Thrive Thursday Roundup for 8/6/15

I am the lucky host of August's Thrive Thursday blog hop!

The idea behind Thrive Thursday is to compile great ideas from children's librarians who work with school age kids. It was dreamed up by Lisa Shaia of Thrive After Three. Currently assisting in this endeavor will be Meg, Jennifer, Brytani and myself. Every month a different blogger hosts the roundup and shares posts about programs and other school age library awesomeness.

So without further ado, here is what was shared this month:

In keeping with this summer's hero theme, Kendra shares her superhero training camp and obstacle course at Read Sing Play. I may just have to use a couple of these ideas at my end of summer reading party!

For more fun superhero party ideas check out Tales from The Nerdy.

Angie at Fat Girl Reading shared some passive programs she did at her library this summer. Totally planning on using her showdown idea at my library!

At The Show Me Librarian Amy wrote about some terrific pop up programming she did this summer with the help of her teen volunteers.

Also harnessing the power of volunteers, Carolyn from They Call Me Miss Carolyn did a Just Dance Party.

Ingrid at Magpie Librarian shared her catapult program. Her targets are a great addition, especially Voldemort and Justin "Beaver".

Over at Hey There Library Nikki's Jackson Pollack program sounds like wonderful and messy fun.

Our Neighborhood Librarian Brytani combined learning about Jane Goodall with fort making for an awesome jungle campout.

Marge at Tiny Tips for Library Fun gives an overview of how her library did summer reading this year.

Sarah, the Green Bean Teen Queen, did a comic con at her library that sounds like a blast. Love the way she included local groups!

Thank you all so much for sharing! For more information and school age program ideas you can check out the Thrive Thursday website, Pinterest page and Facebook group.

American Girl Club: Meet Grace

For this month's Thrive Thursday bloghop, I figured I would share a new post about one of the most popular programs at my library, our American Girl Club.

Every year, American Girl releases a new "Girl of the Year". The "Girl of the Year" has stories set in present day, and is only available for one year. This is kind of a good news/bad news situation for my library's American Girl Club. The good news is there is a new American Girl to focus on, which always seems to excite the kids that attend. The bad news is coming up with new activities can be difficult, because there is no historical time period to fall back on. I kind of have to pick a theme or two from the girl's stories and run with it.

The theme for this year's "Girl of the Year", Grace Thomas, turned out to be Paris, France. This worked out particularly well because I was able to pull from the ideas I compiled when our summer reading theme was "One World, Many Stories".

Image from openclipart.org

Here is what we did when we learned about Grace:

We started out discussing Grace, her trip to France and love of baking. The girls were pretty familiar with the stories, which is always a good thing. I asked questions about the good and bad aspects of travel, and talked about how Grace and her friends want to start a business. We followed up with the "Which Cupcake Are You" personality quiz from American Girl's Grace Event Kit. Unfortunately this quiz is no longer available on their website.

Next we played a game called "The Beret".  It basically involves breaking the kids into two groups and assigning numbers to each. There are two people assigned to each number. Each child must try to be the first to grab a beret from the center of the room when I call their number. The kids got pretty active with this one and seemed to really enjoy it.

Our third and final group activity was trying to make the Eiffel Tower out of marshmallows and toothpicks. I gave each table a pack of marshmallows, a box of toothpicks and a picture of the Eiffel Tower and told them to see what they could come up with.

Here are some of the results:

Even the dolls ended up in a sugar coma.

We closed out the program by having a snack of French bread, macaroon cookies, sugar cookies and grape juice. While eating their snack the kids could work on an American Girl coloring page, or do a wordsearch about Grace. Unfortunately, these resources were also later removed from the American Girl website.

One of my favorite things about this program was the fact that it exposed the kids to the culture of a new country. The ideas would definitely work well for any France themed programming you may be planning. They would also be great to include for any programs held when Grace's new book comes out in May.

For information on other recent American Girl related programs go to these posts:

• Samantha, from 1904
• Caroline, from 1812
• Kaya, from 1764
• Addy, from 1864
• Josefina, from 1824
• Isabelle, 2014 Girl of the Year

For more great school age program ideas head on over to this month's Thrive Thursday roundup. It is hosted by Carol Simon Levin at Program Palooza You can also learn more about Thrive Thursday at the Thrive Thursday blog, or check out Thrive Thursday on Pinterest and Facebook!

Thrive Thursday Roundup for 9/4/14

I am the lucky host of September's Thrive Thursday blog hop!

The idea behind Thrive Thursday is to compile great ideas from children's librarians who work with school age kids. It was dreamed up by Lisa Shaia of Thrive After Three. For more information you can check out the Thrive Thursday website, Pinterest page and Facebook group.

I am so happy to share the awesome ideas of my colleagues who work with school age kids. There are so many terrific ideas here. Thank you all so much for sharing! A special shout out to Bryce for providing some of her favorites and introducing me to some great new blogs :)

Here are just a few of the great things going on in school age programming during the past month:

Lisa at Thrive After Three shared her Library Lend a Friend program. Kids get to pick a "flat friend" from a variety of popular characters and chronicle their adventures together. I love that it includes so many character options and would appeal to a wide range of ages. She also shared her Diary of a Wimpy Kid Scavenger Hunt (in time to use for the release of the new book). Definitely using both of these at my library in the future!

Here at Ms. Kelly at the Library I wrote about our yearly Backpack Raffle, and a Guessing Game I came up with in honor of Library Card Signup Month.

Bryce at Bryce Don't Play did a fun program based on Lauren Tarshis's book "I Survived the Shark Attacks of 1916". This series is super popular and sharks are a perennial kid favorite, so I'm sure this one was a hit. Plus, anytime you get to throw pool noodles and balance ping pong balls on your head it's a good time! Bryce also shared the game cards they used for their newly prizeless SRP. Revamping SRP has been on many librarian's agendas, so this is definiely one to check out!

Over at the new blog Tweenbrarian, Amy wrote about her Tween Book to Movie Book Club. I was happy to see this one because I would love to start up a tween book club at my library someday. She has great ideas for activities related to the popular tween reads the "Lightning Thief" and "How to Train Your Dragon". Amy also wrote about a Mythbusters event she held at her library. Love the idea of testing the combination of pop rocks and Coke!

At the Neighborhood Librarian, Brytani pulled together and last minute Muppet Sing Along. Fun movie time plus a great opportunity to connect with patrons is a win win.

Tales from the Nerdy includes a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle party. Major kudos for including instruction on ninja moves!

Stephanie at Storytime Steph shared her Bedtime Math, Sharpie Tie Dye, and Scratch Programming events. We can always use more STEAM programming, and these all sound like great options!

Carol at Program Palooza did a messy and funny series of science programs about "Gizmos, Gadgets and Goo". She includes a diaper polymer activity and so many great recipes and resources for making Oobleck! Carol also has many wonderful vehicle related ideas she used at her Wheel Away program.

Abby at Abby the Librarian has some sage advice about getting into schools to do booktalks. If you would like to do more collaboration with local schools, this post is a must read.

Thanks again so much for sharing!

And before we go, a round of applause for all these wonderful librarians working with school age kids.

The October Roundup will be hosted by Jean Little Library, so check there for updates.