Flannel Friday-Leaves

This is another of my monthly flannelboards in our Activity Room.  I always hang a sign next to the board to give parents ideas of what to talk about.

Then I add in my flannelboard parts.  This month I have 9 leaves in 3 different colors and shapes.  There are a lot of matching opportunities.  Plus, since it is fall in Michigan, many of us have these leaves in these colors in our yards at home.

This week's Flannel Friday round-up is being hosted by Library Village!  Stop by for some great ideas.

If you want to know more about Flannel Friday:

• Check out the official Flannel Friday blog that includes schedules and other important information.
• Search for images and links on our Pinterest page.
• Discuss story time stuff (and other ys stuff) on the Flannel Friday Facebook page.
• Follow #flannelstorytime on Twitter.

Flannel Friday-Apples

We have a flannelboard in our Activity Room that our kids just love.  Every month I try to change the activity and sign.  Since apples are big in Michigan in the fall, this month's flannelboard has apples.

Instead of a rhyme this month, I suggest different activities that parents can do with their kids on the flannelboard.  For example, match all of the apples that are the same color.  My sign looks like this.

Our goal is to highlight why this activity is important, rather than just being a play toy (although it is that too). By showing parents different early literacy practices, we are hopefully reinforcing the importance of the public library and giving them ideas of activities to try at home.

This week's Flannel Friday round-up is hosted by Bridget at What is Bridget Reading?

If you want to know more about Flannel Friday:

• Check out the official Flannel Friday blog that includes schedules and other important information.
• Search for images and links on our Pinterest page.
• Discuss story time stuff (and other ys stuff) on the Flannel Friday Facebook page.
• Follow #flannelstorytime on Twitter.

Flannel Friday-Building Blocks

I needed a new activity for our Activity Room's flannelboard and found this great one on the Flannel Friday Pinterest site.  You may remember this one from Mel's Desk or Storytime Katie.  I made my shapes using different colors of felt and our die cut machine.  Some of our parents like to be told what to do so I made a sign (somehow the kids always know what to do!).

You can play with these shapes by building creations.

You can also match the colors.

 

 You can also match the shapes.

I am hosting this week's Flannel Friday round-up here.

Total Activity Room Makeover

As a manager, one of my jobs is to make sure that everything in the children's area is in good condition and looks good for the public.  Our Activity Room was one of the first areas that I wanted to tackle this year.  It is a highly used room with toys and puzzles geared towards young children.  Families come to the library and will spend all day in there playing, especially with how cold it has been this year. 

I think of the picture above as my "before" picture.  Toys sometimes got picked up, although staff were in there more times than not.  Things ended up looking messy and didn't make the best use of the space.  In addition, some of the puzzles were worn out or missing pieces.  

Here's "before" picture number 2.  I don't know if you can see it, but there are giant black scuff marks along the side of the Market.  Kids had also put stickers on the Market shelves.

Here's what we did:
Step one was to ask our Friends of the Library for money to replace items.  While I didn't know everything that we would need, I asked for $500.  At my library, toys don't come out of our general budget unless they are for a specific program.  We have to ask the Friends. 

Step two was a deep clean.  While the room is cleaned nightly by the janitorial service and all of the toys are sanitized weekly, there were things getting missed.  I hit the room with my Mr. Clean sponge and bottle of Goo Gone (both are a librarian's best friend!).  If stuff is dirty or marked, it looks older and in disrepair.  

Step three involved sorting and tossing.  If things were broken, they were thrown away.  This included some of the plastic containers.  Broken things tend to have sharp edges that can cut children.  Plus, it makes us look shabby.  Good stuff was kept and washed.

Step four was the fun one-shopping!  This took a month as I love to look for deals and use coupons.  For example, I was at Lakeshore Learning 4 separate times because I had four different coupons.  I asked staff and other librarians (gotta love Twitter) for their suggestions.  In the end, we ended up purchasing:

• 1 flannelboard (we replaced our story time one with the new one and moved the old one into the Activity Room)
• Shape magnets for our giant magnet wall.  These included Eric Carle shape magnets, transportation magnets, and animal magnets.
• New play food to use at the Market.  We had some very strange old food, such as oysters, that kids wouldn't recognize.  Our new batch had kid-friendly items such as pizza, tacos, bacon, etc.
• Rainbow color cones (highly recommended from Twitter)
• A large set of Duplo blocks
• Bristle blocks
• My First Match-Ups-sturdy color matching vinyl puzzle.
• Three large-pieced puzzles from Lakeshore Learning-Alphabet Express, Princesses of the World, and Safari Social. 
• Sterlite bins of various sizes

Step five was repackaging and signage.  Our old bins weren't labeled, so of course stuff ended up everywhere.  Plus, I like labels from an early literacy perspective.  Our new bin labels included both words and pictures.  They also were put on multiple sides of each bin.

Our puzzles tend to lose pieces or get mixed up.  To help cut down on this, each of the pieces was labeled with our library abbreviation and a number.  These numbers coincided to a puzzle.
This way if I have to sort pieces, I can do it easily by looking at the backs of the puzzles.

The puzzle number is also next to the name of the puzzle on the label.

A picture of the finished puzzle was also added to the puzzle lid (more for my benefit than the kids').

Here is what the finished product looked like:

Because this is an Activity Room in a public library, I also wanted to be obvious about promoting early literacy.  This isn.  t just a giant toy room.  I started with a sign promoting the five ECRR2 practices.

