Summer Reading Voting-Week 1

As a part of Summer Reading, we designed weekly voting boards for the kids to offer their opinions.  For the first week, we asked kids what they wanted to do this summer.  Not only is this fun for kids to do, it does use their literacy skills, and gives the library a fun picture to post on social media.  The cost of the project was $5 ($1 for the board and $4 for the sticky notes).

 

Summer Reading Prizes

Last summer Abby at Abby the Librarian had a great post about how she revamped her summer reading program prizes.  While I wanted to revamp our prizes for this summer, most of our staff didn't when we started to plan for 2015.  We all know that you need staff buy-in to make a radical change.  To test the waters, we offered her science activity packs as a prize option in our Winter Reading Club.  After seeing how popular those were, we were ready to go.

Our science activity packs form 1/4 of our first prize for summer reading (5 hours or 20 books).  This is the level where kids get to pick their own prize out of a treasure chest.  The other three prizes are mustache sticky notes, superhero erasers, and superhero kick balls.  The science activity packs are, by far, the most popular item in the treasure chest.  So if you were on the fence about this sort of prize, you will definitely want to try it!

Activity Pack #1-Balloon Rockets
We totally "borrowed" this one from Abby.  We used this as a winter reading prize and the kiddos still aren't sick of it.  In fact, they are picking it again.  Abby's directions and supply list are located here.  

Activity Pack #2-Catapults
We used the directions from our catapult program and created packs with all of the supplies needed.   We also included 1 pom pom so they had something to launch.

Activity Pack #3-Floating Ball
When looking for new ideas, we looked for things that we could easily and cheaply assemble in a plastic bag.  This is a little harder than it sounds.  We lucked out when we found the Floating Ball.  Our baggie includes:

• 1 5-inch paper circle cut out of cardstock
• 1 straw
• 1 ping pong ball

With 2 pieces of scotch tape, a pair of scissors, and the instructions that we wrote up, kids can do this activity.

 

Early Literacy at Home

I am fortunate that I get to see 5 of my nieces and nephews often and end up watching them at least 1 time a week.  Their ages span from 2 to 9, so we are at various points on the literacy spectrum.  One of the things that we did this summer is to create our Summer List of various activities that we want to do.

What I like about this is that it addresses different levels of literacy.  With the 2 year olds, I am showing that words have meaning.  We are working on letter knowledge and we read the list as we decide what activity to do next.  The 5 and 6 year olds add their own activities to the list.  They may not always be spelled right, but they are sounding out their words as they write them.  Plus, they are reading items already on the list and adding their names to what they want to do.  The 9 year old is more like an adult.  She can read and write already so she is a good example for showing the younger kids what to do.

We make one of these lists every summer and hang it right on our refrigerator.  It is a lot of fun for all of us!  Plus, as the adult, it helps me to make plans.

Parachute Games, 2015 Edition

I love summer reading time because I get to pull out my favorite programs!  One such program is Parachute Games.  Once you have a parachute and access to music, it is a free program that you can run year after year.

Set Up & Registration
Parachute Games is one of those programs where it is handy to have registration.  You only have so many handles on the parachute.  While you can fudge the numbers a little, you don't want 60 kids showing up to play with a 20 handle parachute.  You also don't want only 1 child showing up.  We sign up 20 kids for our program (as we have a 20 handle parachute).  Normally a day or two ahead of time I will bump in an extra 2-4 kids as you will have kids who don't show up.  To make this decision, I look at how many siblings could possibly be available to pick up some slack in case a chunk of kids don't show up. 

Our Playlist
1.  Round the Village by Wee Sing on Wee Sing and Play-This is a good slow song to get going.  You get to go around the circle, go in and out, and turn the circle again.

2.  Moving in a Circle by Mr. Eric and Mr. Michael on Rockin' Red-This is a circle spinning song again.  It tends to slow the kids down as they get super excited about bouncing things.  You will get to walk, jump, and take baby steps with the parachute.

3.  Five Little Monkeys on the cd Five Little Monkeys-Since monkeys like to bounce, we pop some monkey finger puppets we have onto the parachute for the kids to bounce.  Like the monkeys in the rhyme, they tend to fall off and we have to toss them back on again.

4.  Spin Around by The Fresh Beat Band on The Fresh Beat Band Vol. 2.0-This is one of those songs that will stick in your head all day long.  It is a fun and peppy spinning song.

5.  The Popcorn Pop by Rosenshontz on Tot Rock-Now it is time for some bouncing.  I have a lot of mini beach balls from Oriental Trading that I use as "popcorn".  The hard part is getting beach balls off of the parachute when the song is done.  Today we just left them all on and it still worked great.

