Ultimate Spy Challenge

This is an old post that I wrote, and, for some reason, never published. This was the culmination of my super fun and successful Spy Week that I did last spring break. I wrote about the passive station I did all week here and here, and this post is about the drop-in Spy Party I did on the last day.

This was a super easy activity, that went over REALLY well: fingerprinting.

This amuses me greatly: Chicken disguise

Program outline:

Here's another example of my planning process, which I talk about here. In this case, I decided to save one of the activities for a different program (Angry Birds), since I realized I was over planning for this one.

• Nametages with spy names (Mr. or Ms. plus a color or initial)
• Laser course (red yarn)
• Observation test: This was really popular. I had a tray full of random items. The kids would look at it for 10-20 seconds, and then I would remove something and they would try to remember what was missing. They played it independently too, taking turns being the guesser and the hider. 
• The disguise station was basically just paper crafts--make a hat, beard, or other disguise
• Leftovers was items I had already created for the passive station
• Book display: I had them take 5-10 minutes and look at the books I had on spies and codes. Then they wrote a cool fact on the poster paper I had out. 
• Two Truths and Lie--regular game that was a good fit for the program. 
• Lying Game--I don't remember what this was!

See the post here for a list of all my resources and credit for many of the ideas I used.

Children's Book Week: David LaRochelle Visits!

I highly recommend getting David LaRochelle to visit your school or library. He's great!

He talked a little about being an author, and read "The Best Pet of All." Then he told us about how a theater company had done a puppet show of "Best Pet of All" and sent him the puppets! 

He even got the kids moving by playing follow the leader with the puppets. It was a hit!

After that he drew us a hilarious story that he wrote, based on the numbers 1-10. Everyone was cracking up. Finally, he read "It's a Tiger" and talked about the process of making that story. It was such a treat to have him visit us. Not every author can do a great job with preschool age kids, but David's got it!

I even got a sneak peek of his new book coming out this fall with illustrator Mike Wohnoutka. It looks AMAZING and I'm sooooooo excited to read it in storytime.

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!

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).

Spy Week Day One

It's "spring" break 'round these parts. For a part-time librarian that means stealth programming. And (besides ninjas) what's stealthier than a spy?



I set up a Spy Station by covering a table with black paper and making yellow banners that say, "Top Secret." I put out some "I Spy" books and various other spy books. The basic idea is that every day this week there will be a different spy activity at the Station, leading up to the, "Ultimate Spy Challenge" which will be a traditional program on Friday this week.

The first activity was a Stealth Challenge. I hid four, "Information Locations" around the children's area of the library and instructed the kids to stealthily hunt for them (reality was more like this). Each location had a paper punch with a different shape. Once they found all four locations they were to turn their sheets in at the Reference desk to receive their next mission.



When they came to the desk, I told them their next mission was to learn a secret language and gave them instructions on how to speak in Pig Latin. I made a big deal out of folding the paper in half and telling them they they got to decide who to share their secret language with, and to keep it secret in the meantime. The idea here was that it was something for them to take home and work on outside of the library. The Pig Latin sheets also told them they could get extra credit for saying something to me in Pig Latin (I am fluent in several made up languages, including one my sister and I completely made up which relies on a great deal of mind-reading. But hey, when you've got four brothers whatever works).



Although it's just the first day of Spy Week, I'm ready to call it a success. When I left for a meeting at 2:30 we had already gone through 17 Stealth Challenges, and in many cases it was whole families or groups of siblings working together to find the Information Locations. I even had a few kids attempt to greet me in Pig Latin (for which they earned Smarties).

My favorite moment was when I saw a group of three kids far afield from where any of the information locations were. I sidled up to them, "Hey, are you guys spies? I've got a secret message. All the information locations are on that side of the library [subtle nod]." I loved watching them go from side-eyed, "Stranger alert" to dawning realization that I was a co-conspirator.

Stay tuned for the rest of Spy Week! (and even MORE on Spy Week)

Stop Duplicating Efforts! Creating a Unified Online Community Calendar

source

Have you ever planned a program and no one showed up?

Ever worked hard laying groundwork for a new idea only to find halfway through that some other community group already does that?

 What about discovering (after you've published all your PR) that your big event conflicts with another big event in town?

I know I have. Imagine my delight when the head of Parks and Rec contacted me about starting a project to create a single unified calendar for the whole community  YES YES YES!

