Blog posts this week

  Due to the end of Summer Reading, as you see, I have decreased the amount of posts the past 2 weeks. This week I am just posting on Friday about the Summer Reading parties. Thank you! Also there will be no posts from September 14-20, as I am going away on vacation.

Thursday's Post Topic: End of Summer Special Programs

This week we hosted two special programs , an local author visit and origami with a presenter picked from our Asst. Head of Children's Services for the library system. Both programs were great! I decided I wanted some fun programs to close off the Summer Reading Club, aside from the parties, which are happening next week.

 The first program was the author visit. The author is a friend of mine, Marcia Nass, who is a retired first grade teacher who published her first book. She read her book , "How to be a Bully, Not!" and was terrific with the kids. I loved the story and the way she presented it. The kids enjoyed it! Then she did a related craft with the story. The book she wrote is a picture book about bullying. Basically, the main character thinks he will be cool if he becomes a bully like his brother, but realizes he is actually cool being the nice guy he is. At the end he wears a crown saying "just like me" showing he was happy to be himself. So the kids all decorated crowns and wrote what they liked about themselves.  It is a great book and it has related activities at the end. If anyone is interested, give me your email and I can give you more information. Sadly I did not have any pictures of that program but I will say that the kids looked adorable in their crowns. They really enjoyed themselves and were very creative with the crowns.

 The second program was the origami program. The presenter, Karen Wellington, was great. She did a book talk on "Sadako and the Thousand Cranes". If you don't know this story, it is a bittersweet and heartfeld story about a sick girl who with the help of a friend decides to make 1,000 paper cranes because she heard a legend that the gods will make one feel better if they make 1000 paper cranes. In this book, they explain how to make a paper crane. Since there were a number of little kids, she decided to modify this and have them make a swan instead of a crane. They made two. They practiced on regular colored paper and then made their second one on the shiny colored paper. She was very helpful and also many of the parents came in to help the kids. I even made two of the origami items (shiny paper crane and lotus flowers). The kids loved making the origami and liked the presenter. I would definitely have her again at the library.

Here are some pictures of the origami that was made:

Monday's Post Topic: Summer Reading Post Part II

We'll I'm back and continuing with this topic. Hope you enjoy.

5. For food for the parties, it is easiest for many reasons to get the prepackaged individual chips you can get in bulk in Costco (and candy and cookies too if they have). It is less messy overall and less work.

6. I found an easy way to keep track of the book tallies of the kids who used the paper logs and not the computer system on Excel. It makes adding up the numbers a lot less time consuming. In a unrelated note, this method also helps me when I am doing book ordering.

7. Having many raffles at the party is a big draw and is a great way kill some of the time for Summer Reading.

8. It is good to have two sessions of storytime because it makes it a lot easier to be organized and having a more intimate group (even if that group is 15 kids compared to 30 kids, makes for better participation for the kids).

9. Plan the volunteer schedule way ahead of time. Make sure there is plenty of time to find volunteers and iron out their schedules and it is better to have too many because inevitably at some point one will not show up.

 I am so excited to be in the home stretch. It is kind of funny to see that a number of libraries are already done and some of them are already doing back to school programs.

Friday's Topic: Summer Reading is Almost Coming to a Close: Part I

 As I had mentioned the other day, I am basically finished with the formal programming of Summer Reading. All that I have left is two programs by outside presenters and the parties. I will get to those later. What I want to discuss today is how I felt Summer Reading went this Summer and how I improved from when I first started 6 years ago.

 My first year as a children's librarian, I was working part time as a trainee out in Long Island with several other children's librarians. That was a great way to introduce me to the field and teach me a lot because I learned from the other librarians there. That is not to say that the first Summer Reading I ever did was not without challenges, but it was a lot easier because I had a lot of support from the other staff members.

 Then, the following year I got a job as a children's librarian in Queens. Don't get me wrong, I love my job but it was very challenging at first going from a library with several children's librarians to a library where I was the sole children's librarian. The first summer reading program at this library, I don't know how I got through it. I asked a million questions of my mentor, a talented and terrific children's librarian named Jillian. I was worried how it would turn out but I did not have specific concerns because I did not do it before, I did not know what to expect. I learned some important things that summer:

1. Make sure I plan out how I want to work the waiting list. This took me a few years to figure out because attendance in the summer is unpredictable but even with that, a pattern emerged the last few years. The pattern was that program attendance was strong in the beginning of the summer, but became more quiet later on. My latest idea was to call people and if they didn't come after 2 or 3 times, basically just write them off and let other people come. Also we told the families when we called them that we had a waiting list and if they were not interested to let me know so we could let someone else off the waiting list come. A number of parents were very receptive to this and let me know if they changed their mind about attending for the summer.

2. Make sure everything is planned out ahead and the crafts can be realistically completed. Initially when I first started Summer Reading at this library, I thought I had to have all these elaborate crafts with materials. It turned out those materials were very costly and the crafts were difficult for the children to do. I knew we had a manual but I did not play much attention to it. I learned after the summer, the Summer Reading Manual is my bible and my best friend for Summer Reading. There are so many great ideas in there that are easy and with readily available craft supplies.