6.  Ring Around the Rosie by Caspar Babypants on Sing Along!-I am loving Caspar Babypants right now, but am having a hard time getting it to catch on.  This is a circle song again, but you get to fall down.  The 2-4 year olds love to fall down and think it is the silliest thing ever.

7.  Spin Again by Jim Gill on Jim Gill Sings Do Re Mi on His Toe Leg Knee-We have Jim Gill coming to perform on Saturday so I am popping his songs in everywhere I can.

8. Juggling, Juggling, Juggling Balls by The Wiggles on Hot Poppin' Popcorn-I have a bunch of mini beach balls that I got as part of a parachute set from Oriental Trading.  Beach balls are great for the parachute because they "pop", but you can also deflate them to maximize your storage space.

9.  Popcorn by Joanie Leeds and the Nightlights on I'm a Rock Star-We got to pop all of our beach balls again!

10.  Popcorn by the Barenaked Ladies on Snacktime!-Nothing beats Popcorn as a finale song as it is super fast and you get to bounce everything.  If you have any balls or props left, throw them on the parachute to bounce.


After the program was over, I let the kids play with the beach balls as I wasn't in a hurry to clean up.  It was great fun!

Toddler Art, 2015 Edition

This is one of my favorite toddler programs and it is always on my schedule every summer at the beginning of summer reading.   You can check out past programs here, here, or here.  I love it because each creation turns out different.  Plus, most of my parents end up going shopping right after the program for their own art supplies to make cool creations at home.  After all, every house needs a bottle of glitter glue!

Our shape this year is a fancy star shape to fit our Every Hero Has a Story summer reading program theme.  To make the shape, I printed the star shape using Microsoft Publisher on white cardstock.  As kids came into the room, I handed them two star shapes and explained that one would go home with them and one would stay with me.  Each of our stations had a different art supply.

This year's stations include: 

• Glitter Glue from Discount School Supply-I really like these bottles because the young hands are able to easily squeeze them.  Please note-you can never have too much glitter glue.
• Watercolor Paints from Discount School Supply
• Crayons
• Star stickers from Oriental Trading
• Mini stampers from Lakeshore Learning

As kids finished their projects, I passed out paper plates so they could get their creations home.  As my stars dried, I added them to our bulletin board in our activity room.

Summer Reading and School Participation

This was a very wonky year for our summer reading program.  It was my first year coordinating the program across all three of our locations.  Also, we had a big millage vote (which passed!) and we had to back up our program 2 weeks to coincide with the vote.  This was not the year to make any major changes to the program.  Since I was coming at the program fresh, I did have some ideas that I wanted to try so I conducted a bunch of experiments.  One of my experiments had some awesome results!

On our third week of summer reading, I ran our participation stats by school.  We have 45 schools in our service area and 197 different schools who had students participate.  Since I am a stat nerd, I also made a table of the top ten schools in Excel and posted it on our Tumblr page.  Our community relations person saw it and posted the same chart on our Facebook page.  At this point, this little chart became a BIG DEAL.  We had parents asking why their schools were not on the chart.  All of a sudden, we had a competition!  Participation numbers were going way up.  Schools in our service area who had low participation, now had high numbers.  People asked in the library how their school was doing, which meant that we now had to run the results weekly and post them.  This all happened because of social media and the spirit of competition.

So how much did our participation rate go up?  Many of our schools increased their participation between 40 and 60%.  This cost me no money to do this year and took less than one hour of my time to run the report and post the numbers online.

Now that we know that this works, we are actually going to advertise a contest between our schools next summer with a prize.  I also want to come up with a better display to promote the school competition in our buildings where I can visually represent the numbers better than my Excel spreadsheet.

Paper Roller Coasters

Last winter I found this awesome web site called PaperRollerCoasters.com and it screamed summer library program.  I bought the templates, set up the program, and was ready to go.  My original intention was for everybody to make their own roller coaster.  Then I started my sample and realized that there was no way anybody could finish a roller coaster on their own in 60 minutes.  This is when I decided that we were going to make group roller coasters and display them in the children's area.

Supplies and Cost

• Templates from PaperRollerCoasters.com-$19.95
• Foam board to support roller coasters-$17 (I bought 17 boards from the dollar store as I originally was going to register 17 kids.  You probably don't need 17, but I would have at least 2 per group.)
• Marbles-$1
• Card stock-I snuck this through on a supply order so it didn't come out of my budget.  You will need at least 2 reams of card stock for 17 kids.  I used 1 white ream for the support pieces and one colored ream for the actual coaster.
• Scotch tape-I had a bunch of rolls in our craft cupboard

My grand total for today's program was $37.95.

