Catch the Possibilities

Anyone else choose a program in time for a publication deadline (say 4-6 months in advance) and by the time the program actually rolls around you're not excited for it?

Yeah. That was totally the Sing Along program I had scheduled for this morning. We're spending some time highlighting each of the five early literacy practices and this month's is SING, so it seemed like a fun way to create a program tie-in and stretch myself beyond a dance party.

And then I lost the key for the magical closet with all my musical instruments, ribbons, scarves, parachute, etc. Since this closet is in the original part of the library, from 1927, the key was a skeleton key. So not one you can just head over to the local hardware store to replace. When I inquired of our maintenance man how we could get another I learned that the locksmith "found" the key we had had. So after spending several days looking everywhere I could think of, and 45 minutes of trying to MacGyver my way into my own closet, I was feeling rather defeated about the probable success of a sing-along program for 2-5 year olds composed of only singing.

I thought about scrapping the whole thing, but I decided that would be too easy. So instead, I improvised like a good musician/librarian (and MacGyver. Without explosives.)


Here's what we did:

1. 5 Practices Song with ASL
2. ABC song. In regular and robot voices.
3. Down by the Bay (call and response) from the Learning Groove
4. Song Cube-- we rolled Itsy Bitsy Spider (and sang with the mommy and baby spider verses)
5. Song Cube-- we rolled Wheels on the Bus (I let the kids tell me which verses we were going to do)
6. You are Clapping from the Learning Groove
7. Shaker making! So I knew I wanted to have some other ways incoporate music making and movement to break up the flow and encourage kids who may not wish to sing to participate. So from my craft stash I grabbed: small paper cups, beans & small pasta noodles, and duct tape. Kids filled up one of their cups as much as they wanted with whatever they wanted, and then we taped the second cup on the top. Instant shaker things that were very easy to make.
8. I Can Shake My Shaker Egg from the Learning Groove
9. The Crazy Shakedown by Razzamatazz for Kids
10. Song Cube-- We rolled If You're Happy and You Know It (we clapped, stomped, shook our shakers, and said "whoo hoo!")
11. Song Cube-- We rolled Mary Had a Little Lamb (we sang and then talked about what fleece was, and then sang it again with fleece as red as an apple, purple as a bunch of grapes, as colorful as a rainbow)
12. Since I didn't have scarves or ribbons, I grabbed some crepe paper we had and cut ~1.5 ft. lengths. We listened to Roll With the Waves by the Learning Groove and played with the streamers.
13. I read the Seals on the Bus by Lenny Hort.
14. Song Cube-- Row Row Row Your Boat (normal, then a little faster, faster still, through the rapids, calm again but I sing "gently down the waterfall! AHHHHHHHH! as the last part of the song)
15. I grabbed matching pairs of some of the different styles of wooden floor blocks we have for "rhythm sticks." We practiced tapping them together in different ways. Then I played Clap Your Hands by They Might Be Giants. We just used the blocks for all three verses, tapping slow and then fast.
15. Song Cube-- Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star in regular and underwater voices.
16. Book Baby.

In the end, most of the kids stayed engaged for the entire 45 minutes. I was definitely expecting to loose them earlier, especially without the aid of my magical closet.


It was a good lesson for me that well chosen material, a genuine, authentic enjoyment of participating in the activities, and some spontaneous creativity can go a long way. I realized I rely more heavily on props and instruments to compensate for the pizzazz? I assume I am lacking as a presenter. I trend toward the reserved, quiet end of the spectrum, enviously eyeing librarians who have 75 different character voices, confident puppet abilities that even adults enjoy, and facial expressions you can see across the room. But even with a scratchy, tired voice, homemade "instruments" and props, I really, really love to sing, dance, and hang out with kids. In the end, I think that was worth more than if I had emptied my entire magical closet.

(Speaking of, anyone have tips for picking the lock?) :)

If you're planning on posting or hosting for the Flannel Friday Guest Post Palooza to celebrate our fourth anniversary (I still can't believe it!), feel free to grab this image and use it to spread the love.

The bunting image is from openclipart.org.

Since I don't have a flannel to post this week, and love is on my mind, I thought I'd share four things I love about Flannel Friday.

