Bookshelves as Early Literacy Centers

Back in May, I took a Michigan Library Association webinar on early literacy play spaces, presented by Anjie Gleisner of Kent District Library. I loved the message about how early literacy activities can be incorporated into any library surface. The first creation that resulted was our counting ramp. By taping numbers onto the ramp into our children's area, I turned it into a place kids could explore numbers and patterns. The counting ramp was a big hit with the kids, but recently the numbers had to be removed so the carpet could be cleaned.

The next surface I wanted to take advantage of was the sides of our bookshelves. We have five shelves in our Juvenile Easy area, all of which face out into the library and have a reasonable amount of space in front of them. I thought this would be the perfect place to mount some early literacy related activities.

My first thought was that I wanted to take advantage of a Lego board I got through the Lego "Read, Build, Play" program. I had our maintenance person mount it on the side of the book shelf, along with a plastic bin I got at my local dollar store.

By playing with the Legos, preschoolers are developing fine motor skills, which will be needed when they learn to write. They are also getting practice with patterns, counting and other math related skills. I wanted the parents to know all this information as well, so I added a sign on the top of the bookcase.

For one of our other bookcases I decided to add a flannel board. It was made out of an extra summer reading lawn sign that I covered in felt.

At this center, kids can practice storytelling, counting and color recognition skills. I plan on switching out the accompanying flannel pieces periodically and changing my literacy tips based on which pieces I have set out. Right now I have my "Five Little Cupcakes" pieces out.

I am hoping these centers will be fun for the kids, and at the same time increase the awareness of early literacy practices among parents. They were easy to make and cost next to nothing. Another benefit is the versatility of this idea. You could use bookcases to  create many other types of early literacy centers, such as one to play with magnetic letters.

Is anyone else using surfaces of your library in a creative way? I would love to hear about it.

Flannel Friday Roundup for 7/10/15: Shark Week

This week we are keeping up the yearly Flannel Friday tradition of celebrating Shark Week!

In case you aren't familiar with it, Flannel Friday is a weekly series where librarian bloggers share descriptions of flannel boards and other storytime props. This week we have some great ideas that I am very excited to share with you.

Shark themed ideas

The always wonderful Melissa of Mel's Desk provides us with an amazing new shark themed rhyme and props. Definitely saving this one for future storytimes!

At Bonnie's new blog The Buckeye Librarian, she writes about a shark puppet made to go along with the "Five Little Fish" rhyme. Welcome to Flannel Friday Bonnie!

I took a different take on "Five Little Fish" doing it as a flannel board.

Other storytime greatness

Kathryn from Fun with Friends at Storytime shares some great snake themed activities that teach colors and help develop fine motor skills.

Over at Libraryland, Lisa has made a prop board featuring one of my favorite book characters, Pete the Cat. Terrific idea for accommodating large storytime crowds!

Storytime Katie has us covered for not one but two future holidays with her heart matching and red, white and blue flannel activities.

At Piper Loves the Library Jane shares a visit to the North Regional Library in Raleigh for storytime and more.

For more information about Flannel Friday head over to the Flannel Friday Blog or Pinterest page. You can also follow #flannelstorytime on Twitter.

Flannel Friday: Five Little Fishies Swimming in the Sea

My contribution to this week's shark themed Flannel Friday is flannel pieces to go along with one of my favorite storytime songs: "Five Little Fishies Swimming in the Sea". This is a twist on the classic "Five Little Monkeys Swinging in a Tree" that I often use in storytime, but usually only with hand motions. I don't remember where exactly I learned it from.

Five Little Fishies

Five little fishies swimming in the sea,

Teasing Mr. Shark,

"You can't catch me, you can't catch me!"

Along came Mr. Shark, as quiet as can be,

And snapped that fish right out of the sea!

(repeat and countdown until no fish are left)

To create my fish I used this template to trace them on felt. I cut the fins free hand and glued them on with Tacky Glue. The shark was also traced using a template. I did have to enlarge the template  using our copier before tracing it. I added googly eyes to all and traced a mouth on the shark.

I am hosting our Shark Week themed roundup this week! Head on over to my roundup post tomorrow to see what great ideas have been shared this week. To participate in upcoming roundups, or get more great storytime ideas head over to the Flannel Friday Blog or Pinterest page. You can also follow #flannelstorytime on Twitter.

Every Hero Has a Story: Superhero Crafts

We officially started our weekly summer kids programs this past Tuesday. Because this is the week of the Fourth of July holiday, I started out with crafts. The good thing about doing crafts during a holiday week is it allows me the option to save materials for any kids who aren't able to attend.