Registration
When I set the program up, I decided on 17 kids because that is how many sets of copies I could make of the roller coaster templates with 1 ream of paper.  This works well as a smaller group program.  If you have a lot of volunteers, you could easily have more kids participate.

The Program
I started the program off talking with the kids about roller coasters.  We talked about what their favorite roller coasters had (loops, drops, etc.), then talked about how to make something similar.  The big buzzwords for the program were "energy" and "motion".  I pulled sample pictures off of the PaperRollerCoasters.com web site and we looked at how those compared to pictures of real roller coasters.

The kids had naturally sorted themselves into three tables as they came into the room, so these were our three groups.  My only rule of the day was that this was a group project and everybody at the table could participate.  I had all of the parts sorted on tables and told the kids that they were welcome to come up and use what they needed.  I had preassembled a pile of pieces to get the kids going.  Since this was science, not everything that they tried was going to work and it is okay if it doesn't.

These kids had AWESOME ideas.   Two of the groups wanted an extra board for their base (which we attached with duct tape) and they put it in different places.  They even came up with the idea of a tunnel that they made out of the beams. To reemphasize the team effect, each group named their coaster and the creators added their names to a sign that is propped up on each display.  Here are our finished coasters:

Drop and Swirl

The Health Warning

Stealth Dragon

 
What I Would Do Differently
The one thing that I would do differently is to either make this a 120 minute program or an all-day, drop-in program.  These kids wanted to stay and play with their roller coasters and their parents were ready to leave.

Highlight of the Program
We had a group of 4 parents who stayed in the room to help as needed.  They thought that the program was excellent since it promoted team work (even among those brother/sister combos).  One parent even said, "Your programs are normally very good, but when are you doing this one again?  We loved it."

Join the Summer Reading Club

Since I always like to see what other libraries are doing, I am going to show off how we run our summer reading club at my library.  Our program is a 10-week program and usually runs from the time that the kids get out of school until the end of August.  This year we had a little glitch (millage vote) and had to back up the program by 2 weeks.

Marketing Your Program
I am a big believer that you need to market your program inside of your library.  Just about everybody who walks in your front door is a target as almost all of them are already checking out books.  Unfortunately, many people don't understand that summer reading is a program that we run-they think that it is just reading in the summer.  It is up to us to explain the program and get them to participate.

I believe in the rule of 7-you need to see something 7 times for it to stick in your brain.  If you look around my department, you will see summer reading signs everywhere.

Our standee from Upstart has been by the reference desk in past years.  Unfortunately, not everybody comes up to the desk.  Think of when you go shopping.  Do you stop by the customer service desk every time you go?  I moved the standee so you can now see it right when you get off the elevator on our floor.  By adding the words "join" and "June 2-August 9" to the sign it helps to reinforce that this is a program that you want to do.

This display is right next to the reference desk.  While we also have forms behind the desk, this is a self-service station.  On this display we have both the kids and teen forms, the ALSC grade level booklists, our summer scavenger hunt form, a sign describing the two programs, and sign with our weekly top 10 schools by summer reading participation.  On the next side of this display, we have individual grade level booklists.

These stars appear throughout the department.  They are on every OPAC, our reference desk computers, the Activity Room doors, and inside the Story Time Room.

The Actual Program
Our kids program is designed with 60 spaces on our gameboard.  Language matters-gameboard sounds much more fun than reading log.  Kids under 5 count every book equals 1 space.  Kids over 5 count ever 15 minutes reading as one space.  We aren't super picky if somebody wants to do the program one way or another.  The big point is that they are reading.  Every time they complete 20 spaces, they come in for a prize.

Our first prize is a choice from the treasure box.  This year we have mustache pens, stampers, magnifying glasses, bouncing balls, and clip-on critters in the treasure chest.  Kids also get a sticker (see below) and write their name on a die cut to add to our window (see below).

In addition to being a cool display, this generates interest in the program.  We have kids asking us how they can put their name on the window.  This gives us the opportunity to explain the program.

We make these stickers in-house using Avery circle labels.  While stickers are always a cool prize, many of our kids put them on right away and wear them out in public.  It is free library advertising!


When kids come in for their second prize, they get to spin the prize wheel.  Honestly, a prize wheel is awesome for generating interest in our program.  Kids are always coming up and asking if they can spin the wheel. When we explain that it is a prize, they take the form.

Each number on the wheel corresponds to a different prize.  We have rubberband bracelets, Smencils, animal finger puppets, a ball game, and color changing soccer and footballs.  By having them numbered, this gives the staff member a chance to switch the prize if it wouldn't be appropriate for the child.  After all, what 10 year old wants a finger puppet.

