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.

Flannel Friday Round-Up

It's Flannel Friday Round-Up time again!  Without further ado, here we go.

Do you like trying something a little different in your story time?  Check out Lisa at Thrive After Three's optical illusion for Batman or Penguin.  Superheros are always popular or you can store it for next year's superhero summer reading theme.

We have ducks and have color matching in Kathryn at Fun with Friends at Storytime's Rubber Ducky.  Plus, if it will work with your group and you have the pieces, you can easily pass out 1 duck for each child to bring up to the flannelboard.

You know you have a flannelboard hit when a colleague recreates it.  Bridget at What is Bridget Reading? made Five Tiny Gnomes based on Sunflower Storytimes rhyme and pattern.

Angela at Valley Storytime has another inspired by Flannel Friday post in the form of Five Little Fluffy Sheep.  What is really neat about her flannel pieces is that she has real colored wool on them.

Wow, people must be clearing out their Pinterest boards right now as we have a third inspired by Flannel Friday post.  A Librarian Less Ordinary made puppets to go with I Broke My Trunk by Mo Willems.  Plus, a cool craft is involved involving blowout party favors.  You know the kids will love it!

Anne at itsybitsymom retells the story of How Will We Get to the Beach? by Brigitte Luciani.  What is really neat about her post is the combination of felt pieces and pieces made from milk filters.  I have to get some of those!

If you ever do a story time about colors, you need to make Storytime Katie's crayons.  They are relatively simple to make and have a great rhyme to go with them.

Amy at The Show Me Librarian has been getting her felt on this year.  This week's contribution is finger puppets based on The Little Red Hen.  The final product turned out great.

Kelly at Ms. Kelly at the Library was inspired by Who Uses This? by Margaret Miller to create her flannelboard.  What I really like about her post is that she explains why she didn't strictly follow this story and illustrations for her groups.

Just in time for Fizz Boom Read, Linda at Notes from the Story Room brings us a draw-and-tell story called Building a Bot.  What always amazes me is that she creates these stories from scratch!

You are going to be totally blown away by Jane at Piper Loves the Library's felt S.T.E.A.M.-punk robot.  Her staff does a summer reading show at all of their elementary schools and her pictures are amazing.

That's a wrap for this week.  Next week's round-up will be hosted by Linda at Notes from the Story Room.

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.

Early Literacy Kits, Round 2

If you missed the first post about this project, you will want to start here.  I have had a lot of librarian interest in this project so I am sharing my progress as I go.  A week ago I finished four more kits!

Kit 3-Mouse Paint
This kit contains:

• Mouse Paint by Ellen Stoll Walsh
• Colors Everywhere by Tana Hoban
• Songs About Colors and Shapes CD 
• Flannelboard set made in-house
• Storytelling lapboard
• Mouse puppet
• Shapes & Colors Memory Match
• Booklet 

Kit 4-Polar Bear, Polar Bear

This kit contains:

• Polar Bear, Polar Bear, What Do You Hear? by Bill Martin, Jr.
• Polar Bears by Laura Marsh
• Brown Bear and Friends CD
• Polar Bear flannelboard kit and puppet
• Booklet  

Kit 5-Nursery Rhymes

This kit contains:

•  My First Mother Goose edited by Iona Opie
• Teddy Bear, Teddy Bear, Turn Around
• Wee Sing Children's Songs and Fingerplays by Pamela Beall
• Flannelboard set made in-house
• Storytelling lapboard 
• Humpty Dumpty finger puppet
• Jack and Jill picture cards from Literacy Centers and Activities for Nursery Rhymes, Volume 2
• Booklet

 

 

Kit 6-The Very Hungry Caterpillar

This kit contains:

• The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle
• Caterpillar to Butterfly by Laura Marsh
• Very Hungry Caterpillar caterpillar/butterfly and felt pieces
• Very Hungry Caterpillar block puzzle
• Very Hungry Caterpillar puppet
• Booklet

As with our last round of kits, these are extremely popular.  There is currently none of the kits checked in at any of our locations.  While I wish that I could move faster to get these out, I have found that it takes me about 4 hours to put each kit together, from ordering to laminating, to creating content for the booklets, to processing the actual kit when it is ready to go.  9 more to go!

 

Library Spaces

This past spring I have been doing a lot of traveling for meetings and conferences.  Of course, I always stop in at local libraries as there are always neat ideas that I can "borrow" for my own workplace.  For those who don't get to travel much or just love looking at library spaces, here are some pictures from my travels.

Indianapolis Public Library
If you haven't ever been to the Central Library location of the Indianapolis Public Library, it is definitely a destination spot.  Seriously, your eyes will glaze over in wonder as you look around.  My only gripe about the building was that there was no teen space.  The children's area has a high tech feel.

They run a QR code scavenger hunt throughout the department.  How cool is that?!?  While I can't invest in these stations like they have, I can definitely make my own QR code hunt.

In their juvenile nonfiction area, they have black-and-white pictures above the shelving bays to show off what is there.  I really like this, especially for younger kids who can't read yet.  Plus, we all know that Dewey is a foreign language to most people.  Pictures really do help!  While our shelving ranges are too tall to do something like this, it may be possible to add pictures to the endcaps.