1. Friends. One of the most fun parts of attending a national conference was being able to meet face-to-face with colleagues I've "met" though Flannel Friday.

2. Variety. If I'm looking for something new to spice up storytime, I know I have so many resources and ideas just waiting for me to pick from because of this community.

3. Creativity. I value the creative spirit everyone displays in their posts and suggestions on the Facebook page. Not everyone is an artist (myself included!) but I've adapted so many neat ideas to fit my abilities (and time!).

4. Enthusiasm. We all know that working with kids and creating all the programming we do takes a lot of energy. And while we love it, we all have our hard days. When everyone is asking you millions of questions while you're trying to set up for a program. Your boss suddenly needs you to THIS, when you would really like to be finishing THAT. Your own child is sick/Dog needs surgery/Went on the worst first date ever (again)/Had a flat tire/Put your shirt on backwards and inside out and didn't notice until a parent pointed it out. In other words-- our personal lives sometimes invade our mental space and getting psyched up for the 500th storytime of your career might seem insurmountable. This community helps me to be excited about each storytime I do, even when patron, responsibilities, or life is getting in the way.

Amy K mentioned a program NYPL does, where you tape roads onto the floor and kids drive cars on them. I thought, how easy and fun!

When it came time to prepare for the program, I didn't have any concrete ideas for the activity stations, but I thought I'd just pull together some easy activities the morning of.

And then the morning of, I work up at 6:15am with all these activity station ideas magically planned out. The brain does crazy wacky stuff sometimes.

Why not turn it into an opportunity to talk about what different places in our community do?!

Here are the 7 stations I went with:
1. Car Dealership -- I had a few extra cars in case families forgot to bring one from home. They could choose one to take for a "test drive" instead.

2. Car Wash -- I set out a bucket of lightly soapy water, one of clean water, and some dish towels from home for kids to wash their car and dry it off.

3. Construction Site -- I put our wooden blocks out along with legal sized plain white copy paper. Grownups were instructed to wrap the blocks in paper and the kids drew buildings that they got to set out on the road system.

4. Restaurant -- I have a set of food that velcros together. Kids cut up the food to help the chef get ready for dinner.

5. Library -- Kids were supposed to practice balancing a book on their heads and walking.

6. Art Gallery -- Kids drew pictures to add to the Art Show (aka, a piece of paper saying Art Show taped to the wall).

7. Police Station -- I printed off pictures of people stealing, vandalizing property, trespassing, fighting (no blood!), and bullying. On the sign I explained that the police help keep our community safe by finding people who are making very bad choices. Sometimes these people might have a consequence like picking trash up from the road, or maybe they need special classes to learn a new way of doing things, or they might even need to take a break from our community for a while so they don't hurt themselves or anyone else. I taped the pictures around the children's area and the kids were supposed to hunt for them.

By far, the car wash, construction site, restaurant, and art gallery were the most popular stations. Several kids just really liked driving their cars around on the roads. Which is just fine too.

If/when I do this program again, here are other ideas I came up with but didn't use. The possibilities are endless!

• Fire Station -- spray bottles with water at a chalk board to put out a fire; count spots on a Dalmatian
• Grocery Store -- flannelboard sort food into a grocery cart, toys into a toy box, etc. ; relay race with toy shopping carts
• Hospital -- science exploration with thermometers; putting pretend bandaids on stuffed animals
• Park -- raking pretend leaves; hula hoops; bean bag toss; activity cube
• Coffee Shop -- coffee grounds sensory play; coffee playdough; pouring from a pitcher
• Clothing Store -- pick out clothes and dress a doll
• Recycling Center -- Recycling sort boxes; sort actual items into recycling/trash/compost
• Community Garden -- plant seeds; does this grow in the ground or on a tree game
• Gym/Fitness Center -- physical activities
• Bank -- money identification (quarter, penny, dollar bill, etc.)

Can you believe we're four?! What started out as one librarian influencing a few others has grown into a Facebook page, website, Pinterest, and generally awesome thing. Being the awesome, kid-oriented people we are, we're putting on our party pants and bringing out the glitter. We've celebrated a few different ways, but for this March 4th, we're looking at you. Yes. You.

