so tomorrow

#flannelfriday: Little Worm Hide and Seek

2012-01-27T08:30:00.001-05:00

"Little Worm Hide and Seek" is a game I dreamed up on the ref desk Wednesday night. I am a big fan of felt board games like Little Mouse and Snowball, Snowball. Another game that I came up with is forthcoming on March 30th, which is when we will share ideas for the "Dream Big--READ!" summer reading theme.

Little Worm Hide and Seek

"Little Worm"can be played (at least!) two ways. One is to make a bunch of apples in different colors similar to Little Mouse and Snowball, Snowball. Another way, which I thought up just now while typing this post, would be to use felt food pieces (like in this earlier Flannel Friday), and have the kids guess the type of fruit or veggie the worm is hiding under. I like this idea better.

Little Worm Hide and Seek
Little worm playing hide and seek.
Are you under the __name OR color of fruit___
Let's take a peek!

Drawing is not one of my talents, so what I did instead was adapt clipart from the OpenClipArt library. Since all of their content is licensed through Creative Commons, I can share the PDF I made with you. I already have a set of felt apples that I intend to use for this rhyme so I only made one apple and worm to make sure the pattern worked decently.

I'm hosting Flannel Friday today, yay! Please leave a comment on the roundup post from earlier this morning if you're participating. I'll have the roundup available by Saturday morning at the latest.

Flannel Friday Roundup for Jan. 27, 2012

2012-01-27T00:00:00.001-05:00

Good morning #flannelfriday-ers! Please leave a link to your posts in the comments here and I will edit them in throughout the day.

This week on our Facebook page, Kay has challenged us to leave comments on all the Flannel Friday posts. It might take me a few days, but as Barney Stinson would say, "CHALLENGE ACCEPTED!" We would love if even non-bloggers left us a little comment love to feed our weary blogger souls in the middle of a dreary winter's day.

In other FF news, we'd like to thank Anna for talking up our little group to her fellow Wisconsinians (Wisconsonites? Wisconsinganders?) on the YSS blog this week. It is almost enough to make me forgive Wisconsin for trying to pretend it is the Mitten State, when everyone knows that it's Michigan. Stick to the cheese thing, Wisconsin. Everyone likes cheese. Except maybe vegans. Also, happy 175th birthday this week to Michigan! Woohoo. She doesn't look a day over 174.

In other Michigan news, the Michigan Library Association has the schedule for its 2012 Spring Institute online. This is our 2-day conference for youth librarians, which is Ann Arbor this year. Speaking this year are Chris Crutcher, Donna Jo Napoli, and Eric Litwin of Pete the Cat fame. My fellow Michiganders Gary Schmidt and Johnathan Rand are also keynoting. Those are some talented folks! Anyone planning on attending?

Speaking of mittens, if you have a huge stack of felt ones then you will love Teach Preschool's ideas for felt board mitten math. If only math was always this adorable, right?

On to today's roundup...

First things first---let's give a warm Flannel Friday welcome to our first time posters Lissa at tickle the clouds, who is counting 5 Little Snowmen and Danielle at A Bad Case of Books who has Two Little Elephants for you. Can't wait to see more from them in the future (no pressure!).

In other wintery treats, Katie at Storytime Secrets has a colorful mitten rhyme for you, while Alison's Three Little Kittens have lost theirs. Oh no! Linda at Notes from the Story Room is promoting poetry with a charmingly illustrated (reminds me of Lauren Child) version of Shel Silverstein's "Snowball". Cate at Storytiming is thinking along the same lines with her "Hey, Mr. Snowman," inspired by a previous Flannel Friday post. Even more snow flakes come courtesy of Katie (from storytime Katie) who has actually stitched together "Five Little Snowflakes".

Sarah at Read it Again is looking forward to Groundhog Day with her "Groundhog's Shadow". Just after that will be another February holiday and Meghan has you covered with "Six Little Valentines" over at Busy Crafting Mommy.

The weather is always a popular topic this time of year, as it's probably either already snowing or going to be shortly, so I have an appreciation for Library Quine's beautiful pieces of all kinds of weather. She promised to share the patterns next week, so stay tuned for those.

Erin at Falling Flannelboards shares the folder story "Cinderella's Rat". In other rodent posts, In the Children's Room has an adorable version of "Little Mouse," which is the one flannel I think every children's librarian needs in his or her collection. Another storytime classic is "10 in the Bed" and Tracey has adapted it to be "5 Bears in the Bed," a very cute idea for anyone planning a stuffed animal sleepover. Speaking of stuffed animal sleepovers, Mary from Miss Mary Lieberry has a flannel version of the older picture book Lisa Can't Sleep.

Katie at Recipe for Reading is calling "ALL ABOARD!" for her "Riding in My Trains" song. Meanwhile see what happened when Mollie called it quits on her attempt to make a squirrel flannelboard. Find out what happened by reading Definitely Not a Flannel Friday Post.

And I've got a little game I made up--"Little Worm's Hide and Seek"

If I have missed you, please accept my most sincere apologies! Just leave a comment and I will include you as soon as possible. Thanks!

Flannel Friday can also be found on Pinterest. Archives and future schedule are right here.

Yummy Watermelons

2012-01-20T08:30:00.000-05:00

While it's hardly watermelon season here, it's always nice in the middle of winter to think summery thoughts! Since I will be on maternity leave for most of the summer, I thought I'd share this simple flannel rhyme now, Yummy Watermelons by Shelley Lovett (of childcareland.com).

Yummy, yummy watermelon...I love watermelon!

I had a piece of watermelon at breakfast.

I had another piece of watermelon when I was playing outside.

Read the rest of the poem and find the patterns here.

The Rabbit Who Wanted Red Wings

2012-01-13T08:30:00.002-05:00

Today's Flannel Friday comes to us courtesy of Multicultural Folktales for the Feltboard and Readers' Theater, by Judy Sierra. Ms. Sierra, though I have never met or seen her perform/speak, is a treasure trove of storytelling gems. The one I want to share for the Flannel Friday Mushy Gushy Valentine's Day Extravaganza today for is "The Rabbit Who Wanted Red Wings." This story is a cute one about a parent's love for her child just the way he is. I think it's appropriate for Valentine's Day because parents are a kid's first Valentine, right? Right.

Here is an extremely simplified version:

Once there was a little rabbit who always wanted to be like the other animals he would see.

He finds a magic pond and wishes for red wings like the red bird he sees in the woods.

He gets them! But he can't fly. So he goes home to Mama Rabbit, but she doesn't recognize him. So he has to go back to the pond and wishes for the wings to be gone.

After they disappear, he goes home and Mama gives him a hug, and tells him he's perfect just the way he is.

While we're talking about this book, I think it would be great for a school library's collection because it presents each folktale with patterns for a felt board story told be the teacher AND also gives a script for the kids to do a readers' theater performance with. It looks like the book is still in print also. Please don't be put off by the plain cover or 1996 copyright date. Others who might enjoy this book are camp counselors and Scout leaders.

Other Flannel Fridays I have posted that are appropriate for Valentine's Day storytimes are The Big-Hearted Elephant, Moose in Love, and A Blanket for the Princess.

Don't forget that Anna is hosting our Extravaganza today!

Imagination Storytime

2012-01-12T00:01:00.000-05:00

Image Courtesy of Openclipart.org

For the winter storytime session, I have been challenging myself to use as many new picture books as possible. I sometimes feel that I rely too heavily on my old favorites and while there is always room for them, I've enjoyed trying some of the great 2011 and 2012 books showing up from processing. Two of them inspired last week's Imagination-themed storytime.

The Artist Who Painted a Blue Horse by Eric Carle
That's How by Christoph Niemann
The Game of Light by Herve Tullet This is a really fun board book designed to be used with a flashlight to make shadows in different shapes on the wall. Check it out! The kids got a kick out of being in the library in the dark. I had them lie on their backs and look up at the ceiling. I asked a parent to hold the flashlight for me so I could focus on reading the words and manipulating the book so the images would be seen. I had to try a few different flashlights (FOUR) before I found one bright enough.

I didn't quite realize until after I was done reading that all three of these books are pretty short. So if anyone has any suggestions of titles that would go well with these, please leave them in the comments!

For the art activity afterwards, I gave the kids each a sheet of chart paper and let them draw their little hearts out. I am really trying to focus more on the process of making art than trying to recreate a product made by an adult.

I always start my storytimes with the same rhymes: "Open, Shut Them" and "Let's Hear You Roar Like a Lion" but for the winter session I'm using "Snowball, Snowball" instead of "Little Mouse" for our felt board game.

Try this Book: Kindergarten Magic

2012-01-11T18:42:00.000-05:00

If you've been reading So Tomorrow for any length of time, you'll most likely have noticed that I am a huge fan of the book Storytime Magic by Kathy MacMillan and Christine Kirker. Many of my Flannel Friday posts originiated in that incredible resource. I am excited to let you know that I have finally been able to borrow a copy of Kindergarten Magic, also by MacMillan and Kirker.What follows is a review of sorts.

For public librarians, I would suggest browsing a copy from ILL as there is some good material but I find Storytime Magic to be more applicable to the public library setting. It would be useful to presenters who perform storytimes for school-age kids. I did really like the third chapter, "Welcome to the Library," as it lays out a great program for those orientation visits that are so popular with Scout troops and classroom teachers. Likewise, chapter 4 "Welcome to Kindergarten" would be a great starting point for a "Back to School" storytime in the late summer.

I know many libraries do an annual gingerbread house making program. If you want to add a storytime to that tradition, with all apologies to the Apple Store, there's a "chap" for that. It's 17. I've also heard of libraries who throw a New Year's Eve Countdown for kids at 11:30 a.m., which I think is adorable. Chapter 19 is all about The New Year. Another holiday it can be hard to find ideas for gets its due in chapter 30: St. Patrick's Day.

The rest of the topics are pretty standard for storytime planning books. There are chapters on: nutrition and food, nocturnal animals, the five senses (sidebar: someone needs to do a storytime on the 6th sense!), different seasons, transportation (which includes My Dump Truck Fred), fairy tales and folklore, dinosaurs, weather, zoo animals, farm animals, etc.

All chapters also include options for incorporating American Sign Language (ASL) and Spanish. In addition, there are also skill-building games to help kids learn to use the library as well as "takeaway activities," some of which would make good crafts to follow storytime.

One thing I did like as someone who has invested a lot of time and felt into making patterns from the previous book is this book uses many of the same pieces with different stories. You may have to make 1-2 additional pieces, depending on the story. This is so helpful. I know I struggle to think of how to recycle pieces in this way and there are some wonderful stories.

Judge a professional reference book by # of pages marked!

In my opinion, this is a great resource for our friends working in elementary school libraries. One of the reviews on Amazon criticized it for promoting flannel stories when smart boards and document cameras are all the rage, which was so sad to me. In my experience, even elementary aged kids are just as fascinated by good old-fashioned storytelling done by a gifted performer as they are by all the fanciest technologies in the world. If you don't have time to make flannel pieces, MacMillan and Kirker suggest the option of converting their felt stories into prop stories. This is pretty genius, if you ask me.

As with Storytime Magic, Kindergarten Magic has associated activities that you can print off the Internet.I wish more publishers would do this as my copy machine can be so fussy when I am trying to copy off flannelboard patterns from professional reference books. I was a little disappointed that some of these were repeats from the previous book, although I understand how much work must go into putting a resource like this together. One of these that jumped out at me was the texture book craft, which is one of my favorites from Storytime Magic.

Has anyone seen this book? Or planning to check it out now? Let me know what you think!

Flannel Friday: Snowball, Snowball

2012-01-06T08:30:00.000-05:00

"Snowball, Snowball" is my Flannel Friday for the day. I spotted this idea on Pinterest & I know this will be a hit with my storytime kids because they LOVE "Little Mouse, Little Mouse" and this is exactly the same thing but winter-themed. Perfect for mixing it up during our long Michigan winter storytime session.

Snowball, Snowball

Snowball, snowball

Cold and round!

Behind which mitten

Can you be found?

I ran out of different colors of felt, so I only had time to make three different mittens. But I plan to make at least two more and will most likely add some puffy paint details, although I don't have Mary's steady hand. I used a coloring page image of a mitten and used Microsoft Publisher's auto shapes's oval for the snowball. This was a quick and fun flannel to make. I think it would be perfect for a new librarian to tackle.

Pinterest for Librarians

2012-01-05T16:11:00.000-05:00

One of the things that has surprised me lately is the number of emails I get with questions about Pinterest. I thought it might be handy to put some tips together. I know I am not the first librarian to write about Pinterest, by any means! I hope this helps someone out there though.

How do I use Pinterest?
There is a pretty good help page. You can email me if you want an invite, and I'll try to send one on. If you have any questions, I will try to answer them, but I am a librarian not a Pinterest staffer. It is also important to remember that Pinterest is still a start-up and is somewhat prone to crashing. A victim of its own popularity, if you will.

One thing I would like to point out is that it is extremely important if you are adding a pin (by which I mean being the first person to pin something) to make sure that the source is correct. For example, if you are pinning a Flannel Friday post, you want to make sure that it will take you back to the right post in the future and not just the main blog page.

How can I use Pinterest "on the clock" for library purposes?
There are so many great ways to use Pinterest at work. You can find ideas for programs you are planning, decorating ideas, craft ideas, and printables to give to parents/teachers/etc.. To give you an idea, here are some of my work-related pinboards:
Library Bulletin Boards and Displays
Kids Sewing Projects (for our Sewing School program)
Superhero Camp
Spy Camp
Lego Programming Ideas
Camping Storytime
Library Carnival Ideas
Circus Storytime
Western Theme Storytime
Outer Space and Robots Storytime
Pirate Party
Star Wars Program
Art Attack Program
Instant Awesome Storytime Ideas
Printables for Parents (I like to give out ideas for road trip games, indoor activities, etc. as seasonally appropriate)
Gaming Programs
Library Puppet Show Ideas

There are also a collaborative board for teen programs, and of course Flannel Friday's page. If I am missing some good boards, leave a comment and let me know, please.

How can I encourage people to pin content from my blog?
I've been experimenting with this a little bit, and I have a few suggestions. First is that Pinterest will not accept a pin if there is no image on that page, so always include an image. It can be an image from Openclipart.org or a banner you made just for that post (like my Pinterest for Librarians banner at the top of this page) in MS Paint. It does not have to be anything fancy.

