library’s website to find out dates and times for free art classes offered to children of all ages.  While you are at the library feel free to browse the art section in the Children’s Department where you will discover some fun and informational books that talk about famous artists, types of art, and how the history of art has evolved.  Here are some of the great titles you may want to look at with your child:

    A Book About Color:  A Clear and Simple Guide for Young Artists by Mark Gonyea
    Children’s Book of Art by Dorling Kindersley Limited
    Diego Rivera: An Artist For the People by Susan Goldman Rubin
    Get Into Art People: Discover Great Art and Create Your Own by Susie Brooks
    Henri’s Scissors by Jeanette Winter
    A Splash of Red: The Life and Art of Horace Pippin by Jen Bryant

Visit Rowan Public Library’s website: www.rowanpubliclibrary.org

Making a list, checking it twice, saving it forever

by Pam Everhart Bloom for Rowan Public Library

The library recently changed to a new and improved online card catalog. It’s a system I think patrons will come to love. I personally love the saved list feature found within your personal account and can imagine all sorts of uses for different ages. All you need to access this feature at home is your library card number and your PIN. (Note: PINs may be set up or changed at the library or over the phone.)

To start your first list, go to the Rowan Public Library Home Page, www.rowanpubliclibrary.org , and click on “Find Books.” Enter your search term and begin looking for items of interest.

For example, my inspiration for a saved list was a children’s book, “Dem Bones,” written and illustrated by Bob Barner. Like many excellent picture books, this book reads on two levels. Reading the author’s dedication, “To Dr. Robert Wilkerson who is frequently humerus and to my boney wife,” I expected this would be a book loved by both children and adults. There’s a simple story line song, “The ankle bone connected to da leg bone,” with enough scientific information added to each page to provide fun details for all ages.

After finding this clever book with cross-over appeal, I thought it might be fun to develop a list for a family read, with everyone in a household pursuing their own bone-connected book and discussing their favorite reads. Here’s how my list developed.

Once I brought up “Dem Bones” in the catalog, I clicked on the “Add to List” icon to the right of the book image. A box popped up asking for my card number and PIN. This information then opened up my personal library account within the catalog. I selected the “Create New List” option and named my new list, “Family Reads.” “Dem Bones” was automatically added to my list and I began to select my other books. It was as simple as placing the word “bones” in the search window and clicking on the icon to add books to my saved list, “Family Reads.” Once completed, I printed a hard copy of my list to use while searching the shelves.

My saved list was a fun way to look for connections on a reading level for all ages and also a different way to emphasize a lifetime of reading with children beyond the bedtime story. Books saved to my list were: “Bones, Bones, Dinosaur Bones” by Byron Barton; “Ask the Bones: Scary Stories from Around the World” by Arielle Olson; “Bone by Bone: Comparing Animal Skeletons” by Sara Levine; “You Can’t See Your Bones with Binoculars: A Guide to your 206 Bones” by Harriet Ziefert; “Your Body Battles a Broken Bone” by Vicki Cobb; “Do Buildings Have Bones” by Time-Life for Children; “Talking Bones; Secrets of Indian Burial Mounds” by William O. Steele; “Human Bones: A Scientific and Pictorial Investigation” by R. McNeill Alexander; “Strong Women, Strong Bones: Everything You Need to Know to Prevent, Treat and Beat Osteoporosis” by Miriam E. Nelson; “It’s Not Just Growing Pains: A Guide to Childhood Muscle, Bone, and Joint Pain” by Thomas Lehman; “Blood, Bones, and Butter; the Inadvertent Education of a Reluctant Chef” by Gabrielle Hamilton; “Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within” by Natalie Goldberg; “Bones of the Lost” by Kathy Reichs and “Land of the Buffalo Bones” by Marion Dane Bauer.

Explore our new catalog. Make a family list for vacation. Teach your kids to make lists of their favorite reads and keep your own list of all the books you’ve checked out to read. Create a list of all the resources that worked best with your last lesson plan. Keep track of the DVDs you don’t want to miss or want to recommend to friends. Whatever your fancy, there’s a saved list waiting for you by simply using your library card and your personal PIN. And if none of my selections brought a smile, check out “Animal Jokes to Tickle Your Funny Bone” by Michele C. Hollow.

Books such as ‘The Livable City’ offer ideas for better cities

by Edward Hirst for Rowan Public Library

Where might the happiest city on earth be? According to the award-winning journalist Charles Montgomery in his book “Happy City,” it might be Bogota, Colombia. Enrique Penalosa was the mayor who committed to changing the perception of his city and improving the lives of the residents. His plan for reducing traffic and creating public space for people has played a large part in creating a more livable city.

In the book “The Livable City” from the Partners for Livable Communities, the authors define what makes a city livable: open space, free-flowing traffic, historic preservation, attractive cultural and civic institutions, good housing, good jobs and good schools. This book provides the tools that help civic leaders get a handle on the many of the problems cities face today.

Jeff Speck writes about many problems he sees in American cities that he believes can be solved by improving their walkability in his book “Walkable City.” Public health, sustainability and even the lagging economy, he argues, can be boosted by making cities friendlier for pedestrians. Drawing on his background as a city planner and architectural designer, Speck makes a convincing case for revitalizing our public spaces in favor of foot traffic, with steps such as planting more trees and narrowing roads, investing in public transit systems and designing visually interesting buildings.

For thousands of years streets have been a major center of commerce, socialization and cultural exchange. But the advent of automobiles and suburbanization in the 20th century eroded the richness of American street life. Streets and sidewalks, once filled with people, are now filled with automobiles. In the book “Street Reclaiming,” David Engwicht prescribes a series of methods for returning vibrancy to our streets.

These days everyone is familiar with smartphones and smart homes, but how about smart cities? Increasingly such things as traffic patterns, sewage flow and street lighting are all being guided by software. In his book, “Smart Cities,” author Anthony Townsend takes a look at how cities are upgrading their infrastructure for the Internet age.