Earth Day Story Time

Last week was Earth Day, and it fell on our regular story time day. In spite of our audience of toddlers, I wanted to celebrate it–in part because our newly renovated library includes a rain garden, permeable pavement and a bioswale, so we’re all about the green programming. And also I don’t think you can start too young in teaching kids to respect and appreciate the world around them.

I wanted books that celebrated the Earth, and focused on plants, picking up after yourself, and a little bit about trash/recycling.

After our hello songs we started with Junkyard, by Mike Austin. A rhyming story of Munching Machines that eat up the trash to make room for a playground/park. I think I like this in part because it is a little reminiscent of Wall-E, though the machines are not as cute.

We mirrored the book with our activity. I threw a bunch of recyclables around the room, and as we sang, the kids could bring something up to the recycling bin. With older kids, we could have tried to get each type at a time, but with the little ones they just went at it. I adapted the song from Preschool Education.

(Sung to “Row, Row, Row Your Boat”):

Toss, toss, toss the paper, in the recycle bin,
We can help to save the earth if we all pitch in.
Toss, toss, toss the cardboard….
Toss, toss, toss the plastics….

Next was The Earth Book by Todd Parr. I love his bright illustrations, though there is usually a page in his books that is a little out there (this one had a reference to Martians). A little girl pointed out that the shoes in one the pictures weren’t matching. Yup, I love Todd Parr.

Then another adapted rhyme from Preschool Education.

This Whole Earth (to the tune of “This Old Man”)

This whole earth (arms in a circle)
Needs our help (hands extended together)
To keep the water clean and the land green (swim motion, arms like a tree)
So we pick trash up and throw it in the can–
This whole earth needs a helping hand! (arms in circle, then hands extended)

We acted this one out a couple times together.

Our final book was All the World by Liz Garton Scanlon. This is beautifully illustrated book has short, poetic rhyming phrases that show how we are all interconnected. Maybe a bit lofty for the kids, but I like to throw in some titles I think the parents will appreciate, too.

Other great Earth Day titles:

 

 

The Day the Crayons Party!

 

I am not alone in my love for The Day the Crayons Quit and The Day the Crayons Came Home, both written by Drew Daywalt and illustrated by Oliver Jeffers. Since our story time crowd is a little young for those books, I planned a special evening event. I added a third title, Red, A Crayon’s Story, by Michael Hall, to round it out and introduce a lesser-known but also great book.

Several in the crowd were already familiar with Daywalt’s books, as I had figured (our several copies are consistently checked out) so I tried to amp up the stories by doing a little bit more of a production. I served rainbow-colored popcorn (adapted from recipes I found on Pinterest) and I copied the actual letters from the books and folded them up into envelopes so I could pull them off the stack and read them one by one. This was fun, and I added pictures to the front of the envelopes as a hint of what color would be next. I showed the illustrations from the book on our big screen (scanned into a PowerPoint).

We did a simple color song after the first story, to the tune of Twinkle Twinkle:

Red, red is the color I see.

If you are wearing red then show it to me.

Stand up and spin around.

Show me your red then sit back down.

What is the next color I see?

If you know it then tell it to me.

I let the kids pick the next color (of course, the suggestions were always a color the child was wearing–though they didn’t actually always follow through with the song’s instructions of standing up, etc).

Then we read the Michael Hall book, which has a great message about being true to yourself and accepting others for what they are. So then we danced around with colorful scarves and egg shakers to “True Colors” (we used the Glee Soundtrack version).

The final book I did as the first one, with a stack of postcards to read aloud. The kids really enjoyed this one a lot, as did I. I love Esteban–when I read it to myself, I imagine him talking like Antonio Banderas. (Which I can’t do, so I just tried to ham it up.)

We finished with an art project of making your own postcard. A few made great crayon postcards, and one mother told me her daughter wasn’t usually interested in coloring, so it was great to see her excited about the art project!

 

Book Explorers

Traditional book clubs don’t seem to work at our libraries when it comes to children and families. It’s hard to get consistent participation, and often those who checked out the book would not show, and vice versa.

So this year we are trying a new version of a family book club. I call it “Book Explorers” in hopes that it sounds more appealing. It’s a monthly program that starts with reading the first few chapters out loud, then a little book discussion, and finally an activity or two that relates to the book. I chose to focus on 4th – 6th grade books.

We started with The Name of This Book is Secret by Pseudonymous Bosch. A fun read that combines mystery, humor, spies, Egyptian mythology, and the five senses, this first book in the series had great read-aloud potential and lots of directions to go in for activities.

The first session didn’t quite go as planned. The ages I was hoping for didn’t materialize, and we had a half a dozen kids under the age of 9 (I think the youngest was about 4) with one or two kids in our target demographic. Not wanting to turn away those who came, I pointed out our program wasn’t designed for their ages but they were welcome to stay and participate if desired, and most did end up staying for the majority of the program. We started by getting everyone a spy name using the chart to the right.