Another way is to give people a freebie. Whether it is a printable list of 100 books to read in kindergarten, signs to use for library displays, or something else entirely, I see lots of freebies pinned in my feed. This category could also include innovative ideas for marketing a collection, storytime crafts, or really any topic applicable to librarians.

Pins from sotomorrowblog.com

Can I see what has been "pinned" from my blog?
Yes, or for any other site as well. But be careful because it can be addicting to see! And, as always, not everyone will like your content.

There are two ways to do this.
1. Put the URL in after this address: http://pinterest.com/source/. So to see what has been pinned from So Tomorrow, you'd visit this URL: http://pinterest.com/source/sotomorrowblog.com/ (Make sure you drop the HTTP and WWW portions or you will get an error message.)
Other examples from some of my favorite sites (not all work-related):
http://pinterest.com/source/schoollibraryjournal.com/
http://pinterest.com/source/marthastewart.com/
http://pinterest.com/source/younghouselove.com/

Items that were pinned from my blog before I purchased my own URL are pinned here: http://pinterest.com/source/sotomorrow.blogspot.com/.

How to find other pins from the same site

2. You can also open any pin and see what else has been pinned from the same site. Down on the left side of the Pinterest site is a box that says Also From (it's highlighted in orange in the image). Click the link and you'll be able to see what others have pinned from that site.

Flannel Friday Returns (Plus an Announcement!)

2012-01-04T18:52:00.002-05:00

Reminder

Flannel Friday will makes its scheduled return this week, on Friday January 6th! Our first host of 2012 is the lovely Mollie.

Announcement

We are planning on having a few other Flannel Friday extravaganzas so mark your calendars for these dates:

January 13th--Mushy Gushy Valentine's Day stories (hosted by Anna) Sorry about the short notice on this one! It is entirely my fault.
March 30th--"Dream Big, Read" Summer Reading Program Edition (host TBD, contact me if you're interested in hosting this or any other Flannel Friday date)

As always, you don't have to post something fitting the extravaganza theme, if you don't celebrate Valentine's Day or your library doesn't participate in the collaborative summer reading theme. We encourage you to extend the ideas out (love stories? hearts? bedtime stories?) and see if you have something related floating around in your files that might work for our readers. And, if not, we'd love to hear you from you that week anyway.

Have an idea for a Flannel Friday Extravaganza? Leave a comment with a theme suggestion and about what time of year we should do it.

Challenge Accepted!: The British Books Challenge 2012

2011-12-30T10:36:00.000-05:00

I've been really getting into challenging myself to read more widely and really focus on improving my readers' advisory "database" in my brain. For 2011, I challenged myself to read and log 200 books on my GoodReads account (please add me as a friend, if you'd like). I'm very proud to announce that I am currently at 246 completed, including picture books. Yay!

I wanted to do something a little different for the next year, so I was really excited when Library Quine blogged earlier today about some 2012 Reading Challenges. I've decided to try the British Books Challenge and am really excited about it. My goal is to read 12 British books, new or old, and from any genre. I'm hoping to mix in some classics that I never got to, as well as some contemporary kids' books. I'd love recommendations from any Brits and non-Brits in the comments! I will most likely start with one or two books from this list.

I I plan to write short reviews* of the books I read for this challenge and post them to this blog approximately once a month. Full rules for this challenge, including a reminder that Ireland is not part of the U.K., are here. Oh, and of course, this is a challenge open to non-Brits, because I live on the other side of the Atlantic and then some.

I'm going for quality and variety in 2012, instead of quantity. Part of the reason is because my husband and I are expecting our first child in June, and my reading for pleasure time will not be as plentiful. I still plan to challenge myself to log another 200 books on GoodReads in 2012, but probably a larger percentage will be picture books.

Anyone else out there doing a reading challenge in 2012?

*reviews will be tagged BBC12 as this post is for anyone who comes looking for those specific posts.

Happy Holidays!

2011-12-22T18:40:00.002-05:00

Image Credit: Openclipart.org

Can you believe it's late December already? I sure can't! The year has gone by so fast that I wanted to take a second to slow down and thank all of my readers for being such wonderful people. I truly appreciate all of the comments and emails this year. I spend a lot of time working on this here blog and it makes it all worthwhile to hear that someone is reading.

To wind down 2011, I thought it would be fun to share some of my favorite posts of the year:

A Year's Worth of Library Displays
Display Ideas for Any Time
$1 Collection Marketing with IKEA frames
Moose in Love--my favorite Flannel Friday
Collection Development 101: Selection

Let me know if there's something you'd like to read about next year!

Happy Holidays! See you in 2012!

Flannel Friday Holiday Extravaganza: Rudolph, Rudolph

2011-12-02T08:58:00.000-05:00

Super excited for Flannel Friday's Holiday Extravaganza today! My contribution is a fun version of "Rudolph, Rudolph!" wherein Rudolph the Reindeer's nose(s) is the wrong color! If you follow the Flannel Friday Facebook group, you already knew I was going to post this, so sorry I didn't surprise you and come up with something completely different!

Rudolph with some failed noses and the winner!

A felt play set of "Rudolph, Rudolph" would make a great homemade Christmas gift! This could be fun to do at a Sunday School class as well. I do think it it is appropriate it for library programs, but my personal preference is to advertise in advance if a storytime will include references to Christmas and other religious holidays.

Here's the first verse:
Rudolph, Rudolph!
What will you do?
You can't guide Santa,
If your nose is blue!

The idea and the words came from Oopsey-Daisy. My version is milk filter with pom-poms for the noses. They have Velcro (actual brand name Velcro!) strips on the back. Of course, after I made the whole thing, I realized it would be a lot sturdier and more durable to make it as a magnet board story. So, that would be my suggestion for you if you make a version for storytime.You know how that kind of thing occurs to you only after you've finished it a different way that was probably harder and more time consuming? Story of my life.

This is going to be my last Flannel Friday post for the year due to an incredibly busy December at work and at home. So I want to wish everyone Happy Holidays and thank you for reading my blog this year. I have been incredibly touched and overwhelmed by the many positive comments and emails I have received in 2011. I hope to really knock your socks off in 2012. Unless the world ends. In which case, all bets are off. So many cliches in this paragraph!

Today's Holiday Extravaganza roundup will be over at Loons and Quines. Can't wait to see everyone's posts!

Flannel Friday: Gregory Groundhog Looks for His Shadow

2011-11-25T09:49:00.000-05:00

I know Groundhog Day is months away, but here is a great story for it or even just a shadows theme: Gregory Groundhog Looks for His Shadow. Words and patterns are from Magnet Board Fun by Liz Wilmes, but I would not suggest doing this story on the magnet board. I think it's a lot easier to tell on the flannel board as you can make the pieces reversible instead of having two sets of animals.

It's a simple story. Gregory has lost his shadow and goes into the woods to find it. He sees lots of shadows, but they turn out be for different animals (bear, deer, frog, etc.). This part is fun for the kids because they see the shadowy outline and can try and guess what the animal is.

Spoiler alert! Eventually Gregory finds his shadow and they are reunited. Can you see his shadow?

This week's Flannel Friday is being hosted by Katie (@sharingsoda on Twitter) of Storytime Secrets. I hope everyone in the U.S. had a Happy Turkey Day yesterday! Don't forget that next week (December 2nd) Flannel Friday will be having its first Holiday Extravaganza! We hope to have record participation.

Kids Today

2011-11-23T13:48:00.001-05:00

photo by kr4gin on Flickr Thanks for CC licensing!

I stumbled upon a newspaper clipping that I thought some of us would find interesting. It is called "Unruly Students Given Warning at [City] Public Library" and covers the problems (noise, theft, playing radios, smoking) that can be associated with groups of teens in a library setting. Apparently, it was so bad that the mayor himself came over to warn the "unruly students" that "drastic action" up to and including closing the library could be taken if the situation continued. The police had even been visiting regularly in the evenings to keep an eye on the situation, to no avail.

Sound familiar? I found it interesting that the article was published on October 17, 1962, which means that the teenagers in question are now my parents' age (actually older). I had a mental image of a preteen version of my Mom and Dad smoking in the library and frankly that is hilarious. I searched the Google archives of our local paper and didn't see a follow-up. So, chin up, modern librarians! We're not the first generation to deal with unruly patrons, and probably not the last either. Happy Thanksgiving!

School Age Program Idea: Sewing Camp!

2011-11-19T15:36:00.000-05:00

Sample felt pincushion

It can be so hard to put together a program for school age kids that they will actually show up for! I was thrilled today when we hosted our first sewing camp. I got the idea from the wonderful book (and blog) Sewing School, which I was introduced to by my friend Anne at Canton Public Library. Side note: has anyone noticed how many librarians are named Anne? It is almost as crazy as all the Katies.

We did registration (capped at 15 & we filled it easily but a couple kids didn't show, so we had 10 total, including 2 boys) and limited it to kids over 7. I decided on 7 because I wanted them to not be so young that they would get bored or frustrated if they struggled. We picked a gender neutral project (felt pincushions). We provided all the supplies: templates, embroidery floss, needles, pins, felt, stuffing, and fabric scissors. We also copied instructions for all the kids so they could bring them home.

We also gave out these stickers

We wanted to start with a simple project because we had no idea what kind of background the kids would have. Some of them were really quite good and finished quickly, and others were total beginners. Our promotional materials said we weren't expecting any knowledge or experience with sewing. I don't really sew myself, but luckily one of my co-workers is a seamstress (she even sewed some of our puppets from a show last year, which I was super impressed by) and she agreed to help me out. That is her handiwork up in the picture of our sample craft.

This was a really fun, cheap, and simple program. We definitely want to repeat it in the future with a different project. We pre-threaded the needles for the kids to save them the frustration of trying to do it themselves and it was a big help, so I would advise doing that if you put this program on at your library. I'd reccomend having 1 adult for every 3-5 kids as some will need a lot more direction than others. It might be useful to ask the parents when registering if their children have any sewing experience, so you know what you're going into.

I'm going to leave you with a few links for some additional advice if you want to try a sewing program at your library:
-Sew Mama Sew has a great post filled with advice on how to teach younger kids to sew. Lots of comments on this one.
-Sewing School also has a post with suggestions for items that are especially child friendly to include in your sewing kit. I think a kids' sewing kit would be a great gift for the holidays. Sewing books are one of our most popular nonfiction circulating books.

Has anyone done a sewing program before? Or other fabric crafts?

Flannel Friday: Two of Everything

2011-11-18T09:00:00.000-05:00

Today for Flannel Friday, I'm sharing my version of the folktale known as "Two of Everything." I used Diane Briggs's patterns from 52 Programs for Preschoolers, which is also the source of the words. I was able to get this book through ILL and I do not have a copy of the patterns, but Amazon has several used copies starting at $0.01.

Essentially the story goes like this... Husband finds mysterious pot buried in his yard. He digs it out and drags out. He has a little trouble carrying the pot comfortably while also hanging on to his one gold coin, so he puts the coin in the pot. When he goes to retrieve the coin, to his surprise there are now two coins.

He and his wife get a little greedy duplicating their belongings and things are going swimmingly... until the wife trips and falls into the pot! Not wanting two wives of his own, the husband panics... and then trips and falls into the pot himself.

The new couple builds a house next door and they all live happily ever after.

Today's Flannel Friday is being hosted by the lovely Cate at Storytiming. (@storytimingcate on Twitter).

A Plea for Sharing

2011-11-15T10:53:00.000-05:00

I've been participating in Flannel Friday for over 6 months now, and it has reinvigorated my love of storytelling to children. I love being able to share my ideas and get to see others' too. You may have noticed, dear readers, that often my flannels are made (or at the least inspired by) from patterns in professional resource books like Storytime Magic. I would never have discovered most of these wonderful planning books without being able to borrow them through our statewide ILL system, MeLCat.

I am so grateful to my colleagues around the state who allow these resources to be loaned to librarians like myself. I hope that by writing this I can encourage some libraries whose collections are In Library Use or Staff Only to rethink this position. Yes, these books are expensive and it is handy for them to always be at our fingertips, instead of being lost or damaged out in the wild. But they are invaluable to working professionals in libraries, child care facilities, schools, and countless other settings as well. Not to mention the educational advantages of being able to use them as a student aspiring to work in our field or other related ones.

So, what I am trying to say, is please consider allowing these gems to circulate after you've had a chance to go through them and absorb their great ideas. If nothing else, it would help keep this blog going! I have a whole drawer full of felt and I am dying to find another great book full of ideas to use it all up!

Flannel Friday: Snowball Friends

2011-11-11T09:00:00.000-05:00

Here is a very simple flannelboard called "Snowball Friends," (by Liz and Dick Wilmes, in their 2's Experience: Feltboard Fun book) which I have used for a winter toddler storytime. Very simply, a few snowballs are friends and they decide to roll down a hill one at a time. At the bottom, they climb onto each other's shoulders and make a snowman. The best part is rolling the snowballs down the hill on the board. At the same time, you can have the kids "roll" their fists and chant "roll, roll, roll, roll!"

This week's Flannel Friday is being hosted by Sharon (@ReadingChick). Don't forget that I recently made an announcement about Flannel Friday and the holidays, read that here.

Flannel Friday Roundup for November 4, 2011

2011-11-04T13:58:00.000-04:00

**In case you missed yesterday's announcement about Flannel Friday's plans for a holiday extravaganza and a holiday break, please make sure you read that post, as well.

Also, I don't think anyone has ever mentioned this before, but we tend to use blogger's first names when compiling the roundup, so it is super helpful if you have your first name (or a pseudonym like Loons and Quines) that we can refer to you by. Otherwise, by default, if you make cute flannelboards, I'm probably going to think that your name is Katie. I am just speaking for myself here, but if your name isn't Katie (lovely name that it is), maybe you don't want to get credit as a Katie. I would also suggest having an About page with contact info (Twitter account and/or email address, etc.), in case the host has any questions or needs to get in touch. **

On to the roundup!

Alison shares How Grandmother Spider Stole the Sun, originally a story necklace (such a neat presentation idea).

Angela dives into "We Dove Into the Ocean" and shares the rest of her plan for an ocean-themed storytime.

Awesome Storytime has 5 Enormous Dinosaurs, and I am thrilled to learn that someone else's favorite dino is the under-appreciated stegosaurus. Everyone seemed to be a velociraptor or T. Rex fan at my elementary school.

Andrea and I were both thinking of Thanksgiving: Turkey Feathers! Our songs are slightly different. Here's hers and mine.

Carissa has a fun bilingual version of Let's Play in the Forest. She also shared her super cute pattern. I plan to make a milk filter version myself, so thank you, Carissa!

