Guess Who is Coming to Storytime This Week

 You get three clues to try and guess who is coming to storytime for Children's Book Week. Who could it be?

1. An amazing pumpkin carver
2. Minnesota author
3. Latest book has a cowboy hat on the cover

4. I read one of this author's stories during "Pet" themed storytime.
5. This author has a book that goes backwards
 

Make you best guess and stay tuned for more information!

Organizing Myself at Work

The change between being Youth Services Librarian/Assistant Director and working 45+ hours per week to working part time and splitting my hours between Children's Librarian and Reference Librarian has been pretty epic for me.

Photo Credit: NapaneeGal via Compfight cc

One of the biggest challenges was the way I work, and the way that I separate out my "personal" professional work from the work that is in my job description. Before, I didn't really have to think about it. Work was work was work, and it all took place in my office whether it was blogging, conference prep, book reviews, or employee evaluations. I was salaried, and I was there all the time. I used Outlook, Google Drive, and a giant desk calendar to organize everything, and it was good.  I didn't need to be mobile because I had one space to do all my work. Central command, if you will.

Then I moved and changed jobs, and was suddenly working at multiple desks with no spacious office, nowhere to put a giant desk calendar, no Outlook, and computers that won't even support Google Drive.

I was a bit at-sea. Here's what I've found to work:

• I have never found an online calendar that really works for me (I think it has to do with being a visual person and needing a sense of physical space to tie in with the passage of time, but I digress), so I bought myself a very nice planner to take care of scheduling.

• I took the time to organize my workspace in a way that works (though I am rarely actually in that space, even just organizing my stuff well made a big difference). 

• Work jump drive. ALWAYS WITH ME. Also making sure to make good use of the shared folders on our server, which I can access from any computer. 

•  To replace the CRUCIAL to-do list scheduling function that I relied on Outlook for, I researched and tried a bunch of productivity apps, and eventually settled on Vitalist.  I am intrigued by Evernote, but since it requires you to download it onto your machines, it wasn't an option for me. I needed something web-based since I work from so many locations. 

• I found that I'm AWFUL at working from home. When I'm working from home it's too easy to go down the rabbit-hole of endless 'net surfing since there's no interruption. Since all of my reviewing, blogging, and conference prep is on my own time now, I had to find a way to work from home more effectively. I started using an Internet-blocker app called Self Control (sigh). Basically you choose which sites you want blocked, set a timer for how long you want them to be blocked, and you're good to go. Despite the embarrassing name, I really like it, and it has been a huge help for me (self control! I has it!) Here's an app that works with Windows machines (I have not used it personally): Cold Turkey

It's a work in progress, but these are things that have helped me. What tools do you use to keep yourself organized?

Joke Station

When Spy Week ended at my library, I did some quick thinking and transformed the table into a Joke Station. I was inspired by April Fool's Day, but this is something that would work any time of year.

I left up the black paper, and just cut out some colorful circles. By the end of the month all the circles had funny faces drawn on them--an unintended result that was quite delightful.

Then I pulled all the library's joke books, and by the end of the month only one of them hadn't been checked out. Circ-booster!

I put out a binder with page protecters, and half-sheets that invited the kids to draw or write their favorite joke or trick.

Easy, simple, fun! I had about forty entries overall, and these were some of the first few entries:

Pooh jokes...I should have known

Made of win

This kid wrote out the ENTIRE "Eats, shoots, and leaves" joke.

Marching Band Storytime

 I had a special guest star at storytime recently: a Marching Band!

Warming Up Before Storytime

I contacted members of a local high school marching band, and coordinated a visit to storytime. We did it on a day where there was no school, and the teens were able to get extra credit for visiting. I had about 15 band members visit with their instruments, and it was fantastic!

The parents LOVED it. The kids ended up loving it too, but many of them were very apprehensive at the beginning of storytime. Since the marchers were warming up, the room was very noisy before storytime, and there were a lot of unfamiliar faces at the front of the room. I offset this by

• Asking my band to stop playing five minutes before storytime started so people could get settled.
• Playing one of the familiar music cds I usually play before storytime.
• Making sure that I was visible, welcoming, and reassuring as families arrived.

I did my normal opening song and our letter of the day with Fergus, then introduced the band. I had each of the teens say their name, what their instrument was called. Then the played a quick scale or rhythm to show what their instrument sounds like. Then I read Wynton Marsalis' "Squeak, Rumble, Whomp! Whomp! Whomp!" Each time I came to an instrument that was in the room, I paused and prompted the teen with that instrument to give us the 'real' sound. I talked about sounds a lot with the kids, specifically high and low sounds, and we practiced a lot of sounds as a group.

The trombone was particularly popular! But we did have to adjust our tape line to accommodate the reach of the trombone and make sure no littles were sitting right in the way.

Normally during storytime kids are sitting ON my tape line, lol

After that, the band played their school fight song, and "Happy and You Know It" and "ABC's" while we sang along.

Then, with the help of the drum we used our voices to make beats with the book "Tanka Tanka Skunk" by Steve Webb (a new favorite of mine).

 Then we added a new twist to our favorite storytime song of all, "The Watermelon Song" by singing it with musical accompaniment (I told the teens that if they didn't know Frere Jacques/couldn't play it they had to sing and dance with me).

And finally, we finished by reading, "Soon Baboon, Soon" by Dave Horowitz

Then I sang our closing song, we clapped for the band, and I invited kids up for hand stamps (every member of the band also lined up for hand stamps).

You may want to put up noise-level warning signs for patrons if you do this! My colleague also did a kazoo parade through the library when she did this, but that wasn't a great fit for my library (though it would have been fun).

Most popular toy in the library

This is BY FAR the most popular toy I have purchased for the children's area in my library:

Alphabet Machine

I remember standing in Lakeshore Learning debating whether or not to buy this--it seemed kind of pointless? But, wow, am I glad it was on sale, which is what tipped the balance for me to try it out. It is, by far, the most popular toy in the library.

Basically there are 81 buttons that pop up and down with a click. On top, there is a picture that corresponds with a letter sound, and the letter is printed on the sides of the buttons. I've seen kids and parents create all sorts of games--parents asking kids to find, "The picture that starts with B" or "Find the apple." Kids are perfectly delighted to exercise their fine motor skills by popping all the buttons up, popping all the buttons down, making patterns, taking turns, racing--and on and on and on. It turns out that this is the perfect balance of open-ended and directed play.

It makes approximately the same amount of sound as a pen clicking, but not as annoying--I think because it isn't as fast and manic as someone repeatedly clicking a pen. Our reference desk is a ways away from the toy area, and it was months before my boss asked what made the clicking noise (despite the toy being in CONSTANT USE), so I take that as a good sign.

*this is not a sponsored post