For their third prize, we pass out books.  We visit our local Scholastic Warehouse sale every May and stock up on quality books for a great price.  Kids also get a packet of stuff including their above and beyond gameboard and free coupons to fun places (roller skating and bowling).

Since you have to worry about prizes being safe for kids under 3, we have a special bucket for baby prizes.  While some want the same prizes as their big brothers and sisters (which we let them if their parent okays it), they love being able to choose their own prizes too.  Their bucket includes rubber duckies, bubbles, and plastic shovels.  They also get to pick out a free book as their last prize.

That is our program for this year!  We are always trying to change things up in terms of what our community wants and what would be the best use of our money.  We already have some great ideas for next year, but our whole team will sit down in September to evaluate the program.

Just for fun, this is the "before" picture for summer reading.

Awesome Jar

This idea originally came from Sara at Bryce Don't Play.  I took her original idea, made it fit my building, and added some new twists.

We have a set of display shelves in my department that nobody ever wants to refill.  I decided that we would let the customers do it themselves and we would fill in where needed (and monitor it).  I started with an empty plastic jar and labeled it the "Awesome Jar".  I put out slips of paper asking for a person's first name and an awesome book that they have read.  When books are low on the shelves, I raid the slips in the jar for more titles.

This was our display when I set it up.

To get more mileage out of people's recommendations, I am also tweeting them out every so often.  If you check the hashtag #cmplawesomejar, you will see a couple of our titles so far.  Now that people are seeing these recommendations and the display, the jar is filling up!

Early Literacy Station-Today's Weather

If you are looking for a quick and easy early literacy station to put up in your library, you may want to try this out.  I will admit that I put it together for its simplicity since I was out for a couple of weeks at the beginning of our summer reading program.  It is called "Today's Weather".

I always put out a sign with instructions and to highlight various early literacy skills.  This way maybe parents will see it as instructional, rather than just a babysitting tool.

All of the materials started off out with the station.  I have since learned that boxes of colored pencils do not do well in public library activity rooms.  They are now at the reference desk with a sign to ask for them.

The point of this station is for kids to make an observation.  What is today's weather?  They then will write their weather word (usually with help) and draw a picture of it.  Finally, they add their submission to our mailbox (really, everybody needs a giant mailbox!).

As submissions come in, I hang them up above the early literacy station.  It is our gallery of early literacy goodness.  Plus, there are some great weather pictures!  Here are some of them below:

If you would like to steal this idea, feel free to click here for the sign and the form.

No Bake Cooking

My colleague and I are big bakers and cooks so one program that we always wanted to do here was some kind of cooking program.  The glitch that we ran into is that we have no oven and our microwave and refrigerator are in the staff lounge and often in use.  This is how our no bake cooking program was born.   We assemble 3-4 recipes that require no cooking and can easily be made in 60 minutes or less.  Pinterest is great for looking for ideas, as well as looking through your library collection.  We have done it twice now and both times have been a success.

Registration
We register 25 6-12 year olds, although a significant portion were 7-9.  Because we are dealing with food and there are now a wide range of allergies and diets, we list all of the ingredients we will be using in the program.  We then leave it up to the parents to monitor whether or not this would be a good program for their child to attend and what they can eat/make.

As a side note, we did run the idea of food-based programs through our library insurance policy.  If you are going to do these too, this may be something that you want to do.

Before the Program
You will want to put out as many of the materials as you can before the kids enter the room.  Things that we have found helpful include paper plates, plastic silverware, dixie cups to hold various ingredients, and paper towels.  You will want extra paper towels.  We also make cookbooks so the kids can follow along with the recipes and take it home to try again.

The Program
Today Miss Kara led the program and I was the assistant.  (Personally, I love the days when I get to be the assistant as it just doesn't happen often).  The first thing we do as the kids come in the room is have them wash their hands.  Luckily we have a sink in our program room, but this still takes 10 minutes or so.  We did four recipes today and I will list them below, along with how much of the ingredients you will need for a group this size.

(I told Kara she was going up on the blog since she had the fancy apron!)

Recipe 1-No Cook S'mores 

1 1/2 boxes of graham crackers (14.4 oz)

1 16 oz. container of chocolate frosting

1 13 oz. container of marshmallow fluff

This is where the dixie cups come in handy.  We gave each kid a scoop (or a knifeful) of marshmallow fluff in one dixie cup and another with chocolate frosting.  They were able to spread the ingredients themselves to make their s'mores.  While we set up the next recipe, they could snack on their s'mores.