Cate made an adorable frog life cycle felt board and now needs your help working it into storytime. As this is partially my fault for pinning the inspiration (my bad), I feel responsible. Absolve me of my guilt!

Erin has lost her baby kangaroo! Oh no! Kids can you ask "Baby Kangaroo, Where Are You?"

Katie at Storytime Secrets has a flannel version of Raffi's "Thanks a Lot," which is great because I have found that a lot of parents aren't familiar with Raffi but really enjoy his music after being introduced to it in storytime.

Katie at Recipe for Reading flannelized one of my favorite picture books: A Hat for Minerva Louise. You'll want to make this for any upcoming winter storytimes! Also, how adorable is her felt Minerva? Awwwww.

Storytime Katie has adorable blackbird finger puppets. More awwww. (Also, see what I mean about all the Katies?)

Library Lady shares the Witch's Hat and also her theory of what makes something flannel-worthy (or not).

More dinosaurs over at Liz's blog today! 5 Little Dinosaurs, to be precise.

Loons and Quines made the most adorable felt version of Pirate Pete. Kids love pirates, which you already knew. Probably everyone loves pirates, except cruise ship operators.

By request, Mary has posted a puffy paint master class, so you can study up on your technique. Honestly, puffy paint has been kind of a disaster for me, personally, so I can appreciate her skills.

Meghan has two feltboards from her jungle storytime.

Melissa shares a pattern for a felt version of The Tortoise and the Hare.

Mollie has 5 Little Fishies Swimming in the Sea but (SPOILER ALERT) they do not pay the ultimate price.

Moxie is playing Tooth Fairy, a guessing game similar to Little Mouse, Little Mouse.

Sarah at Read Rabbit Read flannelized Spot and Friends Dress Up. Does anyone else have a soft spot for Spot? I was a big fan back in my own childhood.

Sarah from Read it Again flannelized what I have found to be a perpetual crowd pleaser: Dear Zoo.

Sharon explores the galaxy with 5 Little Aliens.

Also this week, Cate over at Storytime posted a roundup of different Flannel Friday participants' process for deciding if a story or idea would be a good flannelboard. I intend to talk about this at some point too.

That's it for now! Or at least I hope so! I will keep adding posts as I get them, through tonight. If you are unable to get your post to me by the end of the day today, please hold onto it for next week's Flannel Friday, which will be hosted by Sharon.

If I missed your post, please leave a (polite) comment and accept my apologies in advance. If I accidentally changed your name to Katie, let me know that too. Unless you want to be a Katie. That you'll have to take up with the DMV and Social Security. And possibly your parents.

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Are you one of our 368 (at press time) Flannel Friday followers on Pinterest? Or in the Official Flannel Friday Facebook group?

Flannel Friday: Turkey Feathers!

2011-11-04T09:00:00.000-04:00

It's almost Thanksgiving time here in the U.S. and it has always been one of my favorite holidays. Mostly because it is all about delicious food and family. I love any holiday that has mashed potatoes AND stuffing. Yummy carbs!

For today's Flannel Friday, I'm sharing a fun group activity called "Turkey Feathers." Each child gets a feather and then as you sing about the different colors of feathers, the kids who have that color will come up and put their feather on the board.

Turkey Feathers
(Sing to the tune of "Frere Jacques"/"Are You Sleeping")
Turkey feathers, turkey feathers.
Brightly colored, brightly colored.
If you have a blue feather,
Add it now!

I originally found a turkey with a bunch of feathers in the files here when I started and there was no activity to go with them, so I was happy when I stumbled upon this one. That said, I have no idea where this turkey's pattern came from. I would use a coloring page as a template if I wanted to make one myself.

Don't feel limited to only using colors that turkey feathers might actually be. Kids love when you up the silliness factor! Try polka dot feathers, feathers with little hearts or stars, striped feathers, pink and purple feathers--go nuts! This is a magnet board story, but you could substitute felt.

I'm hosting Flannel Friday this week, so check back later for the roundup! If you're participating, tweet a link to your post to me (@sotomorrow) or leave a comment here and I will add you to the roundup!

Flannel Friday Announcement

2011-11-03T13:56:00.000-04:00

Today I have a very important Flannel Friday announcement! Hopefully it will not confuse anyone, but I wanted to make sure everyone knew about an event we are planning! On December 2nd, we will be hosting a Winter/Holiday Extravaganza, so we are asking everyone to post their winter or holiday (Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, New Year's, St. Nicholas Day, etc., etc.,) flannel stories on that day. Hopefully that will give everyone enough lead time that if they see something they want to make for a program this year, they'll have enough time. If you don't have anything that fits this theme, that's fine! You can either post something else entirely or skip the week--your choice. Or you can be like me and use this as an excuse to make a new flannel story!

After that, the next two weeks (12/9 and 12/16) will be regularly scheduled "anything goes" Flannel Fridays. Flannel Friday will be on holiday hiatus for December 23rd and 30th, and will resume with a bang on January 6th.

It helps me to look at it like this:
Now through the end of November: "normal" Flannel Fridays
December 2: Holiday Extravaganza!
December 9 and 16: normal
December 23 and 30: closed for the the holidays
January 6: Back to normal!

So, mark your calendars and we hope to get a big, cheerful blogging turnout for the Holiday Extravaganza edition on December 2nd. I myself am super excited! Also remember that hosts and roundups are always available on the same page, right here.

Flannel Friday: I Have a Little...

2011-10-28T08:30:00.000-04:00

Today's Flannel Friday is based on a rhyme that I found searching the PUBYAC archives. If you are a youth librarian (or aspire to be), you need to subscribe to this listserv. The rhyme is called "I Have a Little" and to make it you will need to cut out 4 pockets and glue them on to a foam core board. I used a pair of shorts I found at Goodwill and an old pair of my jeans.

"I Have a Little..." Storytelling Board

You hide a key, crayon, flashlight, and clock each behind one pocket. They can be real pieces or you can use clipart. Here's the rhyme:

I Have a Little

I have a little pocket where something can hide.
It opens doors and starts the car.
Do you know what's inside? (key)

I have a little pocket where something can hide.It's used to draw in a coloring book. Do you know what's inside? (crayon)

I have a little pocket where something can hide.

It shows you when it's time for bed. Do you know what's inside? (clock)

I have a little pocket where something can hide. It lights up a dark room. Do you know what's inside? (flashlight).

We looked in all the pockets.  
There's nothing left inside. 
Let's do this another time and see what else we can find.

The great thing about this rhyme is that it is endlessly adaptable. You only need to change 
the line to give a clue about whatever it is you've hidden!

Flannel Friday: Jack-O-Happy

2011-10-21T09:00:00.000-04:00

For today's Flannel Friday, I'm sharing a flannelboard version of the fingerplay "Jack -O-Happy," a fun one for silly faces. Here are the words:

This is Jack-O-Happy.
This is Jack-O-Sad.
This is Jack-O-Sleepy.
This is Jack-O-Mad.
This is Jack-O-Broken
Into pieces small
Baked in a pumpkin pie
That's the best of all.
YUM! YUM!

Source: Felt Board Fingerplays by Liz and Dick Wilmes

Flannel Friday: Inside a House that Is Haunted

2011-10-14T09:30:00.000-04:00

No actual flannel was harmed in the making of today's Flannel Friday, a "clothes line" story version of Inside a House That is Haunted, one of my favorite Halloween books. It's a little long to read at preschool storytime, but I had great success with reading it to school age kids. You could literally string up a clothesline and pin the pictures on, but what I do is have volunteers hold up the pictures. I drew these myself based on Tedd Arnold's illustrations.

If you're not familiar with this story, it is a cumulative tale about a haunted house. It goes like this:

Here is the hand that knocked on the door

that startled the spider who dropped to the floor

that shook up the bat who swooped through the air

and jolted the owl who said "Who-Who's There?"

that spooked the mummy who ran with a shriek

rattling the bones who moved with a creak

who woke up the monster

who stomped on huge feet,

threw open the door and heard

"TRICK OR TREAT"

inside a house that is haunted.

Woodland Creatures Storytime

2011-10-11T11:21:00.000-04:00

Image Credit: OpenClipArt.org.

This week at storytime, we're talking about woodland creatures, wolves, and bears, and skunks, oh my!
I start all my storytimes with the following rhymes and activities (see storytime plans page for words):

Open, Shut Them
"Little Mouse, Little Mouse" Flannelboard Game
Let's Hear Your Roar Like a Lion

Books
The Wolf's Chicken Stew by Keiko Kasza (Met Ms. Kasza at a conference this year. Super sweet and so talented!)
Wolves by Emily Gravett (and while searching Amazon for the link, I discovered she has another book coming out in March. YAY! I love me some Emily Gravett)
Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See by Bill Martin, Jr.

On the Flannelboard
Moose in Love story (fun fact: this is the 2nd most visited post on my blog of all time)
In the Woods guessing game (like this one from Falling Flannelboards)

Craft
Wolf paper bag puppet

Texting Bulletin Board

2011-10-08T10:15:00.000-04:00

Time for another bulletin board! This one was again inspired by something I found trolling the Internet. The board that inspired me had a black background, but we only had one 1 piece of black poster board left and this size requires 6. The only color that we had 6 left of was magenta. But I think it was a lucky coincidence, because I really like the way the magenta looks with our lime green wall.

Books R lk rly long txts

If there happen to be any bulletin board manufacturers out there, it would be genius if you would install hooks on all 4 sides for the absent-minded people like myself who occasionally put a whole board together the wrong way. And it would super awesome to be able to hang some vertically and some horizontally.

By the way, if you're looking for way more bulletin board ideas for your library than I could possibly ever make for mine, I keep a Pinterest board for just such daydreaming.

Flannel Friday with Milk Filters

2011-10-07T08:00:00.000-04:00

My favorite tip from all these months of Flannel Friday has been Andrea's suggestion to try using milk filters. For about $15, I was able to buy a pizza box size of 15 inch milk filters. I can't believe I'd never heard of this technique before, and I live across the street from a dairy farm!

First I traced patterns out of books onto them, but I was also able to trim the filters down to 8.5 by 11 and run them through our printer at the library. Ladies and gentlemen, my mind has been blown by the amazing potential here. Rather than post these individually, I thought I'd share the ones I have made so far all at once. I still need to finish trimming them up, so ignore that, please. Here we go!

Milo's Hats (Storytime Magic)

Little Bunny Foo Foo (Preschool Favorites)

Muscular Family from one of Jean Warren's pattern books

Wolf's Chicken Stew (Preschool Favorites)

Pete the Cat (Making Learning Fun)

5 Little Monkeys (2's Experience: Felt Board Fun)

My fellow Midwestern girl Anna will be rounding up the Flannel Friday posts this week, so be sure to check her blog later for all the goodness!

Also join us on Facebook or Pinterest. We have archives too.

Mood Board Monday: Pottery Barn Teen

2011-10-03T08:30:00.000-04:00

Time for another Mood Board Monday! Last time I shared some ideas from IKEA, and now we're going to be talking about Pottery Barn Teen. I know PB isn't everyone's cup of tea, but I've found it a great source of inspiration. There are some great blogs sharing tutorials for making your own "knock-offs" of PB merchandise that you can DIY.

By the way.,These are all from the clearance section. Prices and availability are as of 9/30/11.

1. Football Practice Wall Decal $78.99
2. Driftwood Peace Sign $34.99
3. Mini-Amp Speaker $37.99 Disclaimer: I actually own this speaker, but purchased it months ago with a gift card from our wedding. We use it to play music when we are working on DIY projects at the house.
4. Wire Sailfish $29.99 I really want this. I just think it would be an awesome conversation starter.
5. No Sharks Decal $14.99
6. Vivid Vines Wall Decal $34.99 These would be pretty easy to DIY with a Cricut or similar machine.

Flannel Friday is now on Facebook!

2011-10-02T20:09:00.000-04:00

Mollie had the great idea to start a Facebook group for Flannel Friday, so please join it and help spread the word!

Down on the Farm Storytime

2011-10-01T08:30:00.000-04:00

I have decided to pop in every now and again and share some storytime plans, since it has been a long time since I did so regularly. You can see an alphabetical list by clicking on Storytime Plans. I tend to only read 2-3 books at each storytime and spend the rest of the time doing repeating activities.

I start all my storytimes with the following rhymes and activities (see storytime plans page for words) :
Open, Shut Them
"Little Mouse, Little Mouse" Flannelboard Game
Let's Hear Your Roar Like a Lion

Books
Where is the Green Sheep? by Mem Fox (OK, not strictly a farm book, but who doesn't love Mem Fox?)
Old MacDonald had a Farm by Jane Cabrera

Songs
Baa Baa Black Sheep
"B-I-N-G-O" Flannelboard song
Farmer in the Dell
5 Clean and Dirty Pigs (Flannel Friday contribution!)

I know this isn't exactly an earthshakingly amazing plan, but a coworker covered this for me and I needed to keep it simple. It was also the first storytime of a new session and I find it is best to stick to what you know is going to work well, which means a few great books and some traditional songs.

The Rat's Daughter

2011-09-30T09:30:00.000-04:00

Today's Flannel Friday is the Japanese story "The Rat's Daughter" (patterns from the Flannel Board Storytelling Book by Judy Sierra) about a proud man who wants his daughter to only marry "the strongest in the world" and not the rat next door. So Mr. Rat asks the sun who the strongest is and the sun replies the cloud is stronger than he. Then the cloud says the same of the wind, the wind says the same of a wall, and the wall says the same of... the very same rat who had asked Papa Rat for permission to marry his daughter in the first place and who is chipping away at the wall right this second.

When I originally made this, my board's background was black so now you can't see the cloud as well. :(

Finally Daddio Rat agrees to let Neighbor Rat marry Princess Rat. And they all lived happily ever after.

A Happy Ending!

Don't miss any of this week's submissions-- Sharon's in charge of the roundup this week. Previous roundups are here. Don't forget to check out Flannel Friday on pinterest!

Practically Free Picture Book Collection Marketing

2011-09-29T09:00:00.000-04:00

Close-up

I know a lot of libraries do this already, but a wonderful way to ensure picture book series circulate is to call special attention to them by placing a sign over them. I have made coordinating signs to go over our top row of picture books.

I have found this to be popular with parents, kids, and staff members. It also alleviated some shelving space issues to use the top, although unfortunately the tops of our shelves are rather high off the ground due to space issues on the floor.

