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Summer Reading Begins June 6

Chelmsford’s 2009 Summer Reading program is here!

This year’s program has been tailored to fit with the 2009 One Book Chelmsford, Three Cups of Tea and author Greg Mortenson’s picture book edition, Listen to the Wind. There are many aspects to this year’s Summer Reading program, but the two main themes are collecting Pennies for Peace and outdoor adventures.

1. Everyone is encouraged to keep track of the time you spend reading, and for every 5 hours of reading, the Friends of the Library will contribute 100 pennies for peace. Our goal is to donate $500 by the end of the summer to Greg Mortenson’s foundation for building schools
2. Enjoy hiking through Chelmsford! Chelmsford has many open spaces and trails, and hiking and exploring our community is a great way to start your own trek towards K2 like Greg Mortenson. The summer challenge for children is to hike 5 miles and record your adventures in your passbooks

For reading logs, hiking passbooks, book suggestions and links to trail maps of Chelmsford, visit the Summer Reading webpage or stop by the Children’s Room.

Introducing Tricia Horan, Youth Services Librarian

The Chelmsford Library has a new Librarian for Youth Services, Patricia Horan. Tricia provided a brief biography as a way to introduce herself:

As an undergraduate I studied English and Art History at Rutgers University where I earned my B.A. in 2004. In August of 2005 I completed my M.L.S. at Simmons College with concentrated coursework in programming and collection development for children and young adults. For the past three years I was the Head of Youth Services at the Oliver Wolcott Library in Litchfield, Connecticut. The OWL is a community library in a rural town of approximately 9,000 people. Due to its small staff size I was solely responsible for everything related to youth services and wore several other hats—doing additional work with adults, outreach and technology.

I am thrilled to begin my career as a Youth Services Specialist at the Chelmsford Public Library. After working in a small town, I am excited to work in a large library that serves an expansive and diverse community. The best part of my new position is that I get to spend my mornings working with little ones in the Children’s Room and in the afternoons I’ll be available to work with teens. Working with teens in a library environment was the reason I went to library school and being able to do that on a daily basis is a dream come true.

The Library is very happy to have Tricia as part of the team. Stop by the Children’s Room or Young Adult area to introduce yourself, and give Tricia suggestions for books or programs you’re interested in.

Update on the Sierpinski Tetrahedron

At the beginning of the month, the Children’s Room announced they would be building a large Sierpinski Tetrahedron (read more) throughout February.

Now that we’re down to the last week of the month, final assembly has begun. And it’s huge.

Support for the project has come from kids, adults and staff, and volunteers are gluing together stage 1 and 2 tetrahedrons into stage 3 and 4 tetrahedrons (see an illustration of stages 0 through 3). And finally on Thursday (2/21), a stage 5 tetrahedron was assembled – that’s 1,024 individual tetrahedrons!

It stands well over three feet high, and takes up two tabletops. Additional assembly work is being done in the McCarthy Meeting Room and the Library’s lobby, where the stage 5 is on display.

Stop by the library to see the progress and assemble a few of your own tetrahedrons, and see more of the tetrahedron photographs on our flickr account.

childrens, crafts, math, paper, programs, pyramid, pyramids, sierpinski, tetrahedron, tetrahedrons

Reading Lists by Grades and Genres

Do you need suggestions for good books to read? We have lists of books for each grade. We even have the lists separated into genres.

Some books are easy to read and some are more difficult, so take a look at several of the lists to get ideas.

Books for Preschoolers

 Grades , , ,, and

What’s Math Got To Do With It?

Throughout the month of February, stop by the Library to help build Sierpinski tetrahedrons.

A tetrahedron is a pyramid with three sides and a base. A Sierpinski tetrahedron is a repeating pattern of small pyramids assembled into ever larger pyramids. A single tetrahedron is called stage 0; a pyramid of four tetrahedrons is stage 1; the pyramid shown in the picture, consisting of 16 individual tetrahedrons, is stage 2.

Pre-cut colored paper, tape, and instructions are located at stations around the library. Patrons are encourage to fold a few tetrahedrons of their own, and leave them in the bins at each station.

No mathematical knowledge is necessary. Just enjoy the shapes, the symmetries and the similarities you find.

Please make some each time you visit in February, because the goal is a stage 6 pyramid – 4,092 individual tetrahedrons! We will need the help of many teens, and children ages 10 and older, as we put all the small tetrahedrons together during February vacation to make a giant structure.

This project is named for Waclaw Sierpinski, a Polish mathematician. While researching set theory, he developed a Sierpinski Triangle, which is an example (as is our tetrahedrons) of a self-repeating set of shapes. Notice in the picture how the overall pyramid looks like a bigger model of the smaller yellow or blue or red sets, which are themselves pyramids just like an individual tetrahedron.

If you have questions or need help, tape, or more pre-cut paper, please ask at any desk in the library.

childrens, crafts, math, paper, programs, pyramid, pyramids, Sierpinski, tetrahedron, tetrahedrons