Recipe 2-Dinosaur Trail Mix

1 15 oz. bag of pretzel sticks (twigs)

2 boxes of raisins (berries)

1 12.5 oz. box of Honeycomb cereal (dinosaur footprints)

This is a really easy recipe as you just dump the ingredients in a large bowl and mix.  We did this as a demo and had kids come up afterwards to fill their Ziploc baggies with some of the mix.  Kara also talked about what other ingredients the kids could add for more pretend fun, such as white chocolate chips (rocks).

Recipe 3-Dirt Cups

1 pkg. (3.9 oz) Jell-o instant chocolate pudding

2 cups cold milk

1 tub (8 oz.) Cool Whip whipped topping, thawed

15 Oreos, finely crushed (or just buy a box of Oreo cookie crumbs)

1 worm-shaped chewy fruit snacks

**triple the ingredients above for a group this size

Beat pudding mix and milk in a large bowl with a whisk for 2 minutes.  Let stand for 5 minutes.  Stir in Cool Whip and 1/2 cup of cookie crumbs.  Refrigerate for 1 hour.

This one required a little finagling because of the refrigeration.  We premade the pudding so all the kids had to do was to scoop it in their cups, add Oreo crumbs, and top with gummy worms.

Recipe 4-Ice Cream in a Bag

2 bags of ice (the large bags that you would buy for a party)

6 quarts of half and half

1 large bag of salt (we used rock salt as the bigger the granules, the better)

1/3 of a 5 lb. bag of sugar

4 oz. vanilla extract

25 pint size Ziploc bags

at least 25 gallon size Ziploc bags (you will want extra as some leak)

2 containers of sprinkles or other mix-ins

Each kid will:

1.  Combine 2 tablespoons of sugar, 1 cup of half and half, and 1/2 teaspoon of vanilla extract in a pint-sized Ziploc bag and seal it tightly.  (It helps if you have an extra adult to help seal the bags.)

2.  Place 1/2 cup salt (we used 2 handfuls of rock salt) in a gallon-sized Ziploc bag.  Add enough ice to fill the bag half full.  Place the sealed smaller bag in the gallon bag and seal.  Now shake the bags until the mixture hardens (about 5 minutes).  You will be able to feel the small bag to know when it is done.

3.  Take the smaller bag out of the larger bag, add in the mix-ins and eat right out of the bag.

Our notes:

-This would be an awesome program next summer for the science theme.  You could center the whole program around the ice cream and then have an ice cream social afterwards as the kids add in various toppings.

-You will need a place to dump the ice.  Personally, I would use a large bowl or bucket as large pieces of rock salt do not go down the sink drain well (and I was picking them out).

-Ice cream in a bag does not refreeze well.  It is best if it is eaten right away.

Summer Contests

Contests are a great way to do some passive programming in the midst of our busy summer reading schedule.  They are fun, relatively easy to do, and can be low cost.

How to Run a Contest
1.  Come up with a theme.  Below are a few that we have done:

• counting Goldfish crackers in a fishbowl
• counting die cuts around a department
• trivia
• guessing games
• name a stuffed animal/mascot

2.  Decide on your rules and be clear on those rules.  You will want the following:

• Ages (both maximums and minimums or you will get "gifted" babies entering trivia contests)
• Deadlines
• How many times people can enter?
• Who can win?  As an example, at our library we only give prizes that cost money to residents and their families  who pay taxes to the library.  We have many other people who use us though and they can still play for fun.

3.  Prizes!  You don't have to break the bank to come up with some quality prizes.

• Do you have an awesome dollar store near you?  Look for fun kids' things like beach balls, sand pails, water bottles, etc.
• Do you have left over summer reading prizes from previous years that are still in good condition?  Last year we gave away glow-in-the-dark stars that were really popular and would be fun to pull out again.

4.  Count your stats (these kids still participated) and advertise the winners.  Half of the prize for the kids is to see their name in print on our events board. 

Random notes:
-You will have better participation as the level of thought/time involved to play your contest goes down.  Counting Goldfish crackers in a bowl=high participation.  Trivia=low participation.  Neither is better than the other as they hit different kids that you serve.

What We Are Doing Here:
Just so you can see an example, I will walk you through what we are doing here.  We have three locations so each location is responsible for coming up with one contest for all of us to share.  Over our 6 heaviest weeks of the summer, we are running a different contest every two weeks.  The first was ours so I will show you what I did.

I am a big fan of pinning ideas on Pinterest, even if I don't have a use for them at the time.  I found this fun bulletin board and thought that the idea would work well for some sort of contest.  This is what I came up with.  Most are pretty easy for people who are familiar with children's books, but I do like to throw in 1 or 2 stumpers.  (I even stumped some of the staff here!)  