Our picture book section

If you are interested in printing them off for your use, you can download my file here. I'd love comments and photos from anyone who uses these.

For a slightly more expensive option, you could also check out what I did with the series books at my library.

Incidentally, if you are wondering what is up with the cracks in the wall behind the shelves, the top half of that wall is actually sheets of corkboard, not drywall. The signs are laminated (hence the shininess) and then stapled to the cork.

Collection Development 101: Weeding (part 2 of series)

2011-09-28T14:36:00.000-04:00

Last week I talked about how I add books to our collection. I'd like to thank the people who left comments because I really enjoyed the conversation that developed there. I'd also like to thank Elizabeth Bird for linking to that post on Fuse #8 and Melissa for pointing it out to me! And you should definitely read Erin's follow-up to my post, which is full of great details and absolutely no spreadsheets! :)

After all this, I hope I don't get a ~~big~~ bigger head! Although I discovered when shopping for a horseback riding helmet one summer before camp that I had what the sales clerk termed a "deceptively large head." Cue middle school self-esteem crisis!

Today I want to talk about what happens when a book has overstayed its welcome in your collection. Maybe it was once a great book, but has been ignored recently. Or the topic has changed so much that it is now out of date. Another common scenario is that you once had to have 200 books on robins, because the elementary schools assigned a report on the state bird, but now the curriculum has changed and you need the space for books on the state turtle.

For some reason, weeding is discussed much more frequently than acquisitions on blogs and in professional development workshops, so I am not going to go into nearly as much detail as I did with my previous post.

It is important to look carefully at your collection on a regular basis. I also ask staff members who are responsible for shelving to keep an eye out for items in poor condition. I walk through our stacks nearly every day and look for items that stick out as old or ugly and bring them to my desk for evaluation.

For the sake of space, I am mainly discussing books but please do not neglect your video, music, and audiobook collections either! A lot of the same ideas apply to non-print collections as well as print.

If weeding is not your strong suit, there are some great Internet resources for you to check out:
-CREW Manual
-Arizona State Library's Collection Development Training

And for a lighthearted look at weeding, check out Awful Library Books, another Michigan library world blog!

My Weeding Process
When I notice that space is getting tight in a particular area, the first thing I do is create a list of books that haven't circulated in the past few years. At my library, we use 3-4 years. I would argue that for certain collections you could go with less, two that I might suggest if space is particularly lacking is young adult and picture books.

Here is a screenshot with the factors I typically use to have the computer create my list:

Options and appearance will vary by ILS, but basically this is a pretty good representation

After the list is created, it will look like this:

First page of weeding list

Then I will go pull the books on the list. Sometimes I delegate this if I am working on other projects or someone needs a project of their own. I usually only pull a few pages at a time, as there is limited space for books at my desk.If I were to tackle this entire list at one time, I would have to make decisions about 1,500 copies. While some require little thought, many will need detailed consideration. So to avoid overwhelming my brain and my space, I try to stick to about 50 or fewer a day.

Of the 1500 books, many books will go right back on the shelf. We tend to keep a lot of Michigan materials regardless of circulation as it is important in our collection development policy. Also likely to state are some of the Newbery and Caldecott winners scattered throughout the nonfiction. I am contemplating some cataloging changes to bring them all into one collection though.

After a few years of weeding, I have gotten our nonfiction collection in respectable shape. A good goal to aim for is to have the average age of your collection within 10 years of the current date. As you can see from our statistics below, we are very close. Certain areas of the collection (200s, 300s, 800s) are a few years older, but their broad topics (mostly folktales in the 300s, mostly poetry in the 800s) do not change as frequently as, for example, the 500s (math and science).

Nonfiction Collection Statistics (Call number ranges truncated)

Specific factors I consider when weeding:

Age and condition of the material. I am huge on having an attractive and up to date collection. I am not pleased when I find picture books that have mold damage or damaged spines. When you have books in poor condition on your shelves, you are sending a message that you don't care about your collection. And that teaches patrons that it is OK not to take proper care of library materials.
If I've ever heard of the person the book is about. If an adult librarian hasn't heard of the biography subject, probably the kids haven't either. And they won't exactly be clamoring to write their reports about him or her either. If you're not a sports fan, then there's that, but if the person isn't Michael Jordan/Babe Ruth famous and is retired from a sport and not from your immediate geographical area, well... do you need it?
Speaking of your immediate geographical area, proximity is huge. If you have a famous writer from your town, you are probably going to hang onto his or her books whether they're still circulating constantly or not. This can be more than a little aggravating when you'd love new editions with lovely updated cover art but the books are long out of print. But I'm not bitter or anything. This is purely hypothetical, of course. :/
Any important awards the book has won.
Whether a change in cataloging might help the book circulate. For example, I've had good luck moving some picture book fairy tales out of the 398s and into the picture books. I've mainly left collections and picture books too long for small children to sit through in the 398s, while the shorter ones have been circulating much better in the more highly trafficked picture book section.
Whether a particular area would be a good candidate for a display based on the subject to see if that would help the titles get noticed. See my display posts for ideas and printable signs for displays.

Advice for new librarians or librarians new to weeding
I strongly recommend that you start with certain areas and wait until you have a really firm background in children's literature to weed others. I'd suggest starting with computer science, health, and other topics that should be kept as current as possible (within 5-10 years, depending on the exact subject and detail). Other topics that can be evaluated quickly are careers, animal books, math and science. If you are looking for detailed guidance, a really excellent book that will work you through each Dewey classification is Less is More: A Practical Guide to Weeding School Library Collections by Donna Baumbach. Despite the name, the advice is highly relevant for public libraries as well.

I would avoid folk and fairy tales, poetry, and any other subjects that require a pretty detailed knowledge of the topic. These are also topics where older titles may still circulate well. Wait until you know your community and your collection well for these.

One of the greatest things about weeding is how quickly it makes a visible impact on the attractiveness of your collection. Having an ugly book on the shelf makes its neighbors look ugly! Remove an outdated book and the rest of the shelf can breathe again.

I've said everything I think I wanted to say. What say you, dear readers? Do you have a favorite source for weeding advice? Or a tidbit of your own? Please chime in with a comment (or two!)

Collection Development 101: Selection (part 1 of series)

2011-09-24T09:38:00.000-04:00

Today I'm starting a new series on collection development! I hope that this will be of use to library students as well as new professionals. I'd love if veteran selectors would chime in with their collection development process. For this post, I am going to talk about my selection process. I think it is always worthwhile to examine these processes closely and inspect for inefficiencies and redundancies.

But first, a little about my particular library. My youth department serves babies through high schoolers. We break our collection down into the following categories: picture books, easy readers, board books, J kits (circulating book and CD sets--these come out of my audiobook budget), chapter books, nonfiction, and young adult books. We have further cataloging distinctions when books get to that stage, mainly for the Caldecott and parent/teacher collections.

Also, since the population of this branch's service area is only about 20,000 people, it is pretty rare for my department to buy more than one copy of anything. We do buy doubles (and sometimes 3-6 copies) of the hugely popular stuff---Harry Potter, Twilight, Diary of a Wimpy Kid, etc. It is unusual for us to have the demand to justify more than one copy of most items, although we are happy when a book catches on and requires it!

How do I locate books to be potentially added to my library?
Blogs! I am a huge fan of bloggers who write about publisher's preview sessions. One who does this is a lot is fellow Michigan native Elizabeth Bird who blogs at Fuse #8.

Review Journals! I read School Library Journal, Publisher's Weekly, The Horn Book. We also get Library Journal, which I mainly read for the articles and not the reviews. There are many more journals than these worth taking a look at, but these are the ones I have access to at work and home.

Patron Requests! I am pretty liberal about buying what patron requests unless it is outside the scope of our department (textbooks, for example) or of extremely questionable quality. Price and availability are also factors.

Bestsellers lists! I mainly find in Publisher's Weekly and try to keep an eye on what is selling the most on Amazon.com as well.

How do I decide how much to allocate to a budget?
Honestly, budgeting is one of the areas I need to work on the most. This year I decided to try something new, which I actually wish had dawned on me earlier to do this. Warning: spreadsheets ahead! First I looked at the youth department's circulation statistics for the past 10 years:

Total Circulation for the Youth Department

The first group of data is straight circulation numbers from our annual reports. The chunk below that and on the left is percent growth and decline of individual areas. You can see that certain areas of our collection are exploding in popularity and others are declining. These are calculated off the past few years' worth of data to be as current as possible. Growing in interest are the young adult, fiction, and graphic novels, while paperbacks and kits are declining. Actually the reason for the decline of paperbacks is that I stopped circulating them generically and have them cataloged and now they are included in the fiction category.

Then I determined what percent of circulation comes from which category. Basically, it can be broken down like this: Nonfiction and fiction combine for about 40-45% of our circulation, picture books are almost exactly 50%, and the rest is primarily young adult with a smattering of graphic novels and readalong kits in there to round it out. I would not be at all surprised to see our young adult circulation contribute much more heavily in the 2011 statistics at year's end. Our collection has been greatly expanded over the past 2-3 years and is going gangbusters.

Circulation breakdown by category as a percentage of circulation overall

Next I took the approximate amount of circulation per category and determined approximately how much we should be spending (in U.S. dollars) per year in that area. So, for example, approximately $6,000 on picture books and just under $3,000 on nonfiction and fiction. These are just broad goals. As you develop your collection, you will want to consider the strong and weak categories and reallocate funds appropriately. For example, this year I focused on strengthening our weak nonfiction selection (weeding and acquiring) while taking some funds away from our well-stocked picture books. You will want to rotate which collections you put the financial emphasis on from year to year.

What does the ordering process look like?
There are two main ways we order books at my library. We occasionally meet with direct sales reps and we also order directly through a book distribution vendor. With sales reps, I tend to purchase many nonfiction sets, as well as some picture books and easy readers (almost exclusively media tie-ins like SpongeBob, etc.). The media tie-ins are not usually reviewed in the major journals, so this is how I keep our collection up to date with new titles.

The vast majority of my books are ordered through our book distribution vendor. There are several different companies. Major ones include Baker & Taylor and BWI. I used B&T at a previous library, but my current library uses a Michigan-based company, Emery Pratt. Basically, you search for titles, ISBNs, or authors you are interested in and create a cart (or many carts!). When your order is ready, you can submit it. If you've never acquired library books, the process is very similar to online shopping with the advantage that you are not spending your own money. And you're most likely spending hundreds to thousands of dollars on one order.

They are so many great books out there! How do I stick to a budget?
All ordered books go into spreadsheet containing the book's author, title, price per copy, and a guess at where it will most likely wind up being cataloged. Sometimes it is hard to tell from the review, particularly with 'tween books that might wind up in YA or chapter books once they get here.

You will also want to keep in mind the average price of a book varies by category. School Library Journal tracks these numbers on a year to year basis.

The beginning of our book order for the next fiscal year

The formulas at the bottom calculate like so:

Total: sum of all prices (displayed in Cell C21)

Total remaining: my annual budget - the total from Cell C21 = total in Cell C22.

Total w/ est. discount. This is where things get tricky. Our library generally gets a percentage discount off the list price. How much it is totally at the mercy of our distributor. I usually assume we will pay anywhere from 80-90% of a list price. The spreadsheet is currently calculating at 80%, so the formula is C21 *.8 ad displays in C23 (the highlighted cell).

Total Remaining with discount: Subtracts the estimated discount from my annual budget and displays in C24.

So now let's look at what the budget looks like after I pick out all the books that sound like possibilities:

Here's what the monthly budget breakdown looks like at first pass

I am happy with the first pass but a little worried about some of my budgeting. We have way overspent in YA so now I am going to go back through and whittle out some titles. Currently I have 23 YA titles picked out and I should have about half that, so I go back to the reviews a little more carefully, which brings us to the next question.

If you're on the fence about a particular book or need to cut lots of books, what factors are considered?

How well other books by that author have circulated, if we have any. Also the author's general reputation
How much shelving space is in any given section (and if weeding has been done recently to free up some)
The popularity of the genre in our community and/or whether it is well-represented in our collection already or not.
If it is the 2nd or subsequent book in the series (be careful! You don't want to buy a later book, if you don't have the first one. And if you haven't had a demand for the first one, will there be a demand for the second one)
Likelihood of availability through inter-library loan. Michigan has a statewide ILL program called MeL Cat. Many regional cooperatives also have a ILL option, although our cooperative does not.
Price. I am more inclined to take a risk with paperbacks in the $5-9 price range than with a more than $20
If the author is local or not. Local can be state-wide or within a few counties, depending on your library's definition and selection policy. Some libraries emphasize this more than others.
How positive the review is. If it is just a generally positive review, we may or may not buy it. If it is a rave review from a trusted journal, that weighs heavily. Some journals have a reputation for being more critical than others. Starred reviews are not purchased automatically.
How much of that category's monthly budget is being spent already. If I buy this book, will I have to remove another from my list? Which one is more important to our collection development?

So, let's apply those factors to this list of our 23 potential YA titles:

Our list before making any cuts

List with rationale for potential cuts

After rereading the reviews, I cut 3 YA books entirely and assigned 3 to the J budget. I also eliminated 2 nonfiction books after checking the Dewey sections and realizing that they are already well stocked. I'd like to stress that our not buying a book now doesn't make it a bad book. Another librarian might have cut the books I kept. We may even still end up buying some of these books later in the year if patrons request them!

Overall, my verdict is: not great, but not bad. There are a lot of great books coming out this fall, but unfortunately there is only so much money to go around.

Now that we've cut some books, let's see how our budget looks now.

Well, kind of a mixed bag success-wise. I stuck to my monthly budget overall, but some categories were much closer (J fiction and graphic novels) to the target than others (YA is still $110 over budget and JNF is $71 over as well, but that is balanced with the picture book budget being almost $200 under budget). Don't forget that we still have the unknown factor of discounts, which will most likely bring the total amount down into the $1200 range.

In the end, I am happy that the total amount spent was close to what I anticipated and am not as worried about the individual categories. The thing about collection development is that some months certain categories of kids' books really outshine others. Maybe this is just the time of year for quality YA books, kind of like later in the year is Oscar bait season at the movies? Perhaps I will do another budget breakdown later in the fiscal year and compare how I am doing. Let me know if you'd be interested.

Now we're ready to actually order books! For books not purchased directly from sales reps, either I will place the order online or our secretary will call them. I prefer to place it online so I can see right away if we have already ordered the same item accidentally or not. The customer service reps will tell us over the phone if we have already ordered something as well though and ask if we want a 2nd copy or not.