For the summer I do two sessions of each weekly program for Grades K-2 and two sessions for Grades 3-6. I am somewhat flexible with these age ranges, especially in the case of siblings. Breaking it up this way allows me to adapt the programs more specifically to each age range and maintain a registration size of around 12 for each program.

Without further ado, here are the crafts we did:

 

K-2nd graders

 

Superhero Cuffs

 

 

Supplies needed:

Toilet paper tubes
Paint
Brushes

Cost: Nothing

I cut slits into toilet paper tubes and let the kids paint their own cuffs. Word of warning they may stretch a bit as they are painted! I told the kids they could always squeeze them back into shape once they dry.

Superhero Capes

Supplies needed:
White fabric (about a half a yard per child)
Fabric markers

Cost: About $17 for the fabric, $15 for three new packs of fabric markers.

This was my big splurge for the program. I bought the cheapest white fabric I could find at JoAnn Fabrics and new fabric markers. The fabric was cut into cape sized pieces and U shaped hole was cut in the top for the neck. It was definitely worth it, especially when I saw a little boy come into the library the following day wearing the cape he had decorated. FYI: I've also seen capes made out of old t-shirts, which is something I might consider if I did this again.

Superhero Shields

Supplies needed:
Paper plates
Paint
Paintbrushes

Cost: Nothing

To complete their gear, the kids painted paper plate "shields". These were definitely a hit as well.

Desk wrap: 

Supplies:
Large roll of paper
Crayons

Cost: Nothing

Our final craft for this age group was decorating a large piece of paper I will use to wrap my desk this summer. The great thing about this craft is that once it is displayed kids will most likely bring their families by the library to show it off.

3rd-6th graders

Superhero Puzzles

Supplies needed: 
Popsicle sticks (About 5 per puzzle)
Print outs of superheros or old comic pages
Glue
Crayons or Paint

Cost: Nothing

I got the idea for this craft at GeekyKool.com. The basic idea is taping Popsicle sticks together and gluing an image on. The sticks are then cut apart to create a puzzle. I didn't have old comics available, so I used the hero images that have generously been made available at Hafuboti. The kids could color or paint these heroes, a process that kept most kids engaged for close to a half an hour.

Superhero Scratch Offs

Supplies needed: Scratch offs and scratching tools

Cost: $6

I didn't have a chance to get a picture of these, but we broke out the superhero scratch offs I ordered from the CSLP program. They are basically black superhero shapes you can scratch to reveal a variety of colors. The kids seemed to like these, even though some of them just proceeded to scratch off their entire super hero.

Create your own comics

Image from openclipart.org

Supplies needed:
Comic print outs

Crayons

Pencils

Cost: Nothing

I printed out sheets of comic strips for the kids to create their own comics. There are many places you can find these templates online, but I got mine from the blog Sweet Hot Mess. Due to how long they spent on the puzzles, many of these comics ended up being taken home.

I hope that everyone is having a great summer so far, and that these crafts come in handy. If you have any programming or craft ideas to share I'd love to hear them!

Every Hero Has a Story: Who is your hero?

Ever since I took an early childhood related webinar through MLA about two months ago, I've been thinking about how to provide literacy building activities on every available library surface. I created our counting ramp, and am planning on adding a Lego board and a flannel board to the sides of our shelves. For summer reading I wanted to come up with a literacy building passive program that kids of all ages could enjoy.

I took advantage of our circulation desk and paper we had on hand to create a "Who is your hero?" board.

In addition to keeping kids busy while they wait to check out books, this board has many literacy benefits:

• When writing on the board the youngest kids are developing their fine motor skills.
• As the youngest children see words written down, they will develop the knowledge that print has meaning.
• Kids will most likely sound out the names of their heroes as they write them, developing their phonemic awareness.
• Developing readers will get valuable reading practice by reading the names of the heroes other children write on the board.
• As parents see the board they will most likely talk about it with their children (one of the literacy practices in ECRR2).
• Kids will probably explain why they chose their hero to parents or staff, therefore strengthening their narrative skills.

I'd love to hear any other great passive programming ideas you may have for the summer. As always you can comment here or reach me on Twitter (@MsKellyTweets).

Early Literacy Messages in Action: The why, how, and where of incorporating early literacy tips in storytime

In my almost five years doing storytimes for all ages I've found one of the hardest aspects I've had to work on is how to incorporate early literacy tips. As someone without children it always seemed a little strange giving parents advice related to their children. Over time I've realized that this is one of the most important things we do in storytime and I've become more comfortable incorporating early literacy messages in my storytimes. Because of this experience when I saw some of my wonderful Twitter friends discussing doing a blog tour on the topic I was happy to add my two cents.

The why
The biggest reason for including early literacy messages in storytime is because as children's librarians, early literacy is one of our areas of expertise. Many parents may not know the things we do about early literacy, and it is part of our job to inform them. Other parents may already know a great deal but need a gentle reminder on a busy day. Still other parents could just use a reminder that the things they already do with their children are making a difference. Providing these messages helps support all these parents. It will help them encourage their children's development in the best way possible.

Knowing that storytime specifically supports early literacy will also help parents see the reasoning behind what we do and the value behind coming to storytime. Once they realize the value of storytime the more likely parents are to bring their children to storytime and become advocates for the library in the community.

The how
The "how" is where it gets tricky. It can be difficult to put our knowledge into words without sounding judgmental or preachy. Here are some things I've learned that make it a little easier.

• Tie messages directly to what you are doing in storytime. I find this makes it feel more relevant and natural. It also gives your message a little more conversational tone.
• Include messages at different points during storytime. As Jbrary points out, messages can be woven into your opening message, before or after activities and in one on one conversation with parents.
• Word the message in a straightforward and simple way. I like the format of "When you do (insert activity) it is great for your child because (insert reason)". For instance "When you do bouncing rhymes, it is a great way for your baby to feel the rhythm of language." This not only gives concrete advice, it shows that we know parents are probably doing many of these things already.
• Provide messages in several different formats. Some librarians provide handouts at storytime or display signs around the children's department. My favorite format is including these messages on my storytime blog.
• Keep your messages varied as possible. I work in a small town, and have many regular kids who have attended storytime over long periods of time. This means I have to do my best to keep the messages I provide fresh and new.

Examples
Here are a few of my favorite tips to use:

• "Song lyrics often include unfamiliar words, which makes singing a great way to boost your child's vocabulary" 
• "Ask your baby simple questions as you read to them, even if they can't respond. The more you engage with your baby in this manner the more words they will learn to understand."
• "Your baby will learn to pay attention to their name very early on. If you use their name right before a new word, your baby is more likely to learn the new word."
• "Rhyming stories help your child identify the sounds of language. This skill becomes increasingly important as your child is learning how to read."

Where to find tips
These are just a few of my favorite places to find more examples.

• Zero to Three: This is a website of a national nonprofit organization that provides parents with great information about child development.
• Betsy Diamont Cohen's Early Literacy Kit. It includes both a handbook and tip cards.
• American Academy of Pediatrics
• Many more great resources are included on my early literacy tips Pinterest board.

For more great perspectives on this topic see the other posts in this blog tour. Jbrary has been kind enough to include them all in a a roundup post. You can also find discussion of this topic on Twitter under the hashtag #EarlyLitInAction.

5 reasons why summer reading rocks

As you probably already know if you are reading this, summer is the busiest of year to be a youth services librarian in a public library. Running a summer reading program can be stressful but also amazingly fun and rewarding. While waiting for this year's summer reading program to start, I've definitely enjoyed the way my online youth service colleagues have written about this dichotomy. Angie sums up the chaos and fun of summer reading perfectly at her post on Letters to a Young Librarian. Sarah at Green Been Teen Queen gives another great account of what it is like to be a public librarian in the summer. They both show outsiders that summer reading is definitely not something to be run away from in fear!

I wanted to share a little bit of my own summer reading related positivity, so here we have my countdown of five reasons why summer reading rocks.

Reason 5:  You get to include fun and interesting outside performers
I don't typically use outside performers at my library very often, mainly due to budget reasons. However, in the summer all that changes, because I know attendance will be high. I typically get to include a least a few performers each summer. This summer we are having a magician, a pair of authors and a local artist visit my library. It adds a little variety for both the kids, and is fun for me to see as well.

Reason 4: It's the perfect opportunity to try new program ideas
More programs done each week equals more chance to those ideas filling up my Pinterest boards. The overarching themes of the Collaborative Summer Library Program also give me a chance to focus on topics I may not have previously thought of. For instance last years science themed summer reading program really strengthened my repertoire of STEAM program ideas.

Reason 3: You get to see kids you may not see during the school year.
There are some kids that can't make it into the library often during the school year, no matter how amazing your programs are. Summer is your time to see these kids and show them what the library is all about. The goal is for them to remember these positive experiences and become life long library fans.

Reason 2: The children's department gets to help the library build community good will
Summer reading is a great opportunity to show your community what the library has to offer. You have more families in to visit, more items being checked out and more programs to brag about. It is also a great time to partner with community organizations to fund prizes and programs. This works to showcase the positive of both organizations.

Reason 1: More kids + More reading = more fun.
This is really what it's all about. Summer reading brings together a children's librarian's two great loves: kids and books. There is really nothing better.

What are your favorite things about summer reading?