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.

Reforming the Storytime Mob

Storytime Mob!

 At the end of storytime, I stamp the kids hands/arms. I hold a flannelboard flat on my lap and have the kids place their hand on the flat surface so I don't have to touch them as much (germy!). It's...very popular. I often feel like the cat in the above GIF. I hate it because it's chaotic--the kids knock over my stuff and step on it, they push and shove, and there's no time to acknowledge any of them because I have six other hands in my face. And, worst of all, sometimes the littlest storytimers get knocked over in the mob. So, I decided to try and reform them. Today was my first attempt, and it went surprisingly well! Here's what I did:

1. I bought blue masking tape, and put a line down the middle of the room from where I sit (here's a picture of my normal storytime set up).

Magic Blue Line!

2. Mid-storytime, (NOT at stamp time) I explained to parents that I wanted to begin teaching the concept of lining up since it's so useful for when they start school, and also because I've had little kids get knocked over by the stamp mob. I also said that I knew that this would be a process and it would take a while for all the kids to understand the concept, and that that was ok, we would practice and learn it together.

3. Then I got up, and demonstrated walking to the end of the line and following the line all the way to the front. Kids immediately started following me, so we went around a few times, emphasizing, "You start at the end of the line, and follow it all the way to the front--keep your feet on the blue line! That's how you line up."

4. Then I sat back down, and had the kid right in front of me stop, "Now you're all in a line!" Then I brought out my puppet and let each kid touch/hug the puppet and go sit back down. Kids who ran up to the front were gently told that they needed go to the beginning of the blue line--and most of them did!

5. Finally, at the end of storytime, I cut out our closing song (I'll add it back again eventually) since it's a trigger for the mob to surge forward. Instead, I just said, "Ok, now I need everybody to go to the end of the blue line and follow it all the way to the front" and when the first kid arrived at the front I said, "Great job lining up! Now you get a stamp!" I actually got to see every kids' face and say hello to them!

The adults were super responsive to this activity; many were actively involved with helping their kids wait/follow through. I think the adults liked having a concrete expectation to help them regulate their child's behavior, rather than just sending their kids with the mob.

I think once I have the majority of the kids under a routine, I can make the line go wherever I want or change directions--edges of the room etc, as long as it's always clear where it starts.

I only had about 50 people total in storytime today, so it helped a lot that it was a smaller number of kids than normal. But still, I think this will stick and in a few weeks I'll be able to say goodbye to the storytime stamp mob forever!

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

Letter of the Day without Puppets

Image by mconnors via MorgueFile

I was brainstorming with @lizpatanders on Twitter about ways to do a "Letter of the Day" in storytime. I normally use a puppet for the letter of the day (Fergus the Letter Monster), but Liz was looking for ideas without using puppets and we came up with this idea:

"Letter" of the day. Decorate a box like a mailbox, or just use a manila envelope addressed to storytime.

"Letter B went on vacation and sent us back some pictures of things that start with 'B'!

Here's an uppercase letter 'B', and a lowercase letter 'b'. When we see the letter B we make the sound, Buh. Let's see what letter B sent us."

Then you could have pictures of things that start with B (and maybe even one that doesn't start with the right letter).

For doing this with a toddler group, eliminate the pictures, and just show the letter B and talk about its shape using words like straight, tall, round--maybe with some directed movement. Throw in some vocabulary stretching B words and you're set!

What other ways do you use to share a letter of the day--with or without puppets?

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).

Library Love--Get Outside your Bubble

My favorite Valentine was a letter from a Storytimer at my old library

I am feeling the library love today! It's so wonderful to visit other libraries and get ideas, insight and just experience something different. I highly recommend making the effort to get out of your bubble and visiting libraries outside your system.

Yesterday I took a trip to visit Marge (Tiny Tips for Library Fun) and Sara (Bryce Don't Play)* at their library a few hours away. It was awesome to get a behind-the-scenes look at all the cool things they're doing at their library. It's always so refreshing to talk to Marge--five minutes talking to her can literally change my whole outlook on something.

Sara and I are presenting together this April with Anne (So Tomorrow), so part of the purpose of my trip was to get some work done on our presentation,** but I also got to sit in on one of Sara's fantastic Elementary-age programs (I warned her I would be creepin' on her, so it wasn't like this***).

I totally admire Sara's talent for school-aged programming, and she's planning to blog about the program I attended, "Wild Record Wednesdays." It was another great, simple program idea that WORKS. But more than the program idea, I really appreciated the ability to see how she runs her programs. From when to call a no-show (which it looked like at first), to dealing with non-ideal behavior, to seeing her style of interacting with the kids and conducting the program, it made me feel really invigorated to actually *see* someone else doing what I do and how she does it.

Today I stopped by the library closest to my house, which is in a different system from the library where I work. I just spent about ten minutes strolling around and looking at how they do things. What kinds of displays do they have? How are they communicating with their patrons? What kinds of programs are they doing? In this case it was really interesting because I could see different ways this library was implementing the same programs that my library does since we're in the same consortium.

It's definitely worth the effort to get out and see and celebrate what others are doing.

Superfluous cute story:

My favorite moment was walking past an early literacy installation, which happened to be a bus complete with a steering wheel, the little girl 'driving' the bus invited me to, "Hop in!" Being a good children's librarian, I naturally complied. When I asked where we were going she said, "To college." There was an interactive magnetic map inside the bus, and a little boy came up and started arranging our route. He informed me very seriously that if we were good at the bank, hospital, church, and post office THEN we could go to the park. You're never off the clock if you work with kids!

*pro-tip: her blog title is a lie--she's totally fun

**After Anne read the work we did on the outline she tweeted this gem: "When you plan a conference presentation with @opinionsbyanna and @PLSanders, the outline specifies where GIFs will go. #themoreyouknow

***or was it?

Children's Area Makeover

Window seat area

My new library has this lovely window seat that houses a shelving unit. There are twelve compartments that with clear-bins that pull out. When I started here a few months ago the toys were pretty sad. Most of the bins were empty, and others had a sad hodgepodge of random toys rolling around in them. It wasn't inviting, and toys were often left all over the place. At first I felt like there were too many bins, and worried that if I filled them all with toys the mess would get worse in my tiny area.

Re-creation of the Sad Toy Area

I started the revamp by taking away about four of the bins. That made me feel like the project was a bit more manageable, and I didn't want more bins than toys. All of the toys here either came from S&S Worldwide or Lakeshore Learning. I was lucky to have some early literacy grant money to use. 

Ooh, shiny labels

Once I had new toys, I made labels for the bins, using both pictures and words. I wanted to promote literacy, and I also hoped it would encourage both parents *and children* to put things away in the proper place, since with the labels it is clear that everything has a proper place rather than a free-for-all.

Not pictured: Two still-empty bins to the right.

I am pleased to report that it works! The majority of the time, toys are picked up and put in the right bins, and I see a lot of awesome creative play happening. I've also been getting lots of appreciative comments from parents. What a difference some labeling can make.

Elsewhere

 Today I'm over on the ALSC blog talking about a fun way to incorporate STEM learning into your spring planning.

Click on over and check it out!

Learning to Let Go

Book Bin from The Library Store, Inc.

I'm not out to convert anybody, but to share the story of my conversion.

Let's talk about bins. Specifically bins for picture books. The kind where the books are all standing forward with the covers facing out.

I hated them.

When I started my new job I was really annoyed to find that all the libraries in the system used them. "How do you find things for the pull list?" "They aren't in order! How do you keep them in order?!" I thought it was such a disservice to users; not having things in order or easy to find. I was seriously disgruntled that I would have to deal with picture book bins. It went against every fiber of my organized librarian being.

At my old job I supervised both the library clerks and library pages. They all hated the picture books. They hated shelving them, and they REALLY hated shelf-reading them. But they needed to be shelf-read all.the.time so I was constantly dealing with push-back on picture book maintenance.  If only those darn kids would just keep their little hands off the books so they'd stay in order.

Here's what I've learned/seen with bins:

• With bins, every single bin is a display. And the best part? They are self-filling displays! If the front book gets chosen the next book proudly stands forth. No glaring empty spot in sight. There are also bins with cool little display platforms.

• Not every collection benefits from strict alphabetical order. The majority of use picture books receive is from browsers. Making the collection easier to browse is better service. Yes, it might be slightly more inconvenient to a student or someone looking for specific books...but I spent a lot of time helping people find specific books that were supposedly in order with traditional shelving too. Managed chaos is the nature of the kids area. I'm embracing it.

• Apparently (before my time) every single library in my system increased circ on picture books after bins were installed. Kids and families love them, and increased circ is something I can definitely get behind.

• Not only are they perfect kid height, and high in kid appeal, I can find things faster too. It's much quicker and more accurate for me personally to flip through covers (while standing) than to read call numbers (while kneeling on the floor). I rarely miss the book I'm looking for this way, which I would often do when scanning call numbers. The covers and art are generally much more recognizable to me. With bins, I give faster, better, more accurate service to patrons when helping them find books.

• The department stays much tidier with bins. No more facing shelves and making sure all the spines line up. No more tipped bookends. 

• I seriously wish I could go back in time and change my old library over to bins; it would have been a great fit at that little library.  Page and clerk staff at my new library also prefer the bins, so they're happier too.

Here are some other libraries using bins:

Brown Public Library, Northfield, VT
Arlington Heights Memorial Library, IL
North Community Library, LaCrosse, WI

All that being said? The DVDs are only in order as far as the first letter, and then it's a free-for-all. Drives.me.CRAZY.

Here is a House--using the iPad in Storytime

I've had this post in the draft stage for a while now, but with all the chatter on the Flannel Friday Facebook page on what to do with the (Awesome!) Folkmanis Sequoia finger puppet stage and some posts by Sharon and Erin I see that it's past due!

A while ago, I shared the house-shaped finger puppet stage that I made.

 

In case you forgot

I used it in a new way this summer that was absolutely delightful and wanted to share it with you.

I did extensive downloading and testing with my iPad to find which 'animal noise' app would be the most useful in storytime, and I was really pleased with "Music Animals," which I believe has changed its name. You can find it in the app store under the name, "Musical Flashcards" by Kids Place. It's a free app for iPhone and iPad--well, the first 12 animals are free, and then there's a small fee to get the total of 65 animals (at this point I don't recall the price, but just a few dollars). Compared with other animal apps I evaluated (many of which I bought) this was far and away the best value and best format for how I wanted to use it.

I liked it because:
--many animals on one screen.
--easy to choose which animal noise you wanted to play
--great selection; lots of useful animals and fewer of the weird ones like 'goldfish' (with the noise of bubbles (?))
--photographs of real animals
--very easy to use while also manipulating puppets

I buy Oriental Trading's plush mini bean bag animal assortment for SRP prizes, and digging through the box I was amazed that I could find over a dozen cute little stuffies to correspond with the animal noises in my app:

Combine those little cuties (or any finger puppets) with the house stage, add a cute rhyme and you've got a surefire recipe for success!

During a discussion about 'surprise' storytimes on the Flannel Friday Facebook page, someone mentioned the poem, "Here is a box." I loosely adapted the poem for my own purposes. My version is below, and you can see the original here on Katie's page.

"Here is a house
Where someone can hide
Let's knock on the door
to see who's inside (knock knock)
[use iPad for animal noise]
Yes! It's a __________!
There is no doubt
Let's look at the (window/door)
And see it pop out."

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!

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!

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.

Innovative Outreach Ideas

Image Credit

Ok everybody, we just experienced a Twitterstorm of ideas!

Katie, our friend over at Secrets & Sharing Soda AND Storytime Secrets tweeted about her need for two great innovative outreach ideas that she can implement before September. Now, concerns about the feasibility of this expectation aside, plenty of tweeps jumped in with great ideas and Mel--ever thinking Mel--noted that someone should grab these ideas from the ether and jot them down for everyone's benefit.

So here we are with round one. Keep an eye on Katie's blog for more ideas and some follow-up on what she ends up doing!

Mary, of Miss Mary Liberry fame (who happens to BE an outreach librarian) suggested:
--Teen outreach at a comic book store--maybe during Free Comic Book Day (May 5th 2012), Teen Read Week (Oct. 14-20, 2012) or Graphic Novel Week (Not sure when/what this one is).
--Outreach to senior citizens: Senior St., where librarian reads to seniors at nursing home
--Afterschool programs outreach: Boys and Girls club, etc. where librarian provides activities, crafts etc.
--Outreach to children in trailer parks, homeless shelters, community centers

Seth (Voices Inside my Headphones) suggests some online outreach--maybe a bookclub or something along those lines.

Laura (Bib-Laura-Graphy) suggests looking into local shelters for family/domestic violence, or a local Children's Hospital (or even children's department of general hospital).

Mel (Mel's Desk) had the idea to look at the library's goals and try to develop a 'sister program' with something adult services is doing. She also suggested looking into churches that offer temporary housing,
and WIC offices as possible outreach locations.

Lisa (Library Lady) suggests in-home daycare providers and public parks as possible outreach destinations.

And finally, a few ideas from yours truly:
--First Job Program (aimed at highschoolers) on getting (and keeping!) a very first job (to make this outreach instead of in-house, you could partner with local tech school or Optimists club or maybe even Chamber of Commerce for your community!
--Farmer's Market booth to promote library services/educate people about fresh/local food
--Hospital's birth education classes/groups or MOPS--targeting parent education rather than kids.
--Coordinate some kind of program for senior citizens/nursing home residents. "Ray of Sunshine" visits from families with young children to elderly folks, or kids reading to seniors.

So many great ideas!