The reading aloud part went well for those who tried it (obviously some of the young ones didn’t) and the audience (mostly) listened  (again, the too-young were a bit squirrelly for this part). I made sure to talk about respecting the reader, and was ready to help with any of the tougher vocabulary.

The activity part went more smoothly, as the younger kids could participate more. I set up several stations, with the most popular one being the Symphony of Smells. In the book, it’s a suitcase the children discover with strange-smelling vials. We tested our own noses with a variety of (mostly pleasant) smells. The cups were covered with a lid that had a hole in it, so they could smell but not really see what was inside. Then they were to choose whether it was a good, bad or neutral smell, and identify it if they could. Most people were able to identify at least half of the smells correctly.

Pigpen Cipher

Since the book also has a lot of spy elements to it, we also did some code making and breaking. We had several types of ciphers, and the kids could try to decode some of the already written messages (for self-serving phrases like “the library is awesome”) or make one to leave for someone else. Some kids were more into this than others. A few rather enjoyed translating into hieroglyphics, and the simple numerical substitutions were easy to decode.

All in all, it was a fun program and even the younger kids enjoyed it. I’m hoping to get some repeating families and then build book choices off their specific interests, as well as reaching out to more of the schools in the area.

 

A Frozen Valentine’s Day

For some reason, none of our library branches has ever had a Frozen-related program. But the popularity of the movie (and books, costumes, and toys) is unflagging, so I thought it was past time to change that.

I have seen the movie, once, but heard the songs many, many times, most often  courtesy of my two-and-a-half year old niece. And I happened to have a costume I wore last year to work for Halloween. (Because I had already had the blonde wig, having gone also as Daenerys Targaryen, I decided last year to adapt an old dress from Goodwill to be Elsa. I love Halloween, and dressing up, and always like to wear something the kids will appreciate at work. The dress was a bit wonky, but recognizable enough.) My co-worker had a costume planned that she had to change when her pregnancy made it impossible to fit into. Olaf was the perfect option to capitalize on her baby bump! We got a Frozen background with cardboard characters that we added foam to so they were sturdy and made great props for the photo booth.

The costumes went over well. Most of the little ones thought Elsa and Olaf had really come to the party, and we got asked to pose in photos with them. My big brush with fame! Of course, one of the older girls pointed at me accusingly and said, “You’re a fake!” (I had not proclaimed myself to be the real Elsa, it should be noted, and I was wearing my staff badge, so this seemed unnecessary).

Making valentines was an obvious but fun activity, and I got traditional red, white and pink heart-shaped doilies, plus lots of Frozen and valentine-ish stickers. A couple kids even made valentines for Elsa and Olaf!

 

We decorated crowns/tiaras from Oriental Trading, with “glittery” watercolors (that turned out to be shimmery at best) and fake jewels.

And we had marshmallow Olafs, with pretzel arms and chocolate chip buttons/eyes.

We  had Pin-the-Nose-on-Olaf set up in the corner. I also wanted an activity that wasn’t a craft or a game, and came across this on Pinterest. It was admittedly rather messy, but I don’t mind a little extra clean-up to add science and substance to a program.

Overall, we had about a hundred people attend, and everyone had fun. I forgot a few things, as I always seem to do–either by running out of time or due to distraction, and this time it was the music. I started to set it up, got called away, and never returned to it. That would have been great, though there were so many people in the room I don’t know if everyone would have been able to hear it anyway (or that’s what I tell myself).

 

Winter Clothes

 

Book: The Mitten by Jan Brett

This is a longer book with beautifully detailed illustrations–which makes it hard to share with toddlers. Luckily, we have a set that contains a large, white handmade mitten and all of the characters from the story. So I told the story and acted it out, with each animal appearing, finding the mitten, and crawling inside. It was especially fun at the end when the mitten popped them all out! I encouraged them to look at the pictures in the book at the end of story time but they were more interested in playing with the animals.

Song: If It’s Snowy and You Know It (to the tune of If You’re Happy and You Know It)

Book: A Hat for Minerva Louise by Janet Morgan Stoeke

I love Minerva Louise. She’s got an Amelia Bedelia-like sensibility–she misunderstands and misuses things, which results in silly illustrations like trying to wear a hose as a scarf. The kids get the humor in the pictures, but I think she has high adult appeal too.

Song: “Shake Your Sillies Out” by The Wiggles (from the Yummy, Yummy CD, though we use the YouTube video)

Though I like the Raffi version better, I chose the Wiggles video because it doesn’t have an actual video, just the CD cover, which I think is less distracting and keeps the kids on track (I’m afraid they’d just sit there watching the video and forget to move around).

