My teen librarian and I got together and decided to hold our first major event that required no registration. After some thought, Harry Potter Day was born. This is a great event to hold as it is multigenerational. You will have babies being wheeled in dressed in Gryffindor clothes and you will have grandparents talking about how they read this series. While it is a little intimidating to plan a program with no registration, we prepped everything for 500 people.
We started off our day with Dumbledore's Magic Show. One of our local magicians was willing to dress up in robes and pretend to be Dumbledore as he performed. At the same time, our community relations person held a potions class for adults in a different room. They made different natural cleaning products and soaps.
Of course you need a costume contest since you will have a lot of people dressed up. I was actually surprised by how much they dressed up. We split our age groups into kids and teens for prizes to make judging fair.
After the costume contest, Diagon Alley opened. We have 3 conference rooms and an auditorium and put them all to use for different "stores".
After we opened Diagon Alley, we started Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone on the big screen, followed by Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. While these weren't as heavily attended as the other events, they were still good to have on. Many families took breaks and would pop in for some of the movie. Plus, it is really hot here in July and gave people a break from the heat in our air conditioning.
During the afternoon, my teen librarian set up Quidditch on the field outside of the library. She used hula hoops attached to PVC pipe that rested in a bucket of rocks to form the goals. Arm bands identified the different teams. The kids and teens were really good about taking turns and playing together in the different positions.
Throughout the day, we had some things that anyone could do at any time. These included:
- Harry Potter tattoos
- Sorting Hat with Avery labels printed with different houses
- Find the Harry Potter bear in the children's room
- Have You Seen This Wizard? photo op
Part of the fun of the day was in the details. We made sure that we decorated and added fun things around the library. For example, a Weasley family picture sat on our fireplace. Here are some of the fun things from around the building:
Plans for Next Year
Now that we have one year under our belts, we would love to expand next year. Some of our adult librarians wanted events in their departments. We also have ideas for future activities. Our tentative plan is to pull in more staff and expand.
As a part of our Harry Potter Day, we opened Diagon Alley for 2 hours. This was a non-registration event so anyone of any age could attend. The original plan was for volunteers to help staff the rooms and keep supplies filled, but all of our volunteers that day pulled a no-show. Luckily, all of our attendees were good sports and the adults helped to keep the stations filled.
The Leaky Cauldron
If you have Harry Potter Day, then you definitely need to serve butter beer. Our concoction was a mixture of vanilla ice cream, butterscotch syrup, and cream soda. Our local Meijer graciously donated all of our food supplies, plus cups and napkins.
Ollivander's
Every wizard needs a wand. I used Brytani's idea (who was inspired by Pop Goes the Page) and precut 500 PVC pipes for magic wands. Each wand was stuffed with unicorn hair (sparkly white yarn), dragon hearts (red pony beads), and Phoenix feathers (orange feathers). We used Duct tape to wrap our wands.
Eeylop's Owl Emporium
Trying to find owl crafts for 500 people is a little tricky, but our pom pom owls turned out cute. We used 1 1/2 inch white pom poms and glued googly eyes, an orange fun foam beak, orange fun foam feet, and white felt wings onto each owl. Tacky glue worked best for this project.
It's Flannel Friday time! There are some great additions this week, so without further ado...
Liz from Storytime Whoopdeedo shows off her version of Book! Book! Book! by Deborah Bruss. This story is always a hit in story time!
Who doesn't love garbage trucks?!? Check out Kathryn's three garbage truck flannelboards at Fun with Friends at Storytime.
Danielle at Storytime with Library Danielle shows off her version of Five Strawberries. I love how she added in animals eating the berries. While not flannel, check out her scarf rhyme and early literacy messages here.
Mel has been hard at work on an outer space set over at Mel's Desk. She shows off many different ways to use it with multiple age groups. Plus, it is a great addition if you are adding STEAM to your story time lineup.
Jaime at Ms. Jaime's Library Journeys shows off her version of Lynn Reiser's Hardworking Puppies. I love all of the career felt pieces that she created to go with the puppies.
Kathryn at Fun with Friends at Storytime is hosting next week's Flannel Friday round-up.
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.
We have a great relationship going this summer with our local Parks & Rec department (yay Julie for organizing!) and are doing a lot of neat outreach events out in the community this summer. Next week we will be doing story time in the park. There is a good possibility of there being 150+ people there, which means that we began to rethink how we will be sharing picture books with a large crowd. We are pulling out puppets, props, and our newly painted Pete the Cat prop boards.
This is Pete the Cat painted on a large foam board with acrylic paints. The buttons all have velcro so we can tell the story of Pete the Cat and His Four Groovy Buttons by Eric Litwin and have the buttons pop off. Of course, you need a way to see his belly button so we made a 2nd board.
While we will still be using the book to tell the story, these boards will help illustrate the actions to the crowd.
Kelly at Ms. Kelly at the Library is hosting this week's Flannel Friday round-up.
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.
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.
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.
Let me start off by saying that I am not a parent. I am an early childhood expert who is also a children's librarian. Whenever I do story time presentations around the state, one of the biggest questions that I get is how to incorporate early literacy messages into programs. We know that we SHOULD be doing it, but finding the HOW is more difficult.
First, as a manager, I view early messages as vital to story time. While story times are edutainment, they serve a purpose in young children's literacy development. Also, as we plan our departmental goals, early literacy factors big into the discussion as we talk about 0-5 year olds. When I meet with the library's management team, I push our early literacy initiatives.
As for the how, I started off in a low-key way by dropping into our baby play times. This gave me a chance to meet the kiddos and talk to the parents. I was able to quiz them as to what they liked about our services and promote new ideas. Think of it like a focus group! In this setting I was able to grow my confidence in my messages and get immediate verbal and visual feedback from parents, rather than the wall of faces that you see at story time. Here are some sample messages and when I used the:
- Have you seen this new toy? This is why we chose it. I really like how it does ______.
- Let's try building a wall while playing with blocks. Then we'll play we'll play the Three Little Pigs. Who wants to be the Big, Bad Wolf and say "I'll huff and I'll puff and I'll blow your wall down?" Then we'll knock down the wall. I love to play this game over and over as we are retelling the story while playing. You can see here all of the fun words we are using, such as huff and puff, as we play. This all builds language development.
- While playing with letter magnets, look for the letters in your child's name. This helps them to learn that letters have meaning. Another fun thing to try is to identify names of people you know that start with different letters. For example, if you found a "G", you could talk about Grandpa.
Once I got comfortable promoting early literacy, I started adding my messages to my story times. I am not someone who needs to put the message in the same place every week, similar to an opening or closing song. I fit them in wherever it feels natural. Here are some examples:
- As we sing our bubble song today, let's listen for all of the "b" sounds in the song. When we sing songs, it slows down the words so we can hear individual sounds.
- With our scarves today, let's wave them in the shape of an "A". What letter does your name start with? Can you make that shape? By writing our letters in the air with scarves, we are learning our letter shapes. This will help us get ready to write.
- Today we're going to read the book Goodnight Gorilla by Peggy Rathmann. You'll notice as we read the book that there are no words written on the page. We are going to tell the story using only the pictures! The next time you sit down to read a favorite picture book, try having your child "read" the pictures to tell you the story.
- It's time for our next rhyme and we are going to use our fingers to show the actions. Activities like this that use our fingers are like exercise, which helps to strengthen our fingers to get ready to write.
For more great early literacy messages, check out the round-up that will be appearing on Jbrary at the end of the week!
