Baa Baa Black Sheep

I love bringing nursery rhymes into story time and one of my favorite is Baa Baa Black Sheep.  There is so much you can do with it, from rhyming to talking about colors.  This morning for story time, I made envelope puppets out of different colored sheep.  If you have never made an envelope puppet before, seal the envelope and cut off the end 3 inches or so.  You can make two puppets out of each envelope.  For these, I used different colored die cut sheep and used double-sided tape to stick them to the envelope.  While I could collect them back and reuse them, I like to send them home with the kids to retell the rhymes.  They are cheap and easy to make so I don't mind losing them.

After I pass out the sheep, we say the rhyme using the different colors.  For example:

Baa Baa Black Sheep, have you any wool?

Baa Baa Blue Sheep, have you any wool?

Baa Baa Red Sheep, have you any wool?

In this case, the kids who had each color held up their puppets as we told their verse.

 

Flannel Friday Round-Up

It's a wrap!  Check out the great ideas from the week below.

Kate from Felt Board Magic (and one of our Southern Hemisphere participants!) shows off Apple Colour Sorting.  While it would be a great addition to a fall story time, I am totally stealing this one for our felt board that we have out all the time.

Kate also shows off Five Grey Elephants Balancing Step By Step on a Piece of String.  I had never heard this song before, but it is big in Australian play schools.

I show off my easy envelope puppets here at Libraryland and how I use them in story time.  This week's version was Baa Baa Black Sheep.

Jane at Piper Loves the Library gets into the holiday spirit with her post about the Nutcracker program that they held with the Connecticut Concert Ballet.  It is precious and looks like a lot of fun! 

Jen at Adventures in Storytime shares her snowflakes and the songs/rhymes that she uses them with.  Since winter starts in a week, this is a great one to add to your lineup! 

Amy at One Little Librarian shares her Do You Want to Feed the Reindeer? prop.  Not only is she injecting some play into her program, but the food items have letters and numbers on them.

Shawn at Read, Rhyme and Sing has a Christmas version of Little Mouse using jingle bells and sleighs.

Wendy at Flannel Board Fun shares a bunch of variations of Little Mouse using various rhyming words. My wheels are already spinning on this one!

Mary will be hosting next week's round-up at Miss Mary Liberry. 

 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.

It's been awhile!

It's been awhile since I have posted and some of you have expressed interest in what I have been doing.  Here's some of the neat stuff that I have been doing this fall (posts to follow someday):

• Our school outreach program got pushed into high gear by participating in the ConnectED Library Challenge.  Our goal is to give every student in our service area a library card. Our library district hosts 47 schools in five districts, plus residents in a sixth.  We brought our first (and largest) school district on in September to great success and are slowly rolling this out to the other districts.  Our challenge right now is keeping up with demand and figuring out what is sustainable. 

•  Along with that, I have done 4 presentations on our school outreach program since the beginning of October.  While one was for our library board and another for our coop, our school outreach librarian (plus some others for 1) have also presented at our state library association annual conference and our state media specialist preconference.  I now have a presenting break until PLA-if you're there on Thursday afternoon and are interested in school outreach, stop by our presentation.

• Last week I attended Family Place training in New York.  It was a great experience and I highly recommend it to everyone.  My brain is currently spinning with future changes to go along with that certification. 

So that's where I am at.  This is on top of my manager duties, reference desk, programming, and other miscellaneous tasks that make up my day.  I will be honest-I still haven't put away our Trick or Treat supplies as many days lately I drop a pile on my desk and grab another to go off again.  I will be back and will have some great stuff for you all!

Hickory Dickory Dock Guest Post

This is a guest post version of Hickory Dickory Dock for Nancy.  She shared some pictures with me of something fun that she created in her children's department.  Presenting...Hickory Dickory Dock!

This week's Flannel Friday round-up is hosted by Melissa at Mel's Desk.

 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 Round-Up

 

Welcome to the Halloween edition of Flannel Friday!  We have some great Halloween/fall posts and some great general posts for your story time pleasure!

Halloween/Fall
Kathryn at Fun with Friends at Storytime is using her Crown for a Day rhyme at her Halloween program.  She shares both a flannel version and a file folder version of the rhyme!

I am always amazed at people who can play instruments in story time.  Check out Storytime Ukulele's post of Halloween songs.

Jess at From the Liberry of has created a neat version of This is NOT a Pumpkin by Bob Staake.  It has already gone on my TBM (to be made) pile and I am sure that you will feel the same!

Storytime Whoopdeedo shares their version of Fall is Not Easy by Marty Kelley.  If you haven't read this book before, definitely check it out for your fall story times.  The flannelboard version makes it even more awesome!

Lauren at The Dilley Dally shows off a great flannelboard that kids can play with.  Check out her mix and match monster station!

Other Great Stuff!
Meg at Miss Meg's Storytime shares a flannel/prop version of her vegetable rhyme.  What's really neat about it (other than the faces on the vegetables) is that there is a vegetable for every child in attendance.  It is a great way to encourage participation!

Amy at one little librarian shares her version of 5 Little Rocking Horses.  This is a great addition to a horse, nursery rhyme, or toy story time.

Melissa at Mel's Desk builds on her last post and adds Meow's friends.

That's a wrap for the week!  Melissa at Mel's Desk is hosting next week.  It is a great flannelboard, especially if you work with the toddler age group.

Are you working with colors?  Check out Storytime Katie's inspired version of paintbrushes.

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.

Harry Potter Day

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.

Diagon Alley

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.