This is probably the neatest part about the whole library.  They have a green screen!  Kids (and adults!) can predict the weather or drive a racecar.  There is raised seating in this area and they actually do all of their story times here!  When I asked about how that would work, they said that they do a normal story time where the presenter sits up front.  Then during the last 10 minutes or so, kids could come up and play with the green screen.  It is a great way to add technology to every story time!

Willard Public Library-Battle Creek
The Willard Public Library in Battle Creek, MI does a fantastic job creating a bookstore feel as you wander through the displays.  They use multiple copies and faceouts, which promotes circulation.  

I hadn't seen a library break out their seasonal books before and I thought this was a neat concept (excuse the bad picture).  We all know that spring, summer, fall, and winter books tend to only circulate during their given season.  This tends to hurt circulation when comparing them to the rest of the collection.  I really liked this idea, plus the display space on the tops of the shelves.

Bloomfield Township Public Library
I will be honest-as a children's librarian I "borrow" a lot of ideas from this library.  They have a lot of specialized collections that we are just starting (or enhancing) at my library, including special needs and parent/teacher collections  If you haven't been there before, you definitely need to stop by if you are in Metro Detroit.

I love the built-in shelves on all of the endcaps throughout their children's area.  This makes it easy to pull out and highlight various books.  Plus, kids can see what is in that area!

This is their story time room.  I really liked the curved feel to the room as it makes it easier for everybody to see the presenter.  Ours is a square and it is hard to find a good place to set up the flannelboard and the cd player for easy access and so everybody can see.

Harper Woods Public Library
This is a smaller library that I just visited this past week.  They recently went through a renovation and really made good use of their space.

While the children's area is downstairs, they have clear signage so you can identify the department.  Plus, the children's reference desk is right when you come down the stairs.

No space in this building was wasted.  Under the stairs are these great blobby holes that are perfect reading nooks.  Plus, they bring color into the children's area.

That's all that I have for now.  I will be back the next time I get a round of pictures!

Flannel Friday-Two Little Bluebirds

This is one of my favorite rhymes to use with my Tot Time group (12-24 months).  When I saw that Mollie had created a flannelboard to go with it, I stole (um, borrowed) her pattern and made my own.

Two little bluebirds sitting on a hill.

One named Jack and one named Jill.

Fly away Jack. Fly away Jill.

Come back Jack. Come back Jill.

Recently I have been working on circulating early literacy kits.  One of the themes is nursery rhymes and I REALLY wanted to include this rhyme.  To make it more fun, I expanded it a bit.

Two little purple birds

Two little yellow birds

Two little pink birds

Because these were circulating, I used puffy paint rather than googly eyes so I didn't create a choking hazard.  I included a rhyme card with each set (content by me and design by our Community Relations person).  In addition to the rhyme, I give suggestions to parents as to how to play with the rhyme.  For example, instead of using Jack and Jill, use Brad and Bill.

This week's hosts are Lindsey and Dana over at Jbrary!  Stop of by for some great ideas.  As always, for all Flannel Friday information stop by the official blog.

Revamping Our Parent-Teacher Collection

My new location has a parent-teacher collection, which is an important component of a children's room.  After all, parents and teachers are using your collection already.  Why not add some of their stuff in too?  Unfortunately, there were a number of problems that I came into with this collection.  Here are some of the ways that I solved them.

Problem #1-The collection itself
There were very few books added (under 10/year) and much of the collection was our weeded professional reference books.  I started with pulling the stats by Dewey number (we use Relative Use and circulation stats) and doing a massive weeding project.  Honestly, very few people want to check out our old books about planning a summer reading program. 

Then came the purchasing of new books.  Our children's budget at the moment is one large pot so there is no money specified for specific collections and nobody is in charge of making sure stuff is bought.  This makes it easy to forget when ordering.  Next fiscal year, we will be dividing up our budget based on what's being used and members of the department will be in charge of the entire collection development cycle for that collection.

To get us started for this year, I did purchase new items.  This is one of those collections where you have to look outside the normal journals to find quality items.  Here are some of my sources.

• Lakeshore Learning-books are split by subject area in the store so it is easy to look for books for a specific Dewey range or subject area.
• Barnes and Noble-I went through both the parenting and education sections and looked for multiple copies, glossy covers, and subjects where our stats showed more books were needed.
• Other libraries with similar collections-We have a local library who has an awesome parent-teacher collection and used to put all of their new books up on their web site.  It was easy for me to go through their list and see what would fit our collection.  It also showed me different publishers to check.
• Publisher's web sites-I am a big fan of Mailbox Books because their selections have ready-to-go projects and lesson plans that can be adapted for both teachers and parents.

Problem #2-Location & Signage
The collection was in the far back corner of the department and the signage was to the left of the shelves.  When standing in front of the books, it was difficult to tell what they were. When standing in front of the books, it was difficult to tell what they were.

Since there was empty space after the weeding project, I shifted the books to free up the top shelf.  I created a sign that highlighted new books and displayed them on this shelf.  Plus, the sign has "Parent-Teacher" right at the top so it makes it a bit more obvious what is in the collection.  The sign has both cover art and Dewey numbers so staff can pull more items to add to the display as items are checked out.

Based on observation and stats, the changes seem to be working.  Have you had to revamp a collection?  How did you do it?