Our contest forms are on our table right next to our summer reading forms, which is one of the first things that people see as they walk into the library.  For our prizes this time, we will be giving away 3 butterfly nets that we have leftover from a previous summer's unclaimed prize pile.  Our cost for this contest is $0.

The fun part about this contest is that even though there are always kids who will know most/all of the answers, there are those who are using this as a scavenger hunt to look through all of the books in the picture book section.  To me, this is pretty cool as in their exploration, chances are they will find something new!

Next week's contest will be letters hidden on construction cones throughout our children's room.  Kids will have to find the letters and unscramble the phrase for their entries.

Parachute Games-2013 Edition

I love summer, because we get to pull out some of our other fun programming, rather than all story times.  One of my favorites to do is Parachute Games.  Our kiddos love using the parachute, but our story times and program room (which doubles as a meeting room with lots of chairs and tables) are not conducive to using the parachute regularly.

How to Find the Music
Songs that work well with the parachute involve spinning, circles, jumping, bouncing, popping, or balls (just a few key words to get you going).  You can also use music with a good beat.  I also like songs that will lend itself to bouncing things on the parachute (ex. Five Little Monkeys).  The kids will bounce all day long if you let them, but I like to change it up for them and add in some extra fun.  I will admit that I am a big fan of using my work iPod and iTunes software to put together playlists.  As music that I order comes in, I add them to my iTunes and sort them into folders as to how they fit my programming (ex. Possible Parachute Games songs).  This makes it easy for me to actually sit down and plan the program as all of the music is in one place. 

Set Up & Registration
Parachute Games is one of those programs where it is handy to have registration.  You only have so many handles on the parachute.  While you can fudge the numbers a little, you don't want 60 kids showing up to play with a 20 handle parachute.  You also don't want only 1 child showing up.  We sign up 20 kids for our program (as we have a 20 handle parachute).  Normally a day or two ahead of time I will bump in an extra 2-4 kids as you will have kids who don't show up.  To make this decision, I look at how many siblings could possibly be available to pick up some slack in case a chunk of kids don't show up.

Our Playlist
1.  If You're Happy and You Know It-We started off by singing our first song.  I found it last week on Laughter and Literacy and have never heard it before.  The verses are:

 If you're happy and you know it, lift it high!

If you're happy and you know it, shake it fast!

If you're happy and you know it, shake it slow!

If you're happy and you know it, shake it low!

2.  Round the Village by Wee Sing on Wee Sing and Play-This is a good slow song to get going.  You get to go around the circle, go in and out, and turn the circle again.

3.  Old MacDonald by Mr. Eric & Mr. Michael on Bouncy Blue-You may wonder why this is a parachute song, but it has a good beat.  Plus, if you throw on some puppets, the kiddos can bounce the puppets.  For this one, you will need a cow, a dog, and a chicken.

4.  ABC Song by Rachel De Azevedo Coleman on Signing Time Songs, Vol. 2-We bounced again, but used giant foam letters.  This song has a good slow and steady beat which makes it perfect for bouncing.  Plus, it throws in some extra early literacy.

5.  Moving in a Circle by Mr. Eric and Mr. Michael on Rockin' Red-This is a circle spinning song again.  It tends to slow the kids down as they get super excited about bouncing things.  You will get to walk, jump, and take baby steps with the parachute.

6.  Spin Around by The Fresh Beat Band on The Fresh Beat Band Vol. 2.0-This is one of those songs that will stick in your head all day long.  It is a fun and peppy spinning song.

7.  Ring Around the Rosie by Caspar Babypants on Sing Along!-I am loving Caspar Babypants right now, but am having a hard time getting it to catch on.  This is a circle song again, but you get to fall down.  The 2-4 year olds love to fall down and think it is the silliest thing ever.

8.  Juggling, Juggling, Juggling Balls by The Wiggles on Hot Poppin' Popcorn-I have a bunch of mini beach balls that I got as part of a parachute set from Oriental Trading.  Beach balls are great for the parachute because they "pop", but you can also deflate them to maximize your storage space.

9.  Family Train by Mr. Eric and Mr. Michael on Outrageous Orange-We did this as a spinning song to slow things down again.  What is cool is that there is a shaking part at the end of each verse.

10.  Popcorn- by Joanie Leeds and the Nightlights on I'm a Rock Star-It's time to bounce the parachute again.

11.  Rolling Ball by Mr. Eric and Mr. Michael on Groovy Green-The original idea was to roll the balls across the parachute.  This didn't work as this group was too young so we just bounced.  You will need balls in the following colors-red, yellow, blue, purple, green, and orange.