3. I do not need to do separate groups for the K-3 and the 4-6 grades crowds. It turned out for my 4-6 grade craft only a handful of kids came. So I turned it into a Summer Reading Craft for school aged kids. I also discovered some collage type crafts which allow the kids to be very creative and are good for K-6 grades kids.

4. Make sure I have everything I need for the party and it is organized well before the party begins. I found it is always difficult to do the party no matter how much experience you have because of space, preparation and time constraints. I learned that though having a lot of volunteers makes it smoother and better organization helped make the party flow better.  One of the most obvious things..have two parties if you have too many kids.

I see this is a long post, so I will continue it on Monday. Enjoy your weekends all!

Wednesday's Post: Last week of Preschool Summer Storytime

  This will be one of the last sessions of Preschool Summer Storytime. Then I will take a much deserved break :) and continue in the end of September my regular fall Toddler Storytime and Mother Goose Storytime. Toddler Time is for ages 2-4 and Mother Goose is for ages 5 mos-2. This week's theme was multiculturalism. We read the following three books:

Seals on the Bus by Lenny Hort


                                                                
One is a Drummer: A Book of Numbers by Roseanne Thong

                                                                
Shades of People by Shelley Rotner


   These books were good because they invite children to answer questions about the numbers, colors and people. However, I don't know why, but the kids were not able to concentrate on the books today (more so the last book). I think maybe it is because we had a small group and the content of some of the kids in the group.

   Favorite songs this week: Happy and You Know it, Ring around the Rosie and Hokey Pokey.

   The craft we did today was multicultural dolls. I hope to get a picture up. There were paper doll cutouts with clothes from different countries and the kids got to dress up a few dolls and glue and color the clothes. They had fun. After they did some related coloring sheets.

Tuesday's Topic: Book Talk-Lunch by Denise Fleming

 Lunch is an adorable picture book by Denise Fleming. Denise writes a lot of great books for storytime such as: Mama Cat Has Three Kittens and In a Small, Small Pond among many others. This book is colorfully illustrated and simple enough for kids 2 and up. There is a mouse who loves to eat all sorts of fruits and vegetables. I have a set of plush soft fabric fruit that I use with this story and its a hit. This story is great to use for many concepts such as color and foods. The book is highly recommended for kids 2-5 for storytimes or to be read one on one.

Monday's Post: Summer Reading Craft (last craft in the summer)

  This is the final week of regular Summer Reading programming. Next week we have two presenters coming in, so we have activities, but I am not really running them. The two activities we will have is an author visit and origami. It should be fun.

  For the final craft, we did the theme of Australia and Africa. For Australia, they decorated a boomerang.  For Africa, they made a tribal mask. I hope to have pictures on here soon. They used foam pieces, markers, sequins, and beads for them. They looked great and the kids had fun.

 This is also the final week for children to submit their book logs or printouts of their books. I have a bulletin board where I made cutouts of luggages and children wrote their names on it, when they submitted a book log and they are all over the bulletin board. I worked it out so if they handed in a book log or printout, they get an invitation to the party. One is for kids 1-7 and another is for the older kids. Obviously if there are siblings, they can have the choice of going to one of the parties, whichever is more convenient. Normally, in the past, if there were other kids who did not complete the summer reading club and wanted to go the party, I would have a list of the kids who were invited and let them in first. If there was space, the other kids could stay but they would not get prizes. However, if they wanted I would give them a book log and register them and they could hand it in and get the prizes at a later date. It would be too late for them to do the raffle.

 I have to admit I am so happy it is winding down because even though its fun, it is so tiring. Glad had I some good volunteers to help.

Thursday's Post: Summer Reading Preschool Storytime 5

  Yesterday's theme was food. We did three books related to food and our favorite Seals on the Bus.

These are the three books:

Seals on the Bus by Lenny Hort

Today is Monday! by Eric Carle

Lunch by Denise Fleming



Fast Food Gulp! Gulp! by Bernard Waber

   For the Today is Monday book, I did the song version of it with them. For the Lunch book, I had soft fabric large size fruit. I held up each fruit and had them try to guess what it is.

  Favorite songs of the week: Five Little Monkeys, Hokey Pokey, Head and Shoulders, Knees and Toes

  I will try to post pictures soon

Wednesday's Post: The Dewey Race

  Yesterday I did a program we did for the first time at the library. We are a member of the Collaborative Summer Reading Program. Our theme this year was One World Many Books. One of the activities in the guide is the Dewey Race. I was going to take pictures but we were very busy and I didn't get a chance for someone to get the camera out of the safe for me.