My Dump Truck Fred

2011-09-23T06:30:00.000-04:00

"My Dump Truck Fred" is from the awesome storytime planning resource book Storytime Magic. If you don't own this one at your library, go buy it now. I will wait.

OK, now that you've ordered this book (it is my very favorite, so you better have ordered it). "My Dump Truck Fred" is a first person story about what I would do if I had a dump truck named Fred. That is a big "IF" if you ask me. But anyway, here are some things to do:

Teach Fred good manners and to eat his gravel cereal every day.

Go tanning at the beach with Fred. Don't forget your sunglasses!

Patterns for this story are on the ALA Website (My Dump Truck Fred is #397)

Words are from the Storytime Magic book, but if you haven't bought it yet (you really should), really all you have to do is say "I'd give Fred a hat! I'd make sure he wore his scarf!" etc.

Get Fred ready for the winter and hang his Christmas stocking.

I highly recommend making this book as a magnetboard story as I did. I printed out the pictures, colored them with markers, and then laminated them and cut them out. If you use thin magnet coins (I used these and paid $3.99 for 100), then you can layer the pieces flannel-style without having to painstakingly cut them out of felt. Now, I love felt as much as the next girl and think this would be a darling story in felt, but the text is so short that I didn't feel it was worth my time to do myself.

I actually don't use the stocking part and I am curious as to whether or not other people agree with this decision. How do you treat religious holidays at your library? I am not sure that there is a right decision as it really comes down to the presenter's comfort level and the community as well, but I am curious to hear people's thoughts on this one.

This week's Flannel Friday is being hosted by Mary.

How I Plan My Storytimes

2011-09-21T14:23:00.001-04:00

I've been putting off admitting to this publicly, but a few people have asked how I plan my storytimes, so here is how I do it. I'm sure there are much more organized ways of doing this, but this is how it works for me. I want to stress that I am ~~probably~~ insane and you should bear that in mind while reading this post.

Brainstormed list of Not Themes

The first thing I do is make a list of possible topics. I don't like to think of them as "themes" because themes wind up feeling too specific for me. For example, there are lots of great books about pigs but I get bored reading a bunch of books about them. So instead I'll do a storytime on farms. I've found that by broadening my range of acceptable subjects that my storytimes wind still feeling cohesive but I'm not reading any books I don't really love. I won't read a book that doesn't "do it" for me. Nothing gets thrown in just because I need one more book, etc.

Pink Notecards of Final ~~Not~~ Themes

I plan a whole session at once (6-8 weeks), so I write each theme (OK, I called them themes!) I'm considering on the top of a postcard. These happen to be pink, which is awesome because it stands out more on the pigsty that is my desk. Also I like pink. I write down any ideas that I'm inspired by from blogs or any books that I know I would love to read at storytime, as well as proven crowd pleasers. I want to stress how important it is to read books that you know will go over well as it will boost your confidence. I've been doing storytimes for several years now and I still get a little nervous. That is normal. I've found that it helps me a ton when there is a book that I just love and can't wait to share with the group, so look for a book that begs to be read aloud.

My favorite storytime planning books

Inevitably, some of the cards will wind up a little short. That's when I hit my favorite planning resources. Pinterest is quickly becoming one of my favorite idea sources for crafts. In addition, I read a lot of blogs and I am always discovering new books, rhymes, and activities that way. Some of my favorite blogs are listed on the Recommended Reading sidebar, but obviously they are not all storytime-related. I am also constantly ILL-ing planning books, but I keep coming back to the three in this image:
Storytime Magic
Preschool Favorites: 35 Storytimes Kids Love and
Creative Resources for the Early Childhood Classroom

Eventually, I come up with about 5-6 things on each card. Usually it is 2-3 books, a short flannelboard or 2, a craft, and maybe a song. When I combine that with the rhymes and activities I always use as my storytime opening, I have a completed storytime plan! If things roll along, I can have an entire session of storytimes planned in about 2 hours of work.

So that's how I plan my storytimes. I'd love to hear about your process! And I hope I didn't insult anyone with my anti-theme planning process. Basically I do use some themes--just general ones. I've also just read books that I liked for storytime and not worried about whether there was any connection, but it does help me feel more organized to have a connection between the stories.

Mood Board Monday

2011-09-19T08:30:00.000-04:00

I'm introducing a new feature today called Mood Board Mondays. I plan to post a mood board once or twice a month with ideas for fun things for your youth department. For the first one, I'm presenting an all IKEA mood board crammed full with fun ideas for a children's department. I hope you like it! It was my first time making one, so I hope to improve in the future.

1. IKEA PS LÖMSK Swivel chair $79.99* Perfect for the budding evil genius in your life.
2. SKOJIG Pendant lamp blue Reminds me of vintage Nintendo games.
3. Mammut children's table $39.99 Would be so easy to clean and comes in multiple color options.
4. MAMMUT children's stool $7.99 IKEA also sells MAMMUT children's chairs for $14.99 each--I'd get two chairs and two stools of varying colors for a perfect art table
5. LEKPLATS play mat $14.99 I have bought the stuff to DIY my own but it would probably have been cheaper to just buy this one.
6. DUKTIG 14-piece vegetables set $7.99 Love these!
7. EKORRE rocking moose $39.99 This just makes me happy.
8. KUSINER mesh hamper $4.99 Great storage idea for toys and puppets.
9. BUSA play tunnel $14.99 Fun post-storytime play option

*All prices U.S. dollars.

I've written about my love for IKEA before, and just so you know I was not paid or given anything for this or any other post.

I'm also going to be starting another recurring feature that I'm calling Library Crashing. I plan to visit (in person and virtually) real youth departments and share some of the great ideas that other libraries have implemented. If you're interested in me crashing your library, please email me. I'd love to be able to travel the world for this project, but ~~I have an expired passport~~ I'm pretty limited in travel funds and will be keeping physical visits to libraries in Michigan (and possibly Chicagoland as well).

Otto the Cat

2011-09-16T06:30:00.001-04:00

Today's story is adapted from the easy reader Otto the Cat by Gail Herman (also the author of most of the Scooby-Doo books I've seen, coincidentally). FYI: This is a rebus (pictures fill in for words) story also, so to adapt that aspect to the story I coded my version of the words so that I point to the picture as I say the word). It is probably unnecessary but it does reinforce the idea.

Otto is a cat and he lives in ~~a house~~ OTTO'S house.

He takes HIS car to the pet store where he wants a new dish and a new mouse.

"Otto gets everything he wants. Does he want a puppy?"

No? "TOO LATE, OTTO!" The puppy wants to come home with Otto.

Otto does not like to share with the unnamed puppy so Otto hatches a plan to lose him in the park, but it is Otto who gets lost. Will Otto be able to find his way home? DUN DUN DUN!

Download my clipart. This story can work as either a flannel (attach hook and loop fastener) or magnet board (attach magnets) as none of the pieces need to be layered.

This week is being hosted by Tracey. Previous roundups are here. Don't forget to check out Flannel Friday on Pinterest!

Display Ideas for Any Time! (part 2 of series)

2011-09-12T06:00:00.000-04:00

Earlier I posted some seasonal display ideas, and today I am back with some ready-made display signs that are great for any time of the year. I hope to add more in the future! They are designed for horizontal signholders unless starred:

Picture Books
Bodily Functions (with the caveat that such displays are not for every community)
If You Like Fancy Nancy*
Under the Sea Book*
Pirates

Chapter Books
Historical Fiction* (dreaded school assignment)
Percy Jackson
Chapter Books Every Kid Should Read ("classics" and contemporary crowd-pleasers)
Mysteries

Teen Books
Ain't Shakespeare (retellings)
As Seen on TV (books turned into TV shows like Pretty Little Liars, The Lying Game, Huge, etc. as well as novels based on TV shows like Glee, etc.)
Beauty Books
Books that Rock (music related)

Adult Books
Graphic Novels for Grownups

Multi-Age Displays
Ninjas
Samurais (This was a patron request--he said I'd never be able to come up with enough material to fill a display... CHALLENGE ACCEPTED!)
In The News (a good one to keep up all the time and update with areas of the world or other subjects cropping up on/in the news)
Be A Literary Tourist (originally made for Spring Break for the kids who weren't going out of town to get them to read books set in other countries, etc.)
Classics
Staff Picks

Non-Book Displays
Read the Movie (books into movies) or use this other sign
Quirky Kids Music (music that isn't annoying)

If you download and use my signs, please leave me a comment so I know how many people are using them. If people use them, I'm happy to post more in the future. I'd also love to see pictures!

*vertical orientation

My Kitten's Mitten

2011-09-09T09:25:00.000-04:00

Once fall begins, I start wondering when I am going to need to break out my mittens. I love mittens and have lots of pairs (appropriate for a girl from Michigan, I think). And I get very upset when I lose a pair (or even worse, lose half a pair!) so I can relate to this flannel version of "My Kitten's Mitten" by Jean Warren. For copyright reasons, I don't want to post the whole thing, but here is the first stanza:

  My poor little kitten
  Lost her mitten
  And started to cry, "boo hoo."
  So I helped my kitten
  To look for her mitten,
  Her beautiful mitten of blue.

I will 'fess up that I didn't want to make little mittens for ALL the stanzas, so I exercised my librarian license to just do the colors that I like. Please excuse the glare, I put together this week's Flannel Friday on short notice. We are extremely busy this week--huge event tomorrow!

This week's roundup is being hosted by Melissa. Previous roundups are here. Don't forget to check out Flannel Friday on pinterest!

A Year's Worth of Library Display Ideas (part 1 of series)

2011-09-06T06:00:00.000-04:00

One of my favorite things to do in my library is create displays. I thought it might be helpful if I shared the calendar that I drew up to make sure I don't miss any of the "must-do" displays. It is so helpful if you can take people over to a seasonal display versus trying to look up in the catalog or find Easter books or whatever. I hope this helps any new librarians who might be overwhelmed by the process of marketing your collection!

As a general rule, I tend to keep displays up for about 3-4 weeks or if I run out of books all together. One tip I'd recommend if you have the space for multiple displays is to change one display in each space every week and rotate around the youth department like that. For example, one week you put up a new picture books display, then nonfiction, then YA/teen, etc. Don't forget to raid your CD and DVD collections for a multi-category display.

A great resource for making display is Chase's Calendar of Events, which is a pretty standard reference book, so hopefully your library has it. If they don't, I've also used This Day in History too.

January

"New Year, New You" books on common resolutions (yoga, healthy eating, etc.) --this is a good one for the adult department as well

February

Valentine's Day picture books and anything to do with love
In the YA area I do "Not your mama's romances" and cut up broken hearts, etc. You could do an anti-romance one (black construction paper hearts?) or both!
Black History Month

March

Spring books (including Easter)--check picture books and nonfiction
Noodle Month
St. Patrick's Day

April

Poetry Month
April Fools! (History's great hoaxes and practical jokes)
Women's History Month
Earth Day (suggested by commenter Mrs. Reader Pants--thank you!)

May

Mother's Day books (a few dads have thanked me for doing this because they would have forgotten otherwise--one of the many services at your public library is reminding people that these holidays exist!)

June/July

Something related to the summer reading theme (this year it was stories from around the world, for example)
Father's Day books (with a sign that says "A man that reads is a dad, indeed! Happy Father's Day"--big hit with the moms)
Road Trip reads (great audio books for the whole family in the car)
Summer picture books and nonfiction
Beach Books for the teens
4th of July

August

Back to School Books
Potty Training books (kids usually have to be potty-trained to start preschool)

September

Fall books--apples, pumpkins, etc. (a lot of preschools and elementary classes will do farm visits around this time of year as a field trip, so anything related to that)
This year, we have a September 11th display up for the 10 year anniversary. It is pretty simple but powerful.

October

Beginning October 1st--Halloween books
I do a J & YA display called "Scarier than the math test you forgot to study for" also.

November

Thanksgiving books beginning November 1st (or if the Halloween books start to look really picked over early)
Christmas books go out the day after Thanksgiving (what I do is put the Thanksgiving books that are still on the display--if any--on the shelving cart while I am doing my closing duties Wednesday night and then put a note on my desk to put the Christmas books out on my next workday)

December

Winter picture books and nonfiction
Along with the Christmas picture books, I put out books on making gifts, wrapping paper, and all sorts of different activity books for kids who will be bored over the break (drawing, etc.)
I usually put up a display to go with our puppet show (books on making puppets and/or the folktales the show is based on, or books related to the subject (cooking, etc.) if any)
Anything we have on New Year's traditions, resolutions, etc.

Printable Signs

I am working on updating my signs for the displays, but here are some for you to download:

Beach Books
March is Noodle Month*
Road Trip Audio
Black History Month or also this one
Poetry Month
Father's Day
Valentine's Day (Not Your Mama's Romance--for teens)
St. Patrick's Day (Read Me! I'm Irish!)
Back to School (School Daze)
Halloween (Scarier Than a Math Test You Forgot to Study For)

*Vertical Orientation

If you use my signs, please leave me a comment so I know how many people are using them. If people use them, I'm happy to post more in the future. I'd also love to see pictures!

I have a post coming up on display ideas that are great for any time of year, but since this is the beginning of the school year I thought I'd do the seasonal one first!

Flannel Friday Roundup for 9/2/11

2011-09-02T09:29:00.000-04:00

Roundup for September 21, 2011!

Notes from the Story Room reminds us "Don't Let the Tiger Get You". I love her props!

Story Time Secrets has lots of ideas for Squirrels (part of a fall series). Side note: Other people think "I HATE squirrels" every time someone says "squirrels," right? We just watched UP again, so that's back in my head now. Sorry. Not into squirrels? How about ducks? Nicole at Narrating Tales of Preschool Storytime has you covered with Raffi's (in?)famous song "Five Little Ducks". If your storytime needs some missing dinosaurs, Seth's your dude for that with "Five Little Dinosaurs."

Continuing the animal theme, Cat at Storytiming is asking "Can You Guess My Breakfast?" while Miss Mary Liberry is hunting down A House for Birdie. Bridget shares her version of Dog's Colorful Day, one of my favorite storytime books. Hello Kitty dances at Moxie's Five Little Ballerinas.

Miss Alison Is Blogging shared her Insect Guessing Game, which would be great for anyone planning a bug-themed storytime. Also posting a guessing game, this week is Mel's Desk--Mel's thinking about vegetables. This could be a cute idea if you are doing an outreach storytime at a farmer's market this fall. If burgers are your bag, Tracey's got you covered with Brown Bun, Brown Bun and then suggesting some 5 Little Jellybeans for dessert.