Welcome to the Guest-Post Palooza!!!! Anyone make "try new things" your resolution to rock this year? Have a prop, flannel story, puppet activity, draw and tell, scarf song, or other awesome idea you use something to blow the minds of your youngsters and their grownups? Thought about participating but didn't want the commitment of creating your own blog? We get it. We don't judge. But we do want YOU. We learn so much from each other. But in order to do that, we have to put ourselves out there, stand by our work, and share what we know!

If you're willing to rock it this year by contributing to our Guest-Post Palooza to honor four crazy years of professional development, community building, puffy paint disasters, milk filter experiments, and lots and lots of glue, let us know! We will pair you up with a blogger who will make a hospitable place for your stuff on their blog.

To let us know you're willing to share your blog and serve as a gracious host, or to let us know that you're ready to jump in and share what you know, fill out this form. Sharon and Mollie are working overtime and one of them will contact you with the details of your match up.

Have questions about this? Check out our FAQs page.

So, three things.

1. I've been in my current job for coming up on 5 years. When I started, I went through every closet, cupboard, drawer, file, nook, and cranny that had youth stuff in it. I got rid of a lot. But... now I'm letting the stuff I've been accumulating all on my own pile up, and it's time to purge again. As a small budget/small staff library I have a hard time getting rid of things I might use someday, but I think 2015 is the year. I'm giving myself permission to let it go.

2. In 2014 I started trying to get a handle on what I weed when, so that I make my way through the collection on consistent basis. Towards the end of the year I was experimenting with ways to track what is being added to the collection from my standing order plans and planning for filling in areas of the collection that will be in need of refreshing. I'd like to continue to work and play around with the way I incorporate collection development into all of the things I'm responsible for. I want collection work to be a priority, without taking up piles of my non-existent time a week.

3. I really struggle with reading children's fiction. We also know I really struggle with reading challenges. So, in order to be a better reader's adviser, I'm choosing one children's fiction book a month to read. I'm not going to set any more parameters than that, in the hopes that spontaneity will encourage me to complete the challenge.

For the last year and a half I've been visiting a group of 6-12 month old babies at one of the preschool centers in my community. I also visit the next two older groups of kids on the same day. For simplicity's sake, I've been reusing the plans for my 0-36 month in-house storytime. If you're a regular reader of Mel's Desk, you'd be familiar with most of the storytimes I present. I plan to have 20 minutes of "group" time and like to keep the book count down to 2 or 3.

Things are going well with the upper two age brackets, but I wonder if I'm providing the most that I can for the youngest group. Since I can guarantee a 2:1, 1:1, or 1:2 adult:child ratio with the current crop of in-house attendees I have, I know that bounces, tickling rhymes, fingerplays, etc. can all be done easily (as long as the child is in the mood). At the center there are, at the most, 6 kids in the class and 2 adults. So I find that all those rhymes, bounces, fingerplays, etc. don't work-- or work but not as well as I think they could.

At a previous library, the department also did regular outreach to this age group, but it was to a preschool on a college campus, so in addition to the teachers, extra students were always present, and we had a volunteer who would come, so that there was a 1:1 or 1:2 adult:child ratio and a lapsit-style storytime was possible.

I've tried experimenting with some props or exploratory play segments. For instance, today I brought a large plastic bear (from this set) and set it on the floor at the beginning of our time. I left it there and after a bit, some of the babies starting being more curious about the bear than me being there. They all had a little time holding or examining the bear before I left. I've also done a counting rhyme (10 Little Books to the tune of Michael Finnegan) with actual board books. As soon as the books were stacked up in a pile, the babies needed to be touching and opening them, so we took some time for to play with the books. But those have been kind of last minute, fly by the seat of your pants sort of decisions. On the whole, I like to be more thoughtful than not when it comes to assembling a quality storytime. :)

Since I only visit the kids once a month, the babies aren't comfortable enough with me to want to sit in my lap for a bounce. How do you all manage storytimes for such young ones in situations where a 1:1 or 1:2 adult:child ratio isn't possible? What strategies or activities could I try to add value to the books and songs I'm already using?

I wasn't sure what to choose for a topic for this week's storytime, so I did some searching and found that it was Fall Astronomy week. Great-- a space storytime it is.