I also added 2 sign holders to our giant magnet wall.  One is going to rotate and emphasize different kinds of play.  Right now it is about magnet play.  Parents always love when I talk to them about skill building and different ideas.  This way, it is accessible all the time.

Our second sign is asking kids to clean up.  Cleaning up is a skill, both for parents and for kids.  To help with the efforts, we are bribing the kids with stickers that I purchased from Smilemakers.  

The Results
Both the parents and the kids are excited about the new toys.  The Bristle Blocks have been very popular, along with the new magnets.  When I have the chance, I stop in to play with the kids and talk to the parents.  This gives me a chance to promote our Friends of the Library group and talk about what they do.  I also can touch base with parents, ask about programs, and other stuff about the library.

Yes, staff still have to clean up the room, but it doesn't take as long or need to happen as often now.  It tends to be just at the end of the workday.  I go in and do a deep sort of toys about once a week  Toys do end up in the wrong bins, but at least they aren't scattered all over the floor.  I am a little surprised we haven't gone through more stickers.  It seems that kids and parents are naturally cleaning up now.

Go Away, Big Green Monster

I have been working on all things Go Away, Big Green Monster this week for our early literacy program.  Obviously, I needed a flannelboard for Flannel Friday too!

Like many people before me, I used the pattern on Kidzclub to make my flannelboard.  I printed it out and copied it again at 129% to make a bigger pattern (and to fill the board).  Just like in the story, the pieces are removable.

  
For some extra flannel fun, this is going to remain in our Activity Room for the next couple of weeks for kids to play with.  In addition to the original pieces, I cut out some extra shapes so he can be in the style of Mr. Potato Head.

I don't know why, but this is my "cool" monster.

Here's another monster with all of the extra shapes.

This week's Flannel Friday round-up is being hosted by Meg at Miss Meg's Storytime.  As always, for more information about Flannel Friday, check out the official blog or our Pinterest page.

Color Wheels

I am preparing for a program tomorrow based on Go Away, Big Green Monster and made these neat color wheels that I would like to share.  

To Make Your Own:
I started with 6-inch cake circles.  I bought a pack of 10 at Michaels for under $5.

Each cake circle was divided into 6 sections.  I used a ruler and a black Sharpie to make my lines.

I wanted some bright color spots for each section so I visited my local Home Depot and picked up some paint samples.  I am a big fan of Behr paint samples for my crafts.  I used my 1-inch hole punch to punch circles out of the paint samples.

I glued the circles onto my cake circle.  I used rainbow order, rather than that of a traditional color wheel.

I bought clothespins and used a colored Sharpie to color the ends to match my circles and to write the color name on each clothespin.

This will go out for the kids to play with tomorrow at our program.  They will match the colored clothespin with the colored space on the cake circle.

Here's why I like this:

• I used ordinary materials to make something fun for kids to play with.  It didn't cost a lot of money and is easy to recreate at home.  Whenever I pull something like this out, the light bulbs in the parents' heads start flashing.
• Clothespins are good for practicing fine motor skills.  By exercising their hands, kids are getting strong enough to write.  It really comes back to early literacy.
• Colors are great to work on word recognition.  The colored writing on the clothespins gives kids a really big clue as to what the word is.  The more they see it, the better they will recognize it.  It is instant reinforcement of what words mean.

Valentine Writing Center

I like to put out various centers in our Activity Room to keep it fresh.  They aren't out all of the time.  I saw this idea somewhere (don't remember where) and created my own.

I made a heart shape in Microsoft Publisher and added "I love my library because..."  I printed the shape onto pink paper and cut them out.  Kids are encouraged to add what they want and put them in the mailbox.

I am a big proponent of signage for our centers so parents can see what we are doing.  After all, we're not just putting these hearts out to fill time.

If the Valentine's are legible, I hang them up above the center.  As always with a station like this, you will get a stack of scribbles.  They are still working on their writing skills, but I am not going to display them.

As an added bonus, these are great P.R. for your library.  I have a feeling that many of these will be posted on our Twitter page for fun over the next week.

Flannel Friday-Matching Hearts

One of my big goals this year is to redo our Activity Room to add a larger early literacy focus and better signage.  We have a generous Friends of the Library group who gave me some money to start this project off.  The first thing that I bought was a flannelboard dedicated to this room.  After all, it is one of the kids' favorite parts of story time.  Plus, I have a lot of flannel ideas!

This week's project was inspired by My Storytime Life.  To make my own set of matching hearts, I cut felt on our die cut machine in different colors.  Then, I puffy painted different patterns on each pair or hearts.

I didn't stop there.  One of my goals is to give parents the "why" of why we do what we do.  Plus, this is something that they could easily recreate at home with paper, crayons, and scissors.  Our early literacy program at my library is called Play to Learn and is based on the five ECRR2 skills.  My next step was a sign.

As you can see, it gives an idea of what to do and why we do it.  Of course, kids could also just play with the hearts.

We also "bribe" kids with stickers to clean up when they are done.  To help with that process, I added a bin under the flannelboard called "Flannelboard Pieces".  While most of our kids won't be able to read that yet, their parents will.  You would be surprised at how well bribery works!

This week's Flannel Friday round-up is hosted by Lisa at Thrive After Three.  For more information about Flannel Friday, check out our official blog.  For great felt ideas, check out our Pinterest page.