Speaking of yummy food, Anna is talking about Five (or 6) Little Apples. Apples are always a popular topic around this time of year. And an apple a doctor keeps the doctor away! One way to keep the dentist away says Mollie is to use our Five Toothbrushes. Hygiene can be fun!

And, lastly I posted my Animal Opposites activity. This can be used in storytimes or you can leave it out as an early literacy activity for families to do together.

I'm also pinning this week's posts on the Flannel Friday pinterest boards, so make sure to check there if you're starting to plan your fall storytimes.

Happy Labor Day! Everyone gets a big round of applause and a pat on the back from me for surviving Summer Reading.

Animal Opposites

2011-09-02T09:15:00.002-04:00

Another discussion-generating Flannel Friday this week to discuss opposites. This would also work as an early literacy activity like I discussed last week. Only this time, we're talking about Animal Opposites!

For younger kids, put pairs of animals on the board and ask why they are opposites (height, width, textures, loud versus quiet, fast or slow, etc.).

Fat Hippo & Skinny Flamingo

Prickly Porcupine & Smooth Snake

Loud Rooster & Quiet Rabbit

Hard Crab & Soft Kitten

Fast Cheetah & Slow Turtle

Big Elephant & Small Mouse

Tall Giraffe & Short Monkey

With older kids, you can put multiple pairs or all the animals up on the board at once and ask them to guess which are pairs and what makes them opposites. They might surprise you with their answers!

I adapted this idea from Storytime Magic (which has downloadable patterns if you'd like another way of making this flannel). I decided to use animal photos and you can download my file.

This week's Flannel Friday roundup will be hosted by me! Previous roundups are here. Don't forget to check out Flannel Friday on pinterest!

$1 Collection Marketing: Make Your Popular Series Stand Out with IKEA Frames!

2011-09-01T14:26:00.000-04:00

I wanted a way to make my chapter book series stand out more in the stacks (especially the popular ones!), so inspired by Come Into Delight as well as a pin on Pinterest, I got to work. I decided to use these frames that were left over from the table markers (stationary by Hitch Design Studio) at my wedding last summer:

I even had some still left in the wrapper. Our nearest IKEA is about 2 hours away, so my wonderful mother-in-law picked these up for the wedding long before we knew how many tables were actually going to be at our wedding reception leaving me with spares.

The frames are originally from IKEA and they are a steal at $1 each. What works perfectly for my purposes (besides the price) is that they are double-sided and completely plastic. They are meant for 4 by 6 pictures, so I designed a file in Publisher that prints 4 postcards per page. Then I roughly cut the sheets into quarters and stuck them between the plastic "glass" sheets. I used the plastic as a guide to trim them to the correct size and insert the clear plastic back into the frame. Then I used stick-on magnet coins to attempt to keep them from migrating too much on the shelf (our shelving is metal).

And VOILA!

I am happy to share my Publisher 2007 file with anyone who emails me for it. You will probably have to adjust some of the sizes and placements for your particular printer.

Customize this for your needs:

Add clip-art in the white space at the bottom for each series. A broomstick for Harry Potter, a log cabin for Little House on the Prairie? The possibilities are endless!
Add covers for all the books in the series
Spray paint the frames for added visual interest and to match (or stand out from!) your decor
Don't have room on the ends of your shelves? You could also use these as sign holders for displays.
Adapt this idea for your nonfiction collect and use clip-art to signify fairy tales, dog books, dinosaur books etc. I did this on a much bigger scale with the library's Cricut machine and oodles of scrapbooking paper.

This project was F-R-E-E to the library. What do you think? Anyone have IKEA projects at their library? I dream of someday replacing our kids' furniture with IKEA pieces... drool.

Let's make a list of all the kidlibs on Pinterest!

2011-08-29T09:19:00.005-04:00

This weekend(when I was a Saturday Librarian) I spent a lot of time pinning some ideas for fall programs, and it got me to thinking how much I would LOVE to have a list of all the children's, youth, and teen librarians on Pinterest. So I am recruiting you all to help me find them and make a list!

If you're a youth librarian and want to share your programming, decor, or any other library-related pinboards, put a link to your Pinterest page in the comments.

I'll start!

Fall Program Ideas

2011-08-27T12:20:00.006-04:00

A survey submitter asked me to post more of my program ideas so here is what we will be offering at my library for the months of September, October, and November. I will try to post more details of the events as they are being planned and also write about how they went (the good, the bad, and the ugly) after I've recovered from them.

First up is our biggest program of the year, our fall Carnival. Instead of operating a reading program prize booth all summer, we do an annual Carnival on the Saturday after Labor Day. We hold this event outside in our parking lot. (There is plenty of street parking and we are also able to "borrow" the parking lot from the funeral home next door, assuming there are no visitations scheduled that day.) From noon to three, kids can exchange their "library dollars" they've been earning in our SRP for carnival game tickets. Then they earn prize tickets and get to pick out their own prize. We've been doing this for a long time (this year is the 40th annual Carnival) and it generally runs pretty smoothly. Last year, it poured rain all day, but usually the weather is beautiful. We get several hundred attendees at this event. I promise to post more nitty-gritty details about how this program later. Until that happens, here is my Pinterest board with ideas. (Many of the links below will also be to Pinterest boards--such an amazing place to find and save programming ideas!)

After Carnival, the youth staff generally takes a couple weeks off to decompress and focus on some other projects that never seem to get done during a hard-core programming period like summer reading. So I usually start my storytimes the first week of October. We offer two storytimes: one for kids under 2 and one for preschoolers. They are pretty standard (but based on this philosophy) and I have written storytime outlines as well as an overview of my storytimes before.

When we did our patron survey this summer, the most frequent request was for us to offer more programs for school age kids. To fill that gap, I'm going to be trying out some new programs: a one-day superhero camp and a one-day sewing camp that I am hoping to eventually turn into a monthly sewing club-type program. I am trying them out on a Saturday afternoon. We will also be continuing our very popular monthly Lego programming

We will also start preparing for our annual winter break puppet show, so I am excited about that. I love doing our puppet shows. We get huge numbers and it is a really fun chance to stretch some different creative muscles. You can read more about our puppet programming by browsing the puppet ideas tag. Also coming up in the winter, will be a spy training camp, Jedi training camp, more storytimes (including a storytime campout!), and some other ideas I haven't thought up yet! Suggestions and comments welcome!

Percy Jackson Party!

2011-08-26T11:27:00.000-04:00

I realized that I forgot to post about the Percy Jackson party we threw months (years?) ago when the movie was coming out! Oops! I am posting it anyway because we had a lot of fun, even though I was the only girl there.

Prep for this was pretty simple, the only thing I made was the lovely hydra archery target (we used a Nerf bow and arrow set so the kids could practice their archery--huge hit!). True story: I was drawing the tongues on the heads when this middle school boy walks over and says "Nice hydra" all nonchalantly! He did that whole appreciative head lift too. If I remember correctly, I looked at some hydra coloring pages on Google Images and then used that as the basis for mine. If I had to do it all over again, I think I'd have cut the ~~snake~~ hydra out and glued it on to a different color of posterboard for more contrast, especially with the scales.

If you're more comfortable tracing, you could print a coloring page onto transparency film (I just put ours through my regular printer to make a mermaid for the 2010 summer reading program). Then you can use an artist's projector or overhead projector and project the image to the wall. Then you tape up some posterboard and trace.

We did several ideas from the Percy Jackson event planning kit. I also put together a PowerPoint Monsters game, where I put an image up of a mythological creature and the kids raced to name him/her/it. Unfortunately, I can't find the file for that. We also did Percy Jackson madlib game (download). I think the idea for that came from PUBYAC.

To promote the party, I put a book display out with our flyers (sorry, no file for that anymore either!). You can download the sign I made to go with it though.

Ready for Bed? Sequencing Early Literacy Activity

2011-08-26T08:46:00.026-04:00

Here is an easy and simple discussion-generating activity designed to be left out in the children's department. But, since this a Flannel Friday submission, of course you can also do this as a flannel story at storytime! Print out the pieces and laminate them. Then attach magnets to the back of the pieces and set out a magnetic cookie sheet or oil drip pan. Nearby, put up a sign explaining that the idea is for the parents and kid to discuss the sequencing of their bedtime routine.

If you want to use this idea as a felt board, download patterns from Storytime Magic (where I found the inspiration for this idea).

This week's Flannel Friday roundup will be hosted by Mollie. Previous roundups are here. Don't forget to check out Flannel Friday on pinterest!

Why So Tomorrow?

2011-08-25T20:05:00.001-04:00

A reader asked me why I named my blog "So Tomorrow" and I realized I'd never really shared this story with anyone, so here it is!

Once upon a time (2006), there was a 22-year old grad student in her first semester. One of her class assignments was to start a blog and write a few posts about technology (since deleted--they were really bad, trust me her). But to create a blog, it has to have a name! At the time, she was reading (and loving) this book:

So she decided that, as a future librarian, it wasn't half-bad (or half-good) naming inspiration. A few (5) years have gone by, and now the name doesn't quite work, but that's ok. And the blogger lived happily ever after (so far).

The reader asked me if the name meant something like "so tomorrow, I have a storytime what should I do?" and I actually think that is way more awesome than how my blog came to be named. I want to change the tagline (the part under my blog's title) to imply that because it appeals to my procrastinator nature, so if anyone has a suggestion on how to word that, I'd love to hear it.

Ch-ch-changes!

2011-08-25T13:35:00.006-04:00

I am so excited to share the news that So Tomorrow is getting its own URL. I finally bit the bullet and paid $10 to get my own custom domain. So now you can find this blog at www.sotomorrowblog.com.

Google promised me that automatic forwarding should start within the next 3 days, so hopefully if your library firewall decided to block my site or something, that will be resolved. I do apologize for any weirdness over the next few days. Crossing my fingers that everything goes OK. As far as I know, there shouldn't be any problems with the RSS feed changing or emails being sent out, but please let me know if there is and I will investigate.

Thank you everyone who has filled out the survey so far. I am really learning a lot from your feedback. It is making me feel better as I stress myself out over migration stuff. :)

For fun, here's a map (handy for my world domination plans) with where my readers are:

New Look for the Blog & Reader Survey!

2011-08-25T09:09:00.002-04:00

I am in the process of updating this blog's appearance, so I would love some feedback on it. Please take a look and leave a comment on this post or send me an email. I do know that I need to fix the Pinterest icon so that it is the same size as the Twitter and Facebook ones, and I'm working on that, so bear with me!

I am looking to add more blogs to to the sidebar on my own blog, so if you have a library-related blog that is not listed, let me know and I will add it.

Also, I'd love to know more about my readers, so if you could take a few minutes and fill out a quick survey for me, I'd really appreciate it. My goal is to constantly improve my blog! Thanks for reading this here little blog.

I'm still taking entries for my giveaway for a few more days, so you've still got time to enter.

Storytime Giveaway!

2011-08-23T10:04:00.002-04:00

Thick envelopes are good news!

I am going to attempt my first giveaway! I have 5 storytime kits courtesy of Random House.

They were on my desk when I got back from vacation (envelope was already tossed even), so I'm not sure if they came from RH directly or were given to me by our book distributor. Oops. But they are both great companies!

Inside is a (orange!) portable felt board--could be great for traveling librarians, teachers, and parents--and a pamphlet with ideas for zoo and back to school-themed storytimes. You could even use it to model your Flannel Friday creations!

Gotta love an orange flannelboard

EDIT: CONTEST CLOSED 8/31 at midnight. Winners have been emailed. Thank you for entering!

5 Little Apples

2011-08-19T08:36:00.005-04:00

Here is a quick 'n easy flannelboard for you. I actually found these apple shapes at the dollar store so I didn't even have to cut them myself.

I use them with a Five Little Apples rhyme (see below) and change the types of animals mentioned to match puppets I have on hand. Then I have the puppets eat the apples, similar to what I do with this previous Flannel Friday post.

5 Little Apples

Five little apples hung on a tree
The farmer didn't careSo guess who came to eat?
A CATERPILLAR.......MUNCH, MUNCH

Four little apples hung on a tree

The farmer didn't care
So guess who came to eat?
A BIRD.........MUNCH, MUNCH

Three little apples hung on a tree
The farmer didn't care
So guess who came to eat?
A PIG..........MUNCH,MUNCH

Two little apples hung on a tree
The farmer didn't care
So guess who came to eat?
A HORSE.......MUNCH,MUNCH
One little apple hung on a tree
The farmer didn't care
So guess who came to eat?
A SCARECROW......MUNCH,MUNCH

Now the tree is bare
There are no more apples there
But when next fall comes around
Guess who'll be there?
THE CATERPILLAR
THE BIRD
THE PIG
THE HORSE
and the SCARECROW
YUM! YUM!

I'm not super crazy about "the farmer didn't care" part. Anyone want to suggest a revision?

This week Flannel Friday is being hosted by Tracey. Previous roundups are here.

Featured in the Cricut Newsletter!

2011-08-18T16:51:00.000-04:00

I am so excited that one of my projects, my version of 15 Animals by Sandra Boynton, was featured in the Cricut newsletter, the Chirp (in the Message Board highlights section)! I actually only found out because I noticed that my blog was getting lots more traffic than usual, and looking at the stats led me to discover my first bit of "press!" So thanks to the Chirp and welcome to all my new followers. Thanks for reading!

In case you don't remember, this was inspired by a Flannel Friday project posted by Abby the Librarian, so thanks Abby too!

Chicka Chicka Boom Boom Magnet Board

2011-08-12T11:11:00.004-04:00

This isn't quite a Flannel Friday, but I want to share something similar that requires absoutely zero artistic skills: a magnet story of Chicka Chicka Boom Boom. All you need to do is find a set of magnetic alphabet letters at your local dollar store and make a tree (mine is actually clipart, laminated, and I stuck a magnetic coin on the back).

I happen to have a portable magnetic whiteboard at work, so that is what I am using to model it, but an even easier (and F-R-E-E that spells FREE) option is to use a cookie sheet (not all of them are magnetic, but you probably have one at home or at a local thrift store waiting for a good home that is.)

Easy peasy, lemon squeezy!

Mouse's Halloween House

2011-08-12T09:16:00.002-04:00

I know that Halloween is still quite a long ways away, but this such a fun little flannel that I couldn't resist sharing it early. And I figure this way if anyone wants to make one, they have plenty of lead time! Your source for the words and patterns is Judy Sierra's Mother Goose Playhouse (out of print) and you will find it on page 43.

This story is one paragraph of text and one short stanza of rhyme. I think it could be quite easily adapted to a draw and tell story as well. Basically, Mama Mouse nibbles holes into a "big orange house" for doors and windows, and then puts a candle inside to light up the darkness. Voila!

This week, Cate is hosting the roundup. Previous roundups are here. Don't forget to check out Flannel Friday on pinterest!

DIY Library Signage

2011-08-05T13:25:00.001-04:00

Yesterday we were without Internet and ILS access for almost all of my shift, so that wiped out my plans for what I wanted to accomplish. Fortunately I had one "analog" project that my boss had asked me to work on so I was able to start that yesterday and finish this morning: making vinyl signs to label the different collections. Check 'em out!:

To make them,I followed instructions on the package and found some general ones on this blog. Definitely applying the vinyl to the wall and attempting to get it straight is much harder than actually cutting it out. As long as the settings are correct (2 for blade depth, 2 for pressure, and a slow speed) the machine will only cut through the vinyl and not the paper backing. Then I just peeled off the unwanted vinyl, applied your transfer paper, removed the vinyl's backing, and stuck it on the wall. I used a level to draw a straight line and then matched it with the transfer paper's gridlines as best I could.

The total cost for this project was about $30 (Vinyl and transfer tape). We still have half the vinyl sheets remaining. I was able to do 7 in about 3 hours. These are just my two favorite ones. The only thing I would do differently is spend more money for the 12 by 24 vinyl sheets instead of the 12 by 12. Some of the phrases I cut would have been too small to cut on a 12 by 12 so I programmed them twice, but it was difficult to match them up accurately. It would have been worth the extra money to have had them all together.

'Round and Round with the Three Pigs

2011-08-05T09:43:00.009-04:00

Today's Flannel Friday is the traditional story of the Three Little Pigs. BUT we have a twist! Jan Irving and Robin Currie made it a circle story (find the patterns in Straw Into Gold: Books and Activities about Folktales or copy the idea with clipart)

Basically, you glue an image of the Big Bad Wolf on the left side and then cover images of the three pigs with a circle cut so that only one pig is visible at the time. The circle is attached with a brass brad so you can turn it as you tell the story.

I am a Cheaty McCheaterson so the words are on the back:

I like Irving's version's first line: At a time when pigs could walk and talk and build houses, there lived three little pigs. Don't you want to know what happened to our poor porcine friends that they no longer have these skills?

Don't miss any of this week's Flannel Friday posts--Anna will be posting a roundup!

Library Makeover Part 4: Last Two Projects

2011-08-03T15:46:00.001-04:00

As I promised earlier today, here are the last two projects I worked on while we were closed for painting:
First I put up sheets of scrapbook paper to give our bulletin board more of a memo board look:

I think it turned out really fun and it seems kind of beachy to me, especially with our lemon walls. I also used a pocket chart (from the dollar store*) to make a new sign with our youth department hours on it.

*we have the best dollar store here. It's basically my favorite place in town and I can spend hours in there. Whenever a friend comes to visit us here for the first time, I always take them there. It is mesmerizing.

Library Makeover Part 3

2011-08-03T11:49:00.028-04:00

I promised to share more photos of our little youth department makeover and I am back with 'em! These are all projects I made for our space.

Next is a bulletin board inspired by one I discovered on Flickr a long time ago.

Besides my letters not being straight, the only problem with this bulletin board is that I keep thinking the bottom phrase says "Repent!" My co-worker suggested I just have a guilty conscience. What do you think?

I also made a new Welcome sign for the picture books section.

Here's the whole pre-reader section:

And I whipped up a quick Welcome banner for the entrance to the youth department as well:

More projects coming as soon as I can get Blogger to play nice!

More Stencil Paintings

2011-08-02T08:42:00.001-04:00

I wanted to share two more stencil paintings I've been working on (I started them both Sunday and I'd say they are about 90% done--still need some touching up). I am pretty happy with how they are shaping up. The robot is my favorite.

The stencils I made using SVG files (Doug's Robots for the robot and Good Luck Gnomes for the deer and trees--paid $3 total on sale months ago) I cut on my Cricut.

Need to clean up the lines a little bit

Still want to add some snow to this one.

Check out #FlannelFriday on Pinterest!

2011-07-30T18:10:00.001-04:00

We have a new way for you to keep up with Flannel Friday! Follow us on Pinterest (Mel's got the scoop, if you're unfamiliar with pinning). Enjoy!

Library Day in the Life (#libday7)

2011-07-30T14:07:00.002-04:00

If I were a patron, I'd have racked up a serious fine, because this blog post is so overdue! Finally, here is my #LibDay7 post! Thanks for waiting and I hope you enjoy. I will be updating this post throughout the day so I apologize to anyone who sees it multiple times in their RSS feed.

I am a youth librarian in a Michigan public library, but today I have been scheduled to work in the adult department, which is always a challenge when your expertise lies elsewhere. But it can be fun to answer some tougher reference questions and see some new (to me) patrons.

8:00 Arrive at library. Yesterday I was at a workshop so I spend a few minutes going through items on my desk and running through my mental to-do list of items I want to get done before we open at 10:00. Start working on those: change the bulletin board (from an idea I found on Pinterest), go through new books fresh out of processing, check email and voicemail, as well as daily opening preparations (turn on computers, change date on date due stamps, reset people counter, etc.)

9:00 First co-workers arrive: two of my three pages arrive. The last one will be in at 10. Pages empty the book-drop and vacuum the sections of the youth department that still have debris from painting. I fill out a form for mileage reimbursement and professional development summary from yesterday's excellent workshop I attended on early literacy and school readiness (presented by MSU Extension).

10:00 Third page arrives and the two pages working in the adult department today turn on the lights, send the elevator down to the parking lot level, and so forth. We have recently had new lighting installed on the laptop tables and neither the page or I know how to turn them on! Luckily the page scheduled for the youth department was here when they were installed and fills us in. Time to open! I wait for patrons to come in. They trickle in slowly. Check some books out, help patrons log in to use the computers. Order some books from ILL. A children's department regular comes in and asks me what I am doing "on the wrong floor" and I help her find the Cars soundtrack. Make a mental note to change the cataloging on that one as it is in the adult department but the movie itself is downstairs in children's. We also spot the Wall-e soundtrack on the wrong floor, but it has been misshelved (as opposed to miscataloged/mislabeled). Another patron asks if we can hold her ILL books if they come in Monday or Tuesday, so I promise to leave a note. In between patrons, I type up a Goodbye sign that I wanted to make for the youth department that I pinned.

11:00 Time for lunch! Since it is a short work day, I take a half-hour. My husband brings me Jimmy John's and I remember why I married him. He hasn't seen the new paint job in the youth department, so I am excited to see what he thinks. He thinks it is a big improvement and I am inclined to agree. Lunch break is interrupted by a question from a page about whether or not it is OK for a patron to take a book out of a stack (yes, and a good thing too because it was for a Board member!)

11:30 Back from lunch. Other staff members start to take their lunch. Help patron find a Nicholas Sparks book only to discover at the check-out desk that she doesn't live in our service area. So unfortunately, she would have to pay a non-resident fee or will not be able to check anything out. I hate telling people they can't borrow our materials! Hate it.

12:00 Am able to work downstairs for a few minutes to get ready for Monday's Grand Re-Opening of the youth department. Hang up a welcome banner, and put up some other decorations. Also adjust the bulletin board because when I did it this morning (pre-caffeine) I stapled some of the letters crooked. Oops! Also sign a few kids onto the computers, find a Maggie Stiefvater book for a patron, and say thank you's for compliments on our new paint job.

1:00 Finish my projects downstairs and head back up. One page goes home. We have been busy all day and this is no exception. Sign more people onto computers (one from Mississippi and one from Ontario!). A woman asks me if we have any CDs by Joanna Newsom. We do so I find it for her. Since our CDs are cataloged in Dewey, she asks if I can print her a list of category call numbers. I fish one off the Internet and send it home with her. I also print one for myself for the children's department so I can make a sign with "real people" language as our CDs are also in DDC downstairs.

Page asks me how we are supposed to put the chairs up on the reading tables now that they have lights installed on them. I have no idea so we experiment a little and get them to (just barely) fit!

2:00 Survive the last minute frenzy. Closing duties are done (everything's off and doors are locked) so it's time to go home!

That's all folks! Hope you enjoyed the blow-by-blow description of a day in the life of a youth librarian temporarily moved to the adult department!

One more Dewey Decimal sign...

2011-07-29T13:09:00.002-04:00

This is just a quick post (coincidentally, we are knee-deep in a painting project of our own) to share one more Dewey Decimal sign that is now hanging in our kids' department:

Library Makeover Part 2: New Board Book Storage

2011-07-28T18:47:00.001-04:00

While we were repainting the youth department, we also switched out our board books. Previously, they were stored in 2 clear plastic bins, which while functional, were overflowing and not attractive. See?

Before

A quick trip to Meijer and $25 (on clearance!) later, we had an adorable storage solution:

After

Make It Over! Our Adventures in Repainting the Youth Department

2011-07-28T15:46:00.001-04:00

Pictures are up here, if you'd like to see our makeover. We used Behr's Wickerware (yellow) and Corn Husk Green for our colors. By we, I mean that I picked them. So I'm to blame if you don't like them.

If anyone is painting in the future, here is some advice:

Think really hard about what section you want to paint first. I would start with the one that will be the hardest to reshelve. In most cases, that will be the picture books.
Play music. Loud music while reshelving. Something peppy. It will put you in a better mood.
Use an assembly-line technique for unshelving and reshelving books, particularly the picture books. They are a pain. Start with them so you can get it over with. Throw the yucky ones that should be weeded in a seperate pile so you don't have them go back on the shelf.
Close the library down for more time than you think you will need. Then you won't feel rushed and it is better to reopen early than to stay closed longer than you told people.
Invite the press and throw a party for when you reopen. Have the kids make decorations for the "new" children's department.

That's all for now! I have books to reshelve. :)

Library Day in the Life

2011-07-26T23:58:00.000-04:00

If you're looking for my #libday7 post, I hope to have something up later this week (I hope Saturday) as we have closed my (youth) department for this week for painting. I am thrilled about this but it makes for a much atypical week. If you'd like to read about a much more typical day in my life as a children's librarian, please read my post from last summer.

If anyone is interested, I will write up a post later this week about our makeover. Or at least share photos.

The Big-Hearted Elephant

2011-07-22T09:48:00.002-04:00

In honor of the wedding I am attending tomorrow, here's a lovey-dovey flannel board for all you romantics out here. It's called "The Big-Hearted Elephant" and it is an original Valentine's Day story. After what feels like forever searching, I finally found the source of this story! It is from Holiday Hoopla by Kathy Darling. The book is long out of print, but used copies are available on Amazon or you might be able to ILL a copy.

I'd advise anyone attempting this poem to have one person manipulate the flannel board pieces and another read the words. It is quite long, and you don't want to lose the rhythm fumbling with the pieces. This is one of the first felt stories I ever made (I think it was the 2nd) and it shows in the execution.

Don't forget to stop by Sharon's blog for this week's Flannel Friday roundup. Previous roundups are here.

My Storytime Philosophy

2011-07-15T15:12:00.000-04:00

My philosophy for storytime is summed up by a Hallmark ad (of all things!):

Summer Reading Photo Stand & Other Projects

2011-07-15T10:31:00.000-04:00

Meant to share this way sooner! Look at what my husband and I put together:

The front was a color-your-own banner from Oriental Trading which I actually delegated to an art major page and then my husband built the frame. We took it to our county's preschool Fun Fair and it has been sitting in the youth department for summer reading since.

It's always so much fun for us to build things together. We also redid a $5 garage sale bench. Here's the before (with the rest of our finds from that day--the coat rack also got a makeover):

And then after some sanding and painting ($18 for a gallon of paint---more than enough and we've been redoing some smaller things to match and I believe the fabric was around $12--on sale at JoAnn Fabric):

But now my husband has decided to build some storage underneath it for our entryway, so there will be another after pic someday.

Quick as a Cricket

2011-07-15T08:25:00.014-04:00

This week I am sharing Quick as a Cricket by Audrey Wood for Flannel Friday (look for the roundup hosted by Andrea). This is a storytime classic* and a great flannelboard. I will confess to not being the biggest fan of the original artwork. Just not my taste.

It does have tons of pieces and I didn't have time to dig the bigger flannelboard out of storage (we are getting ready to shut down our youth services department for a makeover soon) so bear with me.

Here they all are together:

I'm as slow as a ...

Snail

I'm as loud as a...

Lion

I'm as wild as a ...

Chimp

I'm as strong as a ...

I'm as sad as a ...

Bassett

I'm as happy as a...

Lark

My flannelboard pieces were out of 2's Experience: Felt Board Fun by Liz and Dick Wilmes, but I noticed that KizClub has a pattern for this book as well. It doesn't look like they have all the pieces, so you might have to rework the rhyme a bit.

Another fun and faster way to tell this story would be to print out photos or clip art and clip each image to a clothesline as you tell the story. You can also do something similar with a group where each child gets a picture of an animal (some can be repeated) asked the kids questions like "who has a mean animal? a strong one? brave?" etc.

Here's a question for storytime presenters: Do you put all the pieces up and leave them or have one up at a time? I'm a put up and leave 'em girl, especially because this book ends with "Put it all together, it's ME" but I am curious what others are partial to. Part of it would depend on how big your board is also.

*I do express some dubious feelings about the line about being "hot as a fox." Maybe it's just me... but it seems a little odd.

Summer Reading Week 5!

2011-07-14T15:17:00.000-04:00

I can't believe it is Week 5 already! This has definitely been an interesting summer (read my other summer reading posts here) and it has never really felt like we fully hit our stride. I hope our numbers wind up being OK, but I know we won't be setting any records this year. And that's just fine.

For me, one of the highlights of the summer has been being able to actually watch the programs. Most of the year I am the one putting everything on myself and the great thing about our SRP is getting to be part of the audience myself. We have had some very cool events hosted by people who aren't me. We have had a juggling workshop, theater performance, and a family performer stop by and they all were smashing. I even got a few ideas for stories and songs that I might try out in storytime.

I have to say I was really impressed with all of our performers' professionalism. In previous years, I have had a staff member with a petting zoo wearing a pro-marijuana Tshirt and had an aging hippie talk about partying while presenting to children. Both times I was cringing like a madwoman. There were no moments like that this year. Thank goodness.

Our summer reading program ends next week. It's always nice to have the finish line in sight, but it always seems to go by so fast. Of course, then we start right up planning the annual Carnival. This year is the 40th anniversary of our event, so you know we have to do it right!

Storytelling "There is a Bird on Your Head"

2011-07-11T14:30:00.000-04:00

One of the things I love the most about how my library does summer storytimes (besides going outside for them) is that we schedule an extra person to help me out with them. This is a luxury that I would LOVE to have more often, because we can do so much more things with another set of hands. One of my favorite is to do a dual reading. And one of the best book series for this is of course by Mo Willems. Any of the Elephant and Piggie books can be great this way, but my favorite is There is a Bird on Your Head.

I am the lucky owner of these puppets from Discount School Supply and am a huge fan. The puppet for the number 3 happens to have three little baby birds in there. When we read this book, I play Gerald (the elephant) and leave the closed nest on my head. When the baby birds are born, I pop my fingers up and there they are. It's a great effect, she said humbly. The other person simply holds the book for us and reads Piggie's lines. At the appropriate time, I move the nest to their head. Surprise! Easy peasy.

These puppets are a great set for storytime planning collections. They come with lots of ideas for using them and, if I remember correctly, the words are also in Spanish.

Summer Reading Week 4 Roundup

2011-07-08T11:25:00.000-04:00

We are finishing week 4 of our summer reading program here so it is time for another roundup! This week went very smoothly, so that means next week probably won't. Kidding. I hope.

We have had quite a lot of interest in signing up for summer reading but very few people have returned their logs. It will be interesting to see if it's just procrastination or taking longer than normal. I won't be at work the last day of summer reading (wedding) so I hope people come in before then with their finished logs so the poor staffers who are working won't be too slammed.

By the way, does anyone else work in a small town? I am curious what those of us who live in more rural communities do for summer reading and what numbers they expect? Our service area is around 20,000 residents in size. So I struggle when I try to compare our numbers with some people who work in much more populated areas.

Lunch by Denise Fleming

2011-07-08T09:21:00.001-04:00

Today's Flannel Friday is Lunch by Denise Fleming. I tell this story using the flannel board and a little mouse puppet (sadly, not pictured, but I think it's this one). As the mouse in the story eats his way through a lunch buffet, the puppet snags the food off the board with his mouth.

This is a nice story to tell for a beginner or anyone who has my inability to memorize. Basically "Mouse was very hungry. He was so hungry he ate some _______________________________" and then "he took a nap until (pause for suspense) DINNERTIME!"

According to my notes, I got the patterns from Toddler Storytimes II. I no longer have a copy of this book, so I can't share them. You could use coloring sheets off the Internet as inspiration. You could also use print clipart and laminate it. I might try this with play food in the future.

This week's Flannel Friday roundup is being hosted at Storytime Katie. Previous roundups are here.

Am I Ready to Go?

2011-07-01T09:59:00.005-04:00

Now that it's July and incredibly hot, I thought it would be fun to post a winter-y "getting dressed" idea for today's #FlannelFriday. This is another Storytime Magic idea (#21), so buy the book if you don't have a copy. You can thank me later.

Here's my male model:

I drew hearts on his boxers, because that's how I roll. Here he is all ready to go play out in the snow:

I like this set because you can use the rhyme MacMillan and Kirker provide or you can invent one of your own. You could also retell Froggy Gets Dressed or How Do I Put it On? (a great baby storytime book, if you have a copy of this out-of-print gem).

This week's Flannel Friday roundup is being hosted by Katie. Previous roundups are here.

Summer Reading Roundup Week 3!

2011-06-30T12:28:00.000-04:00

I can't believe our summer reading program is already half-way through (weeks 1 and 2)! We only do a short 6-week program and honestly that works wonderfully for us. We do usually get a few requests to lengthen it but we explain that our system is a massive undertaking and people have been very understanding.

It has been an interesting summer with the flooding last week. I am hoping it will not have too much of a effect on our signups and circulation, but so far they are a little behind what my goals were for this year. I am trying to remember that sometimes you're up and sometimes you're down, but as a competitive person, I always like to "beat" the year before.

We seemed to have turned a corner and are now having nice enough weather that our outside storytimes can actually be outdoors! We had a wonderful turnout for yesterday and a smaller one today, but both were well-recieved. Wednesday we had a minor incident where we had to remove a poor deceased bird minutes before starting storytime in the park and Thursday we accidentally set storytime up on top of an ant hill.

We had a very well attended performance by a local theater group yesterday. That was really fun and they put on a great interactive show. A few hours earlier, we had installed more shelving in the YA section so we weren't sure exactly where the furniture was going to go and then we had to move it anyway to accomodate the crowd (we do not have a seperate program room in our building). We have added about 30% more shelving now, and it is really giving the teen area more of a defined space. My boss also suggested we look for an area rug that would appeal to the older kids, so if anyone has any suggestions, please pass them on. We have plans to repaint the youth floor later this summer and hopefully that will help as well.

#FlannelFriday Roundup for June 24, 2011

2011-06-24T17:59:00.002-04:00

I'm thrilled to be hosting another Flannel Friday roundup. If you'd like to take a turn, check the schedule and see what dates are available, and then email me or send me a message on Twitter (I'm @sotomorrow). I recommend jumping in on Flannel Friday at least a few times before hosting one, so you are comfortable with blogging and Flannel Friday conventions (basic stuff like linking to other pages and leaving comments).

This was another great week for flannelboards. I have just been astounded by the creativity of my fellow youth librarians from across the country. I know for me, as the only children's librarian around these parts, it has been so wonderful to find you all and discuss storytelling and early literacy. Thank you all for being so willing to share your hard work so we can all learn and create together. And, of course, a big shout-out to Mel for the idea to do this in the first place.

On to why you really came here today, our roundup!

"1 Little, 2 Little, 3 Little Cookies" at 1234 More Storytimes

"Balloons for a Party" at Miss Mary Liberry

"Five Little Monkeys Swingin' in the Tree" at Future Librarian Superhero

Fun Books Storytime at Read Rabbit Read

"The Hair-Raising Adventures of Miss Sara Susan" right here at So Tomorrow

"Kids of the World" at Storytime Secrets

Multipurpose Tree at Roving Fiddlehead

"Picking Up the Fruit" at Miss Mollie's Storytime Fun

"Rain on the Green Grass" at Mel's Desk. Also over at Mel's desk is a bonus story box from non-blogger Julie.

"Tiny Little Fly" at Storytiming

"Ugly Fish" at Rain Makes Applesauce

What a great week! Thanks everyone for participating. Hopefully I caught everyone's post, but leave a comment if I missed yours and I will add it in. Previous roundups are archived here.

The Hair-Raising Adventures of Sara Susan

2011-06-24T09:39:00.013-04:00

Today's #FlannelFriday is "The Hair-Raising Adventures of Sara Susan" from Glad Rags: Stories and Activities Featuring Clothes for Children by Jan Irving and Robin Currie (page 181). Irving and Currie books are worth checking out for lots of ideas, although specific picture books might be out of print. They have some great storytelling ideas and are worth a browse.

For this one, I can't remember if I just didn't like the artwork or there wasn't any given, but I decided to use Microsoft clip-art.

Meet Sara Susan, who never wanted to brush her hair:

Well, you can imagine her hair became even more of a mess after some animals decided that it would make quite a nice nest:

I printed out my clip-art and glued on some Velcro to the back to make it stick to my board. Then I hot-glued a bunch of yarn onto Sara Susan's head to make her hair. That was a lot of fun. If I had it all to do over again, I'd probably make Susan's head sized to fit an entire sheet of paper and then make the animals larger.

Don't forget to check back for the Flannel Friday round-up. This week I'm hosting! You can see previous roundups here.

Cricut and Libraries Part II: Electric Boogaloo

2011-06-23T14:44:00.000-04:00

I wanted to share what I think are the must-haves for a public library wanting to use a Cricut in the youth department. Hopefully this will be helpful to some of you who already have one or those of you who might have one on your wish list.

1. A Cricut machine. For library use, you're definitely going to want to get the largest size they sell. Currently that is the Expression, which is capable of cutting items at up to 12" by 24". I have the original Expression but they recently released a 2nd version of the Expression. You will have to compare them yourselves as I haven't seen the new one anywhere, but it's something to keep in mind.

2. Cutting mats. All Cricut accessories and cartridges are extremely expensive so you are going to want to shop around for a good deal. The mats don't last particularly long either, although some users have had good luck "resticking" their mats with various techniques. You can Google around for some ideas and experiment for yourself. I have found it somewhat cheaper to buy a bunch of the 12" by 24" mats and cut them in half with our paper cutter. Definitely shop around for a good deal.

3. Cartridges. Most likely your Cricut will come with Plantin Schoolbook and a shapes cartridge. For youth departments, I would strongly recommend picking up another font cartridge (we use the Seasame Street Font "Sunny Day" on almost everything) and several shape cartridges. I think Create-a-Critter is my favorite shape cartridge. We have also heavily used Carousel (a Walmart exclusive) for making projects to promote our biggest program: our annual Carnival at the end of summer reading. I also recommend Paper Doll Dress-Up and Every Day Paper Dolls for making people (I prefer dress-up, so if you can only get one of the two, get that one!) I would also take a look at Locker Talk and/or My Community. Again, check different stores to see where the best deals are.

Another option for a good deal is to look at Cricut's page for educators. Right now they are offering a Cricut Expression with 10 cartridges for $399. Of course, this deal is only a good one if you will use all the cartridges enough. This would be a wonderful purchase by a Friends group.

You may have someone in your patron circle who has a Cricut so ask around, particularly if you have a local scrapbooking store or club. They might be willing to bring it in and let you try it. The other nice thing about the Cricut website is you can look at all the options online with their digital handbooks as there isn't enough room to have all the images on the back of the cartridge boxes. They also have a wonderful message board (including an Educators section, which I haunt) full of ideas.

Don't miss yesterday's post about my experience with my Cricut Expression at home and at work. Our completed projects are tagged with Cricut.

**I am not being compensated in any way for writing these posts. These are my personal opinions. If you have any further questions, please email me. **

I know some of you commented on yesterday's post that you have a Cricut or are thinking of getting one. I'd love to hear from others.

Summer Reading Roundup Week 2: One to Remember!

2011-06-23T12:26:00.003-04:00

Oh boy, was this a memorable week for summer reading! Months ago we scheduled it to be the week where we record extra statistics for our state aid reports, which is always extra work, but little did we know what this week had in store for us.

Monday I was off at our other branch doing storytime and then came back here to finish my day. Tuesday we had our regular storytime at the library, and then I had a meeting in the afternoon. In between was our regularly scheduled elevator inspection, and this time our elevator was found to have 2 faults: one with the alarm and the other with the door. We recieved an estimate for the repairs and work is being scheduled.

But Wednesday. Oh Wednesday... Wednesday morning I walked in to water pouring in the staff entrance. There was water flooding the public restroom and the children's department, as well as the computer lab. We have had flooding problems before during periods of heavy rain (this spring was also quite bad), but never this bad as long as I have been here. Luckily, no books or other materials were damaged--just the carpet which is due to be replaced someday anyway. Long story short, professionals came in to clean the carpet and we had to close off the children's department for the day. (We have a seperate floor for the adult department.) Did I mention Wednesday was also a Library Board meeting day?

This morning I came in not quite knowing what to expect. The fans were still drying out the carpet. A dehumidifer was running (and draining into the public restroom--which would remain closed). None of the kids' public computers would turn on. The problem turned out to be a bad surge protector, but the spare did not have enough plugs for all 3 computers so someone will have to run out and get another (and some extras for the future). It was also raining (again!), so Thursday's normal outdoor storytime need to be moved into the children's department.

We do not have the luxury of a meeting room in our 97 year old Carnegie building, so storytime is accomodated by moving wooden tables and chairs out of the center of the room, where there are no stacks. Except that today there was nowhere for them to be moved to with all the industrial fans and dehumidifer running. So our families sat around the tables and we did the best we could. There wasn't as much room as we would have liked for everyone (although it was a smaller crowd at 25 people) but c'est la vie.

I tell you all this not to make you feel bad for us, but to show how important it is for youth staff to be flexible, have a backup plan, and basically do the best you can with what you have. Would we love for our building to never flood and for the roof not to leak? Yes, but that is the tradeoff we make for being in a historic building (roof work is currently in the bidding stage). I am so glad that my co-workers have been able to keep a sense of humor and do our best to provide quality programming and services despite our challenges this week. I am also grateful to our patrons who have been so understanding and sympathetic of our issues this week.

We all have our fingers crossed but tomorrow is another day, and here's hoping Friday goes smoothly! Like last week, maybe. That was a great week.

Public Libraries and Cricut Machines

2011-06-22T23:21:00.002-04:00

While going through my email, I noticed on the PUBYAC list-serv a post asking about using a Cricut or similar machine in a library setting. I thought some others might be interested in what I had to say. Here is an edited version of what I responded with. Remember this is just my personal experience at home and work.

I have a Cricut Expression at home (bought it in September 2010). The first one I bought at our local big box store, and it was a lemon. But ProvoCraft's customer service was very good about getting this fixed for me after I sent in the machine to them. My replacement machine works very well and I have enjoyed using it.

There is now a newer version of the Expression (which I have not researched). After seeing some of the things mine can do, my director purchased an Expression for our library this spring. You can see some of my projects for yourself on my blog: http://sotomorrow.blogspot.com/search/label/cricut.

So far we mostly use the Cricut for bulletin boards and aisle markers. I have plans to use it for felt board stories, name tags, and other projects, but haven't gotten around to it yet.

Would it be able to withstand cutting out 25-50 shapes on a weekly basis? I don't expect it to be as fast as a rolling die cutter, but is it relatively speedy?

Yes, it can definitely cut that much. I would recommend buying scrapbook paper in bulk (I would get a few pads of solid colored sheets from a craft store in person or online. For a library, I would get the Expression (the biggest they sell). It's not particularly quick and it can be frustrating if the paper doesn't want to stick to the mat. I usually program what I want to cut and walk away to work on something else while it cuts. (I set it up on a table near the reference desk and walk back and forth--my library does not have a staff workroom.) Cutting things would be a good project for a page, clerk, or volunteer.

What kind of maintenance does it require? Can parts be replaced, or are you stuck buying a new machine when pieces wear out?

Î have used mine at home for lots of different paