Registration open for MI KidLib 2018!

If you are in Michigan or nearby, please consider attending the 2018 MI KidLib unconference on Friday, May 11th in Kalamazoo. It's free to attend and registration is open now.

Thank you so much to Kalamazoo Public Library's Central branch for hosting! Hope to see some of you there!

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Program I Love: Code Club!

Inspired by Hour of Code, we have started a Code Club at my library. We use different Hour of Code projects each meeting. We aim for grades 2-6 and encourage an adult to stay with the child if possible. I lead the group, alongside the library's Head of IT. 

We start with a video introduction to the project itself and then let the kids work at their own pace for an hour. We meet Thursday evenings from 6:15-7:15pm in my library's computer lab. This format works really well for us because we expect the kids to come in with a big range of computer science experience. Most of them have never attempted coding but we've had 1-2 who were teaching themselves how to code. We also have a display of books for them to check out after the program if they want to learn more. We take up to 15 kids a meeting. The ratio of 7ish kids to adult presenter has worked really well for us. Our goal is for kids to get help with their projects as quickly as possible so they don't get frustrated. 

Here's a list of what we have done before (all of these projects are free!). 

December: Minecraft Designer

January: Winter Greeting Card

March: Google Logo 

If you don't have a lot of money but want to offer some coding programs, I really recommend giving the Hour of Code projects a try! 

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Flannel Friday now even easier to participate in than ever!

We are making a change to our Flannel Friday process and I wanted to share Mel's post on the reasons why and how things will work from now on. 

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STEM + Stories: Coasters and Mazes

July's STEM + Stories theme was Roller Coasters and Mazes. 

Book read: Roller Coasters (Thrill Rides series) by Valerie Boden. 

Station 1: Paper plate and drinking straw mazes (used mini-pom poms as marbles)

Station 2: Robot Mouse Activity Set

Station 3: Foam pipe insulation marble roller coasters  The kids really enjoyed this activity although only 2 children chose to begin at this station! But almost all of them joined it eventually and we had foam pipe insulation going everywhere! A few of the parents said they were going to grab some from the hardware store to make marble runs at home too. :) We used the 3 foot long size but I have seen it done with 6 foot as well (Cut the insulation in half to double your track). I spent about $40 on the insulation you see here (8 sets of these) and we will be able to reuse it again and again.

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Guest Post: 5 Whales in the Bathtub

I'm hosting a guest post by Syntha Green, a Youth Services Librarian at Troy Public Library this week. Here's what Syntha had to say about "5 Whales in the Bathtub"

I am doing a summer fun theme for storytime and one of the books I am reading is I Won A What? by Audrey Vernick. I remembered the 5 Sharks in the Bathtub Flannel I made for a shark storytime a few years ago (found on Flannel Friday, of course), and decided to turn it into 5 Whales in the Bathtub.
One whale in the bathtub going for a swim.
Knock, knock (clap hands twice)

Splash, splash (slap your knees twice)
Come on in! (wave to enter with both hands)

(Repeat with 2,3,4 whales)

Five whales in the bathtub going for a swim.
Knock, knock

Splash, splash
It all fell in!

I simply made a whale tail, cut 5 out of different colors and I'm all set since I'm reusing the bathtub.

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Flannel Friday Roundup for July 21, 2017

I'm hosting Flannel Friday again this week so please leave a link to your submission in the comments below! Look for the roundup late Friday evening or Saturday morning.

Syntha shared 5 Whales in a Bathtub for some good clean fun.

Laura contributed her version of Stone Soup, one of my favorite traditional tales.

Kathryn posted her Crazy Traffic Light, and is that GLITTER FELT I see??

Kate shared 5 Little Kites!

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STEM + Stories: Fairy Tales

For the second summer, I have been doing STEM + Stories programs. I start by reading a few stories to the kids and then we explore some STEM projects loosely, sometimes very loosely, inspired by the reading portion. For this program, we concentrated on fairy tales: specifically Cinderella (time) and the 3 Billy Goats Gruff (bridge engineering). I also threw out some other stuff we had on hand and tied it into the theme with the explanatory signs. 

3 Billy Goats Gruff bridge design from Family Engineering

Rapunzel's tower with KEVA blocks

Cinderella's Clock from Bedtime Math

Cinderella's Silly Stunts: kids timed themselves writing all the letters of the alphabet, looking up "temporal" in the dictionary, and other tasks

Hansel and Gretel's Sweet Shop Gears

The stories I selected to read were The Three Billy Goats Gruff and Interstellar Cinderella. 

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Flannel Friday Roundup for May 12, 2017

I'm hosting Flannel Friday this week, so if you have a post to add to our roundup, please leave it in the comments below! I'll edit them in later.

Have a great week!

Five Little Monkeys by Laura

My Colorful Toothbrush by Laura

Song Cube 2.0 by Keith

Five Hungry Ants by Sarah

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Library Mini-Golf!

This year, we decided to host a small, indoor mini-golf (AKA putt putt golf) course at work for National Library Week! Our program ran from 4-5:30 and we had people register for 30 minute tee time blocks at 4 pm, 4:30 pm, or 5:00 pm. Next time we will try 15 or 20 minute blocks to spread everyone out a little better.

Adult size golf clubs were located by the teen department for their mini-golf after hours event previously. I believe most of them were thrift store finds. We borrowed those clubs from the storage area. We also had a some small plastic toddler size clubs which we used for decorations for last year's sports-themed summer reading program. I bought 2 more sets for this program as well. The sets each came with plastic "holes" which I used masking tape to secure to the library's carpet. We were short a few of these, so I substituted plastic reusable drinking cups on a few holes.

Some of the materials I used to build holes: pool noodles, cardboard blocks, construction cones, stuffed zebra, cushioned blocks for the tunnel. A co-worker made speed bumps out of foam core board. We used pipe insulation, more pool noodles, and poles we already had for hole borders. The hole flags are made out of craft foam, chopsticks, and styrofoam containers. We plan to re-use them for similar programs in the future.

I found a scorecard online and cropped it for my purposes. I only had enough prep time (about 2 hours) to make 6 holes but I had originally hoped for 9. Instead, I allowed kids to repeat 3 holes for a total of 9 holes. The library was open while I was prepping so I started with the last three holes, in our separated program room. As the time grew nearer to the program, I completed the first three holes in the nonfiction stacks nearest the program room doors.

When families arrived, they checked in at a table in the program room, picked out a club, ball, scorecard and golf pencil and then proceeded to hole 1. If a number of people arrived at the same time, I had them start at a later hole and circle back.

We all had a great time and I would love to do this program again! Here are some pictures:

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Shapes Poem

Today for Flannel Friday, I'm sharing a poem I did during my STEM playgroup on shapes! I found it in 1-2-3 Math by Jean Warren. Instead of making it a felt board, I used some snack containers I found at Dollar Tree a while ago. The kids had fun taking off the lids and putting them back on so there was a bonus small motor skill element to this task.

Shapes Poem

The circle is a shape
That's easy to be found.
It has no corners on it.
And is completely round.

The triangle is a simple shape,
I think you will agree.
Count its sides and corners
And you will find just three.

Here's a shape that you should know,
A square has its name.
It has four corners and four sides
That measure all the same.

This shape is called a rectangle,
It's found most everyhwere.
It has four corners and four sides,
Sort of like a square.

But if you call this shape a square,
You would be very wrong.
Since two of its sides are short
And two of them are long.

--Author Unknown

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