If you'd like to view the calendar we created, you can do so here, Antigo Community Calendar. In a nutshell, instead of many different organizations publishing event calendars, and event coordinators  needing to contact multiple sources to advertise programs, we're all using the same calendar. No matter what organization's website you're on, they're using the same calendar.

I recently spoke at the Wisconsin Library Association's annual conference about this project. I was only one part of a team that worked on creating the calendar, but I think it is such a great idea that I support it wholeheartedly, and think it's something that other librarians--especially those in smaller communities--might benefit from as well.

Our presentation was a success, and if you're interested here are some links to more information about the project.

Our presentation
Handout/Worksheet
Example of PR and category breakdown
Sample PR business card
Our funding was sourced by the local hotel/motel tax--see the application form

Game Word Generator

Here's a useful thing I found while poking around:

A Game Word Generator

Especially useful for people working with teens/tweens and playing games like Pictionary, Win Lose or Draw, and Charades.

Just click the button to get a new word, and you can choose categories like easy, medium, hard, really hard, movies, idioms, people and characters, or a mix of all categories.

I know this just saved me at least 15-20 minutes of staring off into space trying to think of words!

The blog it comes from has TONS of great group game ideas too--all my favorite kinds of games.

Check it out!

Life-Sized Angry Birds

You know how sometimes when you imagine something or come up with an idea, reality is not quite on par with your imagination? My Teen Angry Birds program was the EXACT OPPOSITE of that!

I imagined using cardboard boxes to create life-sized structures to topple and helium balloons (for the pigs--if they float free then the pig was destroyed).  The dollar store was out of green so we used silver (I was going to tape pig pictures on, but even small pieces of paper were too heavy). We had plenty of room, so we used playground balls and threw them to knock down the structures. 



The building supplies

 Each teen took a turn building, and another teen got three chances to knock it down and then it was his/her turn to build. We did one round like this, and then they did a team round where they split into two groups and competed to see who could knock down the other team's tower in less throws.

The only thing I would change is to have more large boxes--I had TONS of smaller sized ones, but the balloons wouldn't fit.

So cute! So crafty!

We also made our own angry birds by making yarn pom-poms and gluing paper faces to them. The teens LOVED this (paired with snack time, of course!).

Check out the GIANT cardboard tubes I found!

We made a giant photo-op structure and decorated it with all the birds and pigs the teens made.

Finally, our last activity (and this was pretty much unnecessary) was another type of structure to knock down. We used Dixie cups and (shamrock themed) stress balls that I got on clearance. Sharpies worked perfectly to transform them into pigs, and I let each of the teens keep one at the end of the night. There was pretty much only one or two ways to stack the cups, and it was HARD to aim and knock them down. We used the pom-pom birds that the teens had made, and flung them with a large kitchen spoon. I would probably just skip this in the future.

Oink oink oink

 This was a very inexpensive program and it was FUN. I did start saving boxes a couple of months beforehand. I only bought yarn, snacks, balloons, and the stress balls.

Highly recommended!

Teen Success Part 3: Where We're At Now

Part 1
Part 2

So, here we are. Since I started at my library, every year I offered a lock-in during National Library Week, and last summer I decided to do another one at the end of summer. Despite my bad luck with Teen Thursdays, I was super excited about the summer lock-in since I had planned to play Life-Sized Clue with the kids.

This didn't really work for two reasons:

1. it doesn't get dark until at least nine in August, so our Clue time was at the end when the kids were all jacked up on soda and candy, and we were short on time (lock-in ended at 10 or 10:30, don't recall exactly--but we were crunched for time).
2. Dynamics again. I had a few kids who were there to actually do what I had planned and follow directions. And I had a bunch of kids who were there to go crazy.

So, when National Library Week rolled around this year, I decided to do things differently. I realized that my dynamic problems were partly my own fault. I was trying to do too much just to entice kids--any kids!-- to come to my programs.

Lock-In! Computers! Pizza! Soda! Snacks! Crafts! Life-Sized Clue! Games! And MORE!!!!!!!!

(seems a tad desperate, no?)

Essentially I was telling them it was a free-for-all and then being frustrated when they showed up expecting that. I decided that this year, although I would be doing it after-hours and it would essentially still BE a lock-in, I wasn't going to advertise it as a lock-in. I still wanted to play Life-Sized Clue, so that's how I advertised it.

You guys? I set the registration deadline to Thursday, and it was FULL by the end of Thursday! That's so epic for my library I can't even express it. I had 24 spots, and I could have had at least 30. AND THEY ALL SHOWED UP.

It.was.so.much.fun.