12.  Popcorn by the Barenaked Ladies on Snacktime!-Nothing beats Popcorn as a finale song as it is super fast and you get to bounce everything.  If you have any balls or props left, throw them on the parachute to bounce.

Today's Happy Accident

I didn't plan this, but one of the kiddos asked if we could play with the beach balls after the program.  (I don't know about your weather, but right now in Michigan it is 90 degrees with 100% humidity so nobody is playing outside unless it is in a pool!)  I didn't have anywhere that I had to be right away so I said okay.  The kids had the BEST time ever playing with each other.  The moms and dads let the babies down so they could play too.  We had a newspaper photographer at the program and they stayed afterwards to talk to the parents and get even more pictures.  Plus, when they left, they cleaned everything up.  It was a great experience!

Random Notes

Normally I would pull off the props in between each song, but we had a really young group this time so I just left them all on.  Otherwise, every child would have followed me onto the parachute and it takes time to get them all back off and to find a handle again.  It didn't hurt anything to add stuff to our bouncing pile. 

Also, this is a fun and noisy program.  This sometimes scares kids, especially if they are younger.  They don't all want to hold the parachute.  With those kids, I sometimes give them the balls (and other stuff) to throw on the parachute.  It is a way to keep them involved, but it isn't as scary as making the parachute go up and down.

Wrap-Up
Parachute Games is a great low-cost program that you can run at your library.  Once you buy the parachute and any extras, they last a long time so they are a good one-time investment.  It also requires little prep time for a quality program.  Plus, with the bright colors of the parachute and the cuteness of the little kids, you know that parents will take lots of pictures to post online, which will show off your library well.

Summer Displays

If you have seen my displays in the past here, you will know that we have 1 display space in our building for kids' books.  It is kind of shoved in at the beginning of the jbio area, which is not a high traffic area.  During the school year, I highlight various nonfiction areas, which coincide with whatever reports the kids are doing.  Since it is summer vacation, I had to come up with something else.

Our summer display is called "I'm bored...What can I do on summer vacation?"  The nice thing about this display is that you can put any kind of activity book on it, which covers a wide range of nonfiction.  To create your own, check out some of these dewey numbers:

• 509-science experiments 
• 636-pets (I always look for How to Talk to Your Dog by Jean Craighead George)
• 641-cooking
• 688.725-Lego books
• 741-how to draw
• 745-crafts & hobbies
• 790-sleepover parties
• 793.8-magic
• 796-sports
• 917-travel (anything for families around your state?) 

This is a great way to highlight nonfiction, especially the stuff that the kids don't normally use for homework.  Think outside of the box!  Parents will love it too, because I don't know about you, but we get tons of parents the week after school gets out who have NO IDEA what to do with their kids for 3 months.  This gives them the tools to keep their kids busy.

 
 

Lisa's Dance Party-the 2013 Edition

One of my favorite programs of the summer is our Dance Party.  It is popular and you can do it for as many or as few people as you want.  Plus, it is relatively easy to set up and there is no cost.  While I change the music up every year (I think that I have 8 Dance Party soundtracks now), you can keep it the same-the kids and the parents will still love it.  Our Dance Party programs run approximately 30 minutes.

Stuff to Consider Before You Start

•  Room size-While we register 25 2-4 year olds for this program, there are never just 25 kids in the room.  You have to add in siblings, parents, grandparents, strollers, etc.  Our room holds 100 people and it is not uncommon to have 75+ people in the room for a Dance Party.
• Control-How many kids can you realistically control?  With the open space and the music going, you have to have a way to maintain some sort of control.
• Sound-How are you going to make the music heard?  We run ours through our AV system.  If you are using a cd player, the volume doesn't go as high.  You need to be able to be heard (to show kids what to do and to intercept problems).  Is your voice loud enough?  Do you need a mic?
• Playlist-You will want a mixture of fast and slow songs.  If you have 5 jumping songs in a row, chaos will occur and you will never regain control.  Mix in some of your regular story time songs (young kids like to be in the "know").  I like to mix in action songs (pretend you are an octopus) with free dancing songs.  Also, why are you picking certain songs?  Are there ones that would be better to work on gross motor skills than others?
• Props-Do your songs need props?  Do you have enough for everyone who attends?  Sometimes it is good to give big brothers & sisters the props too as they are good examples.  I like to have props that the kids can take home with them.  This helps them to pretend at home and shows parents how easy some of these things are.

