Facelift

I noticed that kids at the circ desk were often bored bored bored and literally trying to climb the wall while their parents registered for cards, paid fines, or took care of other adult business. At self-checkout, kids are involved in the process, but here at the desk there was nothing for them to do. So I bought some acrylic mirrors through Amazon, and gave the desk a facelift (...see what I did there? FACElift? I'm hilarious).

I wish I could post pictures of all the kids interacting with the display. They are adorable! I notice pre-readers "reading" the emotions portrayed, and naturally mimicking the expressions--often in every mirror, big and small. And most importantly, it serves as a great distraction for while the adults are busy at the desk. Success!

Edit: I'd be happy to share the files with the faces I created. Email me at gmail: opinionsbyanna

Charlotte's Web Display

Some days you need to forget about the to-do list and make yourself happy. I lost a lot of sources/starred items with the demise of Google Reader, but I am fairly certain the inspiration for this web came from the blog of the Carle Museum, Making Art with Children.

My original idea only went as far as, "Make a web with the word "READ," in the vein of Charlotte's Web." Because I was crabby and wanted to do something creative.

But it just looked...not quite done yet. I thought a display of animal books would be a good fit, but behind the window seat is a large gap--I needed to find something to put behind the cushion if I wanted to display any books. I went library scavenging, and it was my lucky day--I found an old shelf that I could jam in there.

Then I did a quick scan through my J fiction shelves, whipped up a quick sign, and voila!

Now (hopefully) people won't see the web as a Halloween thing, since I plan to leave it up all through November.

On Display--Dr. Seuss and Seussical the Musical

Our local community theater is staging a production of Seussical the Muscial opening the first week of November, so I put together a display using all the books that are part of the musical. 



Since there aren't a ton of books, I made liberal use of the color copier. I photocopied the cover of each title(after cleaning and fixing them all up--eesh) and mounted them on blue construction paper. That way if the books get checked out the display will still look full and attractive.




I use Microsoft Publisher to make my signs. The font is Grinched, a free font that I downloaded--I LOVE it. I spent some time on the Dr. Seuss website Seussville, and printed some characters from the different activity sheets available there.



And, in a last minute bright idea, I whipped up a little game! We have a mural that includes the cat in the hat, and a spooky Halloween cat up right now, so kids may or may not include those in their 'ten' that they find. I actually put out nine paper cats around the library so it won't be too hard of a challenge.




Took me ten minutes tops to print, cut-out, and tape these up around the library!

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Batty Batty Batty Bat

Halloween is coming! But uh oh, what's that?



Eek! It's a bat.





There seem to be a lot of them...








We recently changed a policy at the library, which I knew would be hard on kids who don't have money or involved parents. So in anticipation of this, I offered the kids a way to 'work' for me.  Since Halloween is coming, I had them cut out some decorations. I LOVE how floppy and kind of realistic the bats turned out!

The bats are made using this clipart. I made it as large as I could on a regular 8.5x11 piece of paper and printed a template on cardstock for them to trace onto construction paper and cut out.

I used this Jack-o-Lantern and again made a cardstock template. I cut out the eyes and mouth using an X-acto knife so they could just color in those features like a stencil.

When I first started here, I spent a day with the ladder, stringing fishing line from the ceiling tiles and tying paper clips to the ends. I leave them up all the time, and just paperclip new decorations on according to the season. It's so easy! When they're empty, they're practically invisible.

The best thing is that I have this song in my head all the time now.

 

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