We went right into playing Clue. I had two staff helping, so we were able to 'host' three of the games, and the fourth group knew how to play. We played for about an hour and fifteen minutes, then took a snack break in the meeting room. At that point, rather than go back to Clue, we played large group circle games like Fruit Basket Upset and Secret Leader (these types of games are my specialty)

They were awesome. Everyone there wanted to be there, and wanted to do the activities I had planned.

Here's what I've learned:

• There is little or no interest in weekday teen programming in my community. The need is for weekend/Friday night things to do. I'll admit that I've been avoiding that truth, but for a group like I had for Clue? I'll gladly work on Friday nights (well, some Friday nights). 
• Don't overdo it. It doesn't have to be everything to everyone. Manage expectations on both ends by being clear in your advertising what will happen at the event.
• I think I've finally figured out the right way to market to my kids (school announcements, forget the flyers). During the school year anyway--BUT I have contact info for all the kids who came during the school year, so I should be able to contact them directly over the summer.

Going forward:

Friday night events once or twice per month over the summer.

A planned redecorating of the existing YA area of the library--hoping to build ownership of the area with teens. 

Stay tuned to see if I'm on to something here!

An Exercise in Futility

At the Head Start Center

I walk in. At first, I am unnoticed.
Then one child inevitably looks up, and recognition slowly dawns. That child proceeds to lose his/her ever-loving mind and starts shrieking, "The Library! The Library is here!" Soon there is a chorus of children yelling, "Hi Library!" and running around the room like I am a shot of espresso they've just mainlined.

Me: "Hi Friends! Does anyone remember my name?"

Them: "The LIBRARY!!!!!!!1!!!"

Me: "I work at the library. But my name is Ms. Anna. What's my name?"

Them: *blank stares* "...LIBRARY!!!!!!!!!!11!!!OMGBBQ!!!!!!!!"

fin.

Fourth Annual Egg Hunt

One of my most successful collaborations is the annual egg hunt we hold at the library. The groundwork for this was laid before I started my position, and we had the first hunt at the end of my second month as a working librarian--no pressure!  For this event, I am so lucky to work with the coordinator of our local Family Corner Resource Center. It's a great Wisconsin organization whose mission goes hand-in-hand with that of the library, and if you have something similar I encourage you to seek them out to start some collaboration.*

The hunt is for kids 6 and under, and is held inside the library. We rope a local highschooler into dressing up as the Easter Bunny, offer simple face-painting (pink bunny nose and whiskers), a take home craft, and of course--storytime.

The event was such a hit that we ended up splitting it into two sessions limited to 40 kids, and have to firmly enforce pre-registration each year. The kids/parents are told how many eggs they are allowed to collect, and we ask that they empty the eggs and "donate" them back for next year's hunt. There's always a kid or two who gets upset at having to give the eggs back, but I believe it's a good lesson for them, and we don't actually require them to give the eggs back.

While there are many egg hunts that happen in my area, the Library Egg Hunt serves a special niche audience since there is no competition from older kids and no concerns about weather.  This is a wonderful, fun, successful event that has become very beloved in my community. Maybe it's something that would work for you!

*I also work with FCRC to offer family events that supplement school district's four-year-old kindergarten enrichment program, and we are planning to use Every Child Ready to Read 2 for programming this fall.

Cabin Fever Display

This would have been ever so much more timely a month ago, but it was very successful so I'll still share it.
I planned a party for the release of Cabin Fever, book six in the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series.


As a lead up, I put together a display of 40+ read alikes with an ad for the party.




It was a pretty nice display, and since it is right in front of the main doors to the library it got a lot of attention. It was really nice for staff too, since they could direct patrons to the display if (IF! HA!) all of our copies of Cabin Fever were checked out.

posted from Bloggeroid

Teddy Bear Sleepover Pictures

Just had to share a few shots of the fun we had at the Teddy Bear Sleepover. Yesterday I posted what we did in storytime for this event. After storytime for the craft, each of the kids drew a picture of his/her stuffed animal on a piece of regular sized blank paper. They also filled in their Teddy's name, age, favorite color, and favorite book.

Then they said good night and tucked their teddies in.

Tucked In

After all the kids were gone, my student worker and I took pictures of the animals frolicking all around the library. We had a great time :)

Once I had all the pictures, I put together two 'scrapbook pages' with captions. One page was the same for all the animals, and the second page I customized with pictures highlighting the animal whose book it would be. I took the really large construction paper--12x18?--and folded that in half. On the front I taped the page the kids filled out with the drawings of their animals,  and on the inside I taped the two 'scrapbook' pages full of pictures. When the kids came in the next day to retrieve their friends, they got a memory book with pictures of what happened while they were away. It was a smashing success and I can't wait for the next one!