Our three props-steering wheel, dino puppet, & animal shaker

We have a table by the door for each kid to pick out their own prop.  This avoids problem of having to pass out & collect the props between songs.  It also lets the kids be creative and use the props for actions other than what you intended them for.  Some will shake through the whole program and that is okay.

Summer 2013 Playlist
1.  Finger On Your Head by Michael & Jello on Monkey See, Monkey Do
2.  Drivin' In My Car by Ralph Covert on Ralph's World (story time song)
3.  The Dinosaur Dance by Dance-a-Lot Robot on Playhouse Disney: Let's Dance-while I didn't plan it for this song, the kiddos all grabbed their dinosaur puppets and pretended to be dinosaurs.
4.  Shake With You by Mr. Eric & Mr. Michael on Bouncy Blue (shaker song)
5.  Beep Beep by Mr. Eric and Mr. Michael on Bouncy Blue-I made steering wheels out of paper plates and clip art pasted on Cate's idea at Storytiming.
6.  Mr. Eric's Jumping Song by Mr. Eric & Mr. Michael on Outrageous Orange
7.  Balance Beam by Laurie Berkner on Rocketship Run-While I would love to own a balance beam at our library, there is no way I could store it.  You can make a fake on using masking tape on the floor (see below).  This song fascinates the kids and you will find them all following you on the "beam".  
8.  I Can Shake My Shaker Egg by Mr. Eric & Mr. Michael on Rockin' Red (shaker song)
9.  We Are the Dinosaurs by Laurie Berkner on The Best of the Laurie Berkner Band-I made a bunch of dinosaur props by copying the dino pattern on colored paper from The Mailbox Feb/March 2009 issue.  The sticks are foam sticks that I had leftover from some craft.
10.  If You're Happy & You Know It by Mr. Eric & Mr. Michael on Yummy Yellow
11.  The Night I Had a Dream by Laurie Berkner on Whaddaya Think of That?
12.  Do the Octopus by Dance-a-Lot Robot on Playhouse Disney: Let's Dance
13.  The Mack Chicken Dance by Greg & Steve on Big Fun

Balance beam made out of masking tape

 
While I do most of my dance parties in the summer, you don't have to limit them to summer reading.  I have been known to schedule them when we have long story time breaks as an easy way to bring the kids in.  For last year's Dance Party info, check here.  

Eric Carle Art

In my dream world where I have tons of free time and energy, I would run more programs like this one.  There are a lot of great children's book illustrators on the web who provide lesson plans and ideas for exposing kids to their art.  It is also an easy way to tie art with the library.

Where I Got the Idea
A couple of years ago I visited the Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art in Amhert, MA.  If you haven't been there, it is a great place for any children's librarian or educator to visit.  I was really impressed by their educational opportunities and programs.  If you visit their web site, they list a bunch of lesson plans, including today's program.  I printed out their sheet for each of the kids to walk them through the steps.

Ages and Requirements
We registered 25 kids, ages 6-12, for this program.  It ended up being heavy on the 6-8 year olds, but they were still able to come up with quality artwork.

Supplies Needed

• liquid starch (check the laundry aisle at your local grocery store)
• tissue paper-It comes as color fast (like the kind you buy to put in gift bags) or bleeding (found at art supply stores).  Personally, I would buy the kind that bleeds as it makes the best colors.  I bought 2 packs and we have a lot leftover for our next project.
• dixie cups-I used these to put the liquid starch in.  You don't need a lot of starch.  I used less than 1 inch in each cup and each kid had plenty.
• paint brushes
• watercolor paper
• scissors (for those kids who don't want to tear)

What to Do
I started off by showing a couple of Eric Carle illustrations in various books.  You will want to find ones with multiple colors-The Very Lonely Firefly is a good example if you look at his wings.  Then I showed off my example.  I explained that I used a bunch of triangles to make a star shape.

I explained that you should create your tissue paper shape first, whether the first letter of their name, a fish, or filling the whole paper with tissue paper pieces.  It helps if you give them some ideas before they begin as some kids will look at the white sheet of paper and give you a blank look when you ask them what they are going to make.

When they are ready, you spread liquid starch with a paintbrush on the white watercolor paper.  You put the piece of tissue paper on top of the starch and brush starch over the tissue paper.  This causes the color to move on the tissue paper and create the blending effect.

The Final Product
I am always amazed at what the kids come up with.  We had a couple that looked like they could have come out of an Eric Carle book.  There were flowers, stars & moons, heart butterflies, the first letter of names, a dog, and a tiger.  Some of the kids got really creative and crumbled their tissue paper to make a 3-D effect.  The entire program cost less than $20 and it is definitely worth doing again.