Book: Froggy Gets Dressed by Jonathan London

Another long book that we did as more of a telling, having the kids come up to help dress our Froggy doll in his long underwear, pants, shirt, socks, boots, hat and scarf, and then taking it back off. Several kids dressed/undressed Froggy during play time, so I think he was a hit.

Song: The Winter Pokey

You put your right mitten in,

You put your right mitten out,

You put your right mitten in,

And you shake it all about.

You do the winter pokey (brr!)

And turn yourself around.

That’s what it’s all about!

(Repeat: mittens, boots, hat, snowsuit)

I have to work on streamlining the clean-up process. Because we have little ones, I wipe down all of the toys after each session. So it’s a busy day, with the program, two hours on desk, lunch, then cleaning everything up and putting it away from the program, and finishing with another two hours on the reference desk. I always hit my 10,000 steps on story time day!

 

Story Time

We do weekly story times at each library branch in our system, which in the past had been a preschool story time at our location. But as kids are starting preschool younger, we were getting toddlers and babies more than any kids in the 3 to 5 range. So when our library reopened, we switched to what we call a “playgroup with stories”. The format includes shorter stories, more movement, and follows the 20+ minute story time with 30+ minutes of play with educational, age-appropriate toys. This suits our younger audience’s attention span, and allows families to talk and play together.

Our new meeting room includes a flat screen TV, so I used a co-worker’s template for a PowerPoint for each session that shows the books, rhymes, and songs we do so parents can follow along. It’s a little awkward to have the laptop to deal with on top of books and props, but it works well to keep me on track and I can manage to get a couple early literacy messages in this way.

Snowy Story Time

The Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats

Since it’s the longest, we did The Snowy Day first, as a big book, which helped with our large group (though I always tend to fumble a bit more with the awkward size).

Song: If It’s Snowy and You Know It (to the tune of If You’re Happy and You Know It)

If it’s snowy and you know it, clap your mittens.

If it’s snowy and you know it, clap your mittens.

If it’s snowy and you know it, roll a snowball up and throw it,

If it’s snowy and you know it, clap your mittens.

Repeat with stomp your boots, make a snow angel…

Snowballs by Lois Ehlert

I just love Ehlert’s style, and the kids enjoy recognizing the different materials used in the snowmen. I’ve used this with older kids too, and it makes a fun craft to decorate paper snowmen with random craft supplies.

Snowman Flannelboard

Song: “Snowflakes” (to the tune of Teddy Bear, Credit: Cheryl’s Sweethearts ChildCare)

Snowflakes, snowflakes, dance around,

Snowflakes, snowflakes, touch the ground.

Snowflakes, snowflakes, in the air.

Snowflakes, snowflakes, everywhere.

Snowflakes, snowflakes, dance around,

Snowflakes, snowflakes, touch the ground.

With this rhyme I gave everyone a foam snowflake to dance around with. We repeated the song, and this time put all of the snowflakes on the parachute to really make them dance around! We did this twice, and then segued to the play time. We didn’t have time for The First Snowfall by Anne Rockwell, but it is a good book for this age and covers a variety of snowy activities so it would have fit right in.

I don’t plan to always do a craft, but I had a fun one I’ve used before that I knew would be a hit, so I made snowy “paint” by mixing shaving cream and glue (also fun with glitter to give it sparkle if you have some on hand). Then they could personalize a cutout of Peter and make their own snowy scene:

You can see one of our foam “snowflakes” was included on this one.

I was a little nervous for my first story time–I had only done one or two story times in the past year! And it was a different format for our returning families to get used to (though I saw mostly new faces), but in spite of a little bit of chaos (expected with 23 babies and toddlers!) I think it was a good start for our first story time.

 

 

New Library, New Blog!

Since I started working in libraries five years ago, I’ve found dozens of librarian blogs filled with tons of great ideas, inspiration and practical advice. I will try to connect you with some of my favorites…once I figure out how to do it.

Because I have no idea how to blog. I like the idea of tracking my programs and having a record for myself as much as sharing resources with the online library community that is a constant help to me, but practically speaking, I have no idea how this works. Which is why I have resisted attempting it until now. But it’s a new year, and we just finished the renovation of a new library, so what better time to start a new blog?

Our library building had been mostly unchanged for decades, so we went from 70s style color schemes, mismatched furniture, a poor heating system and inaccessibility issues to a new library… with it’s own set of new issues (our alarm went off every single time we set it for the first month). But everything is a chic, sleek update, from the floors, the wall colors (mostly neutral tones, with a couple pops of color), equipment, and shelving. We even changed our reference model to “proactive customer service”, which means we no longer have a reference desk on the floor (more on that later).

And we’ve amped up the amount of programming we offer. We changed out a preschool story time for a “playgroup with stories” and are attempting a new book club, plus a slew of family and adult programming.

So I’m going to attempt to document the fun–and failures–as I go along. I hope you’ll join me.