Life Sized Chutes and Ladders

This fabulous idea came from Amy at Show Me Librarian. I followed Amy's program to a tee, but I learned some thing will be helpful if I do this program again, or for a larger crowd. First, go read Amy’s post so that what I’m about to write makes any sense.

Like Amy, I had about a dozen participants, but the most I had playing at any one time was about seven. I followed Amy’s tip, and had the kids wear nametags with numbers to make turn-taking easier.

Books for checkout, and the numbered name tags I had players wear

 The big thing I would do differently is that I would make a set of ten LARGE numbered placards for them to wear around their necks. I would skip the names, since I referred to them by their numbers anyway, and I would limit the amount of players in one game to no more than 10. As kids come in, I would have them take a number, 1-10. If more than ten kids arrived to play, the extras would line up ‘on deck’ and would replace the winners as they made it to the end. As each player in the first game makes it to the end, they would hand off their placard to the next kid in line. The winners could be done, or if they wanted to play again they would go to the end of the line. I would keep letting new kids replace winners until it got to the point that the very first winner would start over. At that point, I wouldn’t let any numbers re-enter until we finished the game completely (allowing everyone to make it to the end). Then I would start a new game entirely! 

The thin masking tape connects the spaces to show game direction; the thick masking tape shows ladders, and yarn shows the chutes.

Instead of a physical spinner, I found cool customizable spinner online called Wheel Decide, and used our community room's laptop/projector to make the spinner huge on the wall. I clicked the button to spin each turn, and announced the results, but it was also projected on the wall behind me, so the kids could see it. They really got into the drama of watching the spinner and hoping it was going to land on the color they wanted. It was super awesome fun, and I will definitely use Wheel Decide in the future any time I need to use a spinner. Below I show how to customize it, and here is the finished product that I made.

Easy as 1,2,3!

1. Go to advanced options
2. Choose the color scheme that you want
3. Write in the labels for each space on the spinner. To make sure the colors match the words, use the same word order that is listed in #2
4. Don't forget to name your wheel!

Supplies List:

• Leftover SRP books for prizes (I spread them on a table)
• Candy treats to hand out after the first game, for kids to enjoy while I modified the board
• Masking tape to make the ladders (Need to somehow differentiate from the tape used to show game board direction—I used thick tape)
• Masking tape to connect the spaces/show which direction the board moves in
• Book tape or masking tape to secure the spaces to the floor
• Yarn for chutes
• Library books about games for kids to checkout
• Placards numbered 1-10 for kids to wear around their necks
• Construction paper—12-13 sheets each of red, yellow, green, blue (I collated them ahead of time which was a lifesaver when I was getting set up for the game!)
• Spinner/Laptop, projector, wi-fi to use online spinner
• Optional: cd player for background music.

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.

Wimpy Station

Huzzah! A new Diary of a Wimpy Kid book approacheth.

In honor of the new book coming soon, I wanted to set something Wimpy up at my stealth activity station. Finding things hidden around the library is always popular, and I hadn't done it since Spy Week back in March, so that's what I decided to do.

Quick, but successful!

The finished station has a backdrop with each of the six characters, and word bubbles with instructions for what to do.

"Can you find and name all six characters? They are hidden around the kid's section of the library (don't forget to look in nonfiction!)."

There's a spot to fill in each character's name, and a check box for kids to mark when they find them hidden around the library.

I always try to hide things at different levels

Found one!

Book 8 Poster

I also threw together a quick poster with the name of the new book (after making sure there was a record in the catalog for them to put requests on). 

This station only took about a 30-40 minutes to put together, and if you use the stuff I created it would only take YOU about ten minutes, as the majority of the time was spent noodling around in Word getting all the images right. Email me through opinionsbyanna at gmail and I'll share!

**edit: Now that the station has been up for a week, I recommend that you also put out some kind of box to collect the completed sheets. I am not doing a drawing or giving out prizes, but I've gotten a lot of kids wondering what to do with their sheets once they're done. I have been telling them to keep them, that it's "Just a fun thing to do while you're at the library!" since I really don't want to build an expectation that they get a prize for everything they do at the library, but a collection box or basket would help. 

Elsewhere: Green Bean Blog

Hello! I wrote an article for Sarah's awesome ongoing series, "So You Want to Read Middle Grade." Head over to Green Bean Teen Queen to check it out.

P.S. writing this on my phone in the car while on vacation: please excuse any mistakes :)

Teen Room Display

Though I don't directly work with teens, I am still the on-site advocate for teens at my branch. Due to the demise of Google Reader, I don't know where this fab idea first came from--but it wasn't mine. Sad face.

Just Give Me a Reason...What books do YOU recommend?

Post-its, a writing prompt pulled from the title of a Top 40 song, markers, and a poster frame lined with colorful paper.

It took a while to get started...

But it began to catch on...

Yep, the teens are my branch are excited about books and reading--no doubt about it! I am thinking I'll change it to ask for favorite quotes next.

What else could I do?

 

Book Club--Wonder by R.J. Palacio

Today was the first meeting of our four-week 6th and 7th grade summer book club. The first book was Wonder by R.J. Palacio, a book which I love deeply and truly. Still, I fretted about making it awesome--if kids thought week one was lame they wouldn't come back. And with only seven kids signed up, that's a lot of pressure to not wreck the bookclub.

It was awesome.

Unsurprisingly, all the kids declined to be in the shot.

So, you can't see it very well in the photo, but please note the rubber mallet sticking out of the box. This was an important piece of our successful hour.

It was a very shy group. Fortunately one of my life-skills is making shy people feel comfortable (through making a fool of myself, mostly), so no one wanted to leave after the hour was up!

We started by watching the book trailer, and giving general impressions of the book. Since they were not very talkative, I talked a little about precepts and kindness, and they shared which precept from the book they liked best. Then I had them write something kind on a piece of paper I had pre-cut into squares, and then we folded them into paper balloons. We also talked about pets while this was going on. It was a good kind of ice-breaker activity. We also listened to the Bowie song from the book while we were doing this.

Then I showed them the "Choose Kind" pledge and website, and we had a good discussion about the bullying in the book. I asked the question, "What was the worst instance of bullying in the book?" and one of the girls said that for Auggie they were all the same--so insightful! Then I introduced our final activity, which is where the rubber mallet came in. I talked about a personal instance of bullying I experienced as a kid, and we talked about how we have ALL been bullied or at the very least witnesses bullying. So I had them think of a time they'd felt or witnessed bullying, then write one or two words that represented that story on a strip of paper. Next we put the strips into the cardboard tubes and SMASHED them.

It was great!

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.