SLP Outreach/Confessions of a School Visitor pt. 3

I've expressed my frustration with SLP school visits before--they stress me out BIG TIME, take a huge toll on my workload, and my data shows that they don't have much effect in terms of SLP sign-up.

Despite my well-laid plans for this year, I ended up making the decision not to do SLP visits to the schools this year. The reasons were many, and I had an awesome discussion about it over Twitter with several other librarians, which led Marge Loch-Wouters (who I'm delighted to call one of my stealth mentors) to write about SLP visits over on her blog, Tiny Tips for Library Fun

Sara, at Bryce Don't Play, also hit on some of the issues I've had with presenting SLP as well--I've definitely been struggling with 'The Way SLP Visits Have Always Been Done' ie: costumes and puppets. (I LOVE costumes and I LOVE doing puppets with the kids--but that just doesn't fly or seem authentic when you're trying to convince the fifth graders that the program isn't just for the first graders).

(I need to learn from Marge how to not write a book with each blog post...sigh).

Last summer I did collect data on what schools had the most participation so I could compare that with my school visits. And, as I suspected, there's little or no correlation. Regardless of whether I visited, the biggest factors were location (nearness to library) and the school's own library situation. Unsurprisingly, schools that had dedicated library staff had kids who were more likely to participate in the program. Readers gonna read.

In my geographically spread out library population, I've often considered that it doesn't matter how excited I get the kids about the program, if they can't get to the library they can't participate. It's the parents I have to find.

So with that in mind, when I was invited to participate in the City's Healthy Way Walk (booths and giveaways along the new trail around the lake to encourage families to get out and walk), I said "YES!"

I had FORTY FIVE kids sign up, fifteen of which were teens. MANY of whom said they'd never doen the program before. Let me put that into perspective for you: last year I had a total of 275 kids, 42 of which were teens (yes, small numbers overall, but steadily growing each year I've been doing this).

Onward!

Robot Storytime

One of the most common searches that brings people here is "Robot Storytime." So, by popular demand, I'm posting my robot storytime outline for your edification.

Edit: I *just* read Ame Dyckman's Boy + Bot and it's absolutely perfect for robot storytime! It would be fun to do a movement activity that had the kids doing some robot movement until the adults turned their 'off' buttons. Robot Freeze!

My favorite books are:
Hello Robots by Staake
Rolie Polie Olie by Joyce (also works for Underwear Theme)
Ribbit Rabbit by Ryan
The Three Little Aliens and the Big Bad Robot (also works for Space or Alien Theme)
The Birthday Box by Patricelli

Other books that might work for you:
Robobots by Novak
The Robot and the Bluebird by Lucas
Snowbots by Reynolds

 

We sing our opening song and jump right in with Rolie Polie Olie. I like to lead with this one because it sets the stage nicely to talk about robots. I ask them what a robot is, and we talk about machines. Some kids get REALLY excited about robots, so this is always a fun discussion. Then I tell them we're turning into robots today in storytime and we practice saying, "Hello" and "Goodbye" like robots.

This leads us nicely into our second book, Hello Robots.
After we read it, we use my Hello Robots flannel and the kids re-tell the story as I place the pieces. It's a great way to build narrative skills, and at the end we also have a discussion about the shapes and colors involved, "Which robot has a triangle body? What color is he?"

 Now it's time to get some movement going. Depending on how wiggly the group is, I would probably add one or two of our standard every-week wiggle busters like I Can Jump Jump Jump or A is for Alligator before moving on to a themed action activity that I wrote.

I Am a Robot (obviously you'll need your best robot voices and movements here)
I am a robot (march in place with 'robot arms')
I am a robot
Clank Clank (bend forward and back at waist)
Clank Clank (bend side-to-side at waist)
ZZZZZZZrt (Raise arms up while shaking them)
CRASH (Either fall, or 'lose power' or clap--my kids love anything that ends with an anticipated CLAP BANG CRASH)
(feel free to use, but please credit back--thanks!)

At this point I'd read another story. I would choose which one on the fly depending on how the group was doing. If they were antsy or skewed younger, I would read The Birthday Box by Patricelli and that would be the final book of the session. If they were older or still doing really well, I would read Ribbit Rabbit (a little shorter) or Three Little Aliens (need really good listeners for this one).

For this theme, we'll also sing a piggy-back version of "Happy and You Know It" which would obviously by "If You're a Robot and You Know It." You can easily make up your own verses, but here's what I did:

If you're a robot and you know it
Clank your coils (clap hands)
Clunk your gears (stomp feet)
Press your buttons ("Beep beep")

As far as other extension activities--basically any song or fingerplay works since all you have to do is add 'robot voice' and it's on-theme (if that's important to you).

And finally, for craft time we made robot costumes. I used brown paper bags which I prepared ahead of time. Cut straight down the middle of the back of the bag, then cut out the bottom of the bag so that the whole thing lies flat. Then cut armholes in the sides, and a half-moon out of the front for the neck. The idea is that the kids can stick their arms through and wear it--like putting a vest on backwards.

Then I put out glue, tin foil, chenille stems, markers and anything else that they might want to use to decorate their costumes.

Hope that helps!

Flannel Friday Song Cards-La Granja

Today I'm posting a Flannel Friday in the spirit with which Flannel Friday was originally conceived--As a way to keep new content on my blog when I don't have time to write any.

I made these song cards to help introduce a new song to my storytime repertoire, "La Granja." As you can see, the song is in Spanish (Thank you Captain Obvious).





Vengan a Ver mi Granja =  Come and See my Farm, and I should warn you, this song is a major earworm. BUT it's also delightful and worth learning. I generally do not use recorded music in storytime, but if you'd like to learn the song, I highly recommend José-Luis Orozco's version on De Colores

You have to do rooster; in Spanish roosters say "kikirikí"

Many kids, even in my homogeneous community, know the basic names of some animals in Spanish. However, this song relies on the diminutive ito/ita endings. For those of you who don't speak Spanish, adding ito/ita to a word basically means you're describing it as cute, little, or dear.



I wanted to make sure that kids and parents didn't get confused--if they knew that duck was "pato"  then why were we singing "patito?" I used clipart from with Microsoft Word to find the animals, and I tried to use animals that were all the same style of illustration so they would look like they went together. I had a hard time finding a font that used the correct type of lowercase 'a' but I really like this one. Unfortunately I can't remember what it is and on my Mac at home--I'll update later.



With these song cards, we identify the animals in both English and Spanish, then talk about the ito/ita endings.  We practice the words before starting the song (hello print awareness) and everyone is much more engaged than they would be if we just started singing. Once this song is familiar enough to my audience, I will probably start doing it with puppets, most likely using my barn prop.



Here is a great resource for translations of what sounds animals make in Spanish--which is a really fun discussion to have during storytime!



This song translates pretty well to English too, so if you'd like to learn the song both in English and Spanish I'd be happy to share my translation.  Enjoy!

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