Farmingdale Youth Services Department

The following websites are wonderful in terms of supporting your little student's creativity. 3D Printing for Dummies http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/features/3d-printing-for-dummies-how-do-3d-printers-work-8668937.html Andrew Walker explains how 3D printers work. Activities for Kids from Smithsonian http://www.mnh.si.edu/education/studentactivities.html This site provides activities for young people. Building Big http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/buildingbig/index.html Students learn what it takes to build big as they explore structures such as skyscrapers, tunnels, domes, among others. Code Monster www.crunchzila.com/cide-monster This site contains 58 short lessons that teach kids to program, from basic resizing objects to more complex animation. Crypto Kids www.nsa.gov/kids/ At this site from the National Security Agency, you can learn all about codes and ciphers and even create your own. Many games and activities are included. Kids Science E...

The finalists are: Picture Books: Buried Sunlight: How Fossil Fuels Have Changed the Earth by Molly Bang and Penny Chisolm Have You Heard the Nesting Bird by Rita Gray Parrots Over Puerto Rico   by Susan L. Roth Tiny Creatures: The World of Microbes  by Nicola Davies Middle Grades Science Book The Case of the Vanishing Honeybees: A Scinetific Mystery by Sandra Markle Eyes Wide Open: Going Behind the Environmental Headlines by Paul Fleischman Handle with Care: An Unusual Butterfly Journey by Loree Griffin Burns Mission: Mars by Pascal Lee Plastic Ahoy! Investigating the Great Pacific Garbage Patch by Patricia Newman Hands-on Science Book Junk Drawer Physics: 50 Awesome Experiments that Don't Cost a Thing by Bobby Mercer Kids Guide to Exploring Nature by Brooklyn Botanic Educators Plant a Pocket of Prairie   by Phyllis Root  These books would make wonderful gifts for anyone interested in great science books!

Jacqueline Woodson's Brown Girl Dreaming has won this year's National Book Award in the Young People's Literature category. Here is a review: Woodson tells the story of her life against the backdrop of the civil rights movement of the 1960s and 1970s in this fictionalized memoir. Beautifully written in verse, it shows the difficulty of not feeling at home in any one place. Jacqueline was born in Ohio but moves to South Carolina with her mother, brother, and sister at age one, when her parents split. Her grandparents become like mom and dad, especially when her mother moves to New York looking for work. Just as she feels she has found her place in Greenville, her mother moves them to New York with her, where she feels she does not quite belong. When she goes back to South Carolina for the summer, she does not feel quite at home there anymore either As she grows, Jacqueline finds her purpose in the telling of stories, despite her early difficulty with reading. Her proudest ...