 If you ever watched the show Amazing Race, you would have a general idea of what this program is like. If you do not know the show, the Amazing Race, basically it is a game show which teams compete in challenges all around the world to get prizes and win a grand prize of $250,000. Obviously we do not have prizes like that at the library, but we had some cute little prizes and lots of fun. Basically the point of this program was to teach the kids about the Dewey Decimal system. I did do an introductory mini lesson about it. It was hard to tell if the kids were taking it in our just anxiously waiting for the event to begin. The ages of the kids at this program were 7-11. I would say though ages 8 and up is better. We had one 7 year old and I don't know if it was because he was confused about some of the challenges or was bored, but he left his partner mid race.

  Instead of visiting different countries and doing different challenges, the children were to visit different parts of the Dewey Decimal system and do different challenges related to certain Dewey Subjects. For example, for the 800s, they had to either read a poem or fill in the blanks in the poem of missing words. Since this was the first time we did the program, certain things do not go as planned. It appeared one of the volunteers was confused about distribution of the pitstop prizes (they had to go to dewey section pit stop and present their "passports"). They gave prizes to each team at each pit stop. They were supposed to give the prize to the first place finisher. This however worked out okay, because more kids were able to get the small prizes. Also, since it was the first time we did this program, the volunteers had some confusion about the challenges and it was hard to get things moving because of the confusion (also on the kids' part too). Now that we "ironed out the kinks", next year, if we do it, it would be easier because I would know how it would go. Obviously I would have to totally change or mildly alter some of the challenges, but it would still work.

 I would definitely recommend this program in the library. Here are the modifications I would make if I did it next year:

1. Make sure the volunteers have a little more training regarding the challenges and prizes.
2. Make sure you have enough supplies for the challenges for all the kids (it was difficult because we had some people attend the last minute), but I would overestimate next time.

Tuesday's Post: Spotlight on the Warriors Series

   About 5 years ago, I started to read the Warriors series by Erin Hunter. I only picked up the first book because it was so popular in the library and I wanted to know more about the series. I instantly fell in love with the animal/adventure series and its protagonist, Rusty/Firepaw. This series is not just for cat lovers (but it sure helps if you do like them :)), but for anyone who likes adventure, family and animal stories. Recommended ages is 9-12, but as I said, people over that age may like it too. I will not give away any spoilers here, but there are several Warriors series that include different members of Rusty/Firepaw's family and the members of Thunderclan and other clans.

  I found the first series to be the best, but they are all good. Not only are there the 4 Warriors series, but graphic novels and special edition books. My personal favorite Special Edition book is: SkyClan's Destiny.

  Erin Hunter is actually the pen name of three women who write the series together. One is the editor who gives ideas and the other two ladies take turns writing the books. Erin Hunter also has another series, Seekers, which is the journey of a group of bears across the Northern US and Northern Canada. It is good but not as good as the Warriors.

  Here is the cover of the first Warriors book. If you haven't read it, please do and I hope you fall in love with Rusty/Firepaw, like I did.

Monday's Topic: Summer Reading Craft Week 5

 This week's craft theme was recyclables. We used materials that you could get for free and can be reused. We made a shell pet and a newspaper puppet. Pictures will follow later. To decorate the newspaper puppet, they used sequins, foam pieces, stickers and markers. The craft was easy to make and they really enjoyed it. After the program was done, they did a connect the dots giraffe handout.

Thursday's Post: Preschool Storytime Session 4

  Yesterday's theme was colors. These are the books we read:


My World of Color by Margaret Wise Brown




Mouse Paint by Ellen Stoll Walsh



And of course....

Seals on the Bus by Lenny Hort

   Seals on the Bus is always a favorite. They love singing it with me. The World of Color was great because I asked children questions about the colors and animals and several of the kids loved responding with answers. The children thought Mouse Paint was cute and several of the same kids responded to the questions about the colors. I am sure the littler ones even though they were not able to or felt comfortable responding, they were taking it all in.

Favorite songs of the week: 5 Little Ducks, Hokey Pokey and Ring a Round the Rosy.

  The craft was a color snake from dltk-kids.com. Kids enjoyed coloring in the snake segments that corresponded to different colors. Below is a sample of the craft.

Tuesday's Post: Book Talk: The Family Book by Todd Parr

    I used this book for my storytime a few weeks ago. I was drawn to this book because I read one of Todd Parr's books before and fell in love with his concepts and illustrations. All of his books have simple brightly colored illustrations. The themes of his book take more difficult concepts and make them more easily explainable to young children. For example, there is a book about peace, the earth and feelings. This book focuses on the different types of families. He focuses on single parent families, gay/lesbian families, families from different countries and many more. This book was popular in the storytime. I highly recommend this book for storytime and for families to read together.

Monday's Topic: Summer Reading Craft Week 4

   There wasn't a formal theme for today's craft. This was partly due to the fact that we had to do the craft out in the children's room because of the book club meeting. I guess if you could pick a theme, it would be the USA. I have picked themes related to different places in the world. We had a craft for the children to decorate "their house". Basically this is a cut out from cardstock paper and they decorated it with markers, beads, stickers and foam pieces. They were very creative and had a great time with this craft. I will post a picture on here soon. After they did the house craft, they did patriotic coloring sheets or word search. Considering we had 17 kids and did this program in the children's room, it went very well.