Snack Time

Ooh, the Book Drop!

Shelving Cart Races

Taking over the Library Van

Fire Safety Storytime

Our second storytime during National Library Week was a special Fire Safety Storytime where we had a real firefighter visit.  This kids were very excited about this.  We started the "Night Owl Storytime" on Thursday nights as part of the school district's new four-year-old-kindergarten program.  I collaborate with the local Family Resource Center to offer storytime and crafts.  It's nice to work with someone else on things, so I enjoy it but attendance has been pretty spotty.  This was our final week for this year, and I think we'll try something different next year since attendance was so poor overall. 
I was a little nervous about sharing storytime with a guest since I'd never done it before and didn't really know how it would go.  It was great--I guess I need to work on my sharing!  I was also concerned about attendance, but the good news is we had a nice crowd this week of 20 kids and 11 adults. 

I started out our normal storytime routine, and after the opening song we read Fire Engine Man by Andrea Zimmerman.  I wanted to get some energy expelled before I introduced our guest, so we sang "Dr. Seuss is on the Loose" from last week's Dr. Suess Party. From there we went right into the fingerplay, "Five Little Firemen" which can be seen here.  The kids enjoy that one, although I have a hard time settling on what actions go with what part of the rhyme--I probably just need to do it more often. 

Then our firefighter spoke to the kids and read one of the books I suggested to him,
Firefighters! Speeding! Spraying! Saving! by Hubbel.  He started telling the kids about the other part of his job (besides putting out fires), which is working on the ambulance when people get sick.  Hearing the word, "sick" prompted one little girl to shout out that she had gotten sick and puked in a bucket.  Our brave fireman responded that his daughter had been sick that day and threw up outside.  Anyone who works with kids knows where this story is going--suddenly every kid in the room was earnestly sharing his or her best puke story!   With a little redirection we transitioned into playing, "Firefighter says" which was a major hit, and a good lesson since you should always listen to what a firefighter tells you.

After that we sang, "I Had a Little Turtle" and "Jonny Taps With One Hammer" before ending storytime and heading over to the craft area.   

For Night Owl Storytimes, I'm not in charge of crafts so I gave the kids their hand stamps and sent them on their way!

Dr. Seuss Extravaganza!

One of my big events for National Library Week was a Dr. Seuss Extravaganza!  I was very excited about this one.  We ended up having 41 people, pretty evenly split between kids and adults--even a couple of adults who came without kids (?!).  Honestly, it was more difficult than I expected to find Dr. Seuss books that worked well for storytime--so many are MUCH longer than I remembered or just better suited overall to one-on-one reading.  For example, one of my favorites from childhood is "There's a Wocket in My Pocket," but that one relies really heavily on being able to closely inspect all those crazy creatures, which doesn't work well for ST.  Fortunately I got to do a test-run with our local MOPS group so I was well-prepared for today. 

     We ended up reading a portion of Green Eggs and Ham, and all of The Foot Book and Mr. Brown Can Moo! Can You?
    Green Eggs and Ham is just too long and repetitive for a large group, but they loved a short version of it--I really emphasized the rhymes and had the kids chime in and predict the rhymes a lot.
     With both groups, before I read The Foot Book I asked, "Does anyone here have feet?" And both times the group said, "No."  So funny!  Not sure what those little brains are thinking for that one!  I liked the opportunities for foot-related rhythm movement with this book.
     Mr. Brown is pretty much made for storytime, with all the opportunities for sound-making, and it was a great success.

Songs and fingerplays were heavily inspired by this post from the blog Mel's Desk.  Warning: Singing "Dr. Seuss is on the Loose"  as she recommends--to the tune of "Bingo"--will stay in your head for WEEKS.  I printed and laminated a large picture of the Cat in the Hat, several Cat in the Hat hats, and Green Eggs and Ham and put them on the flannel board after we practiced reading the words "Cats, hats, eggs, and, ham"  then when we were singing I could point to them.  We also sang the song slowly at first, but then increased the speed a little bit each time until we got to crazy--always a hit with my crowd. 

 We ran out of time and didn't get to play 'The Cat in the Hat Says...'  Sad!  I love playing Simon Says type games in ST, and I have a 2ft Cat in the Hat stuffy that the kids were very curious about. 



Pin the green eggs on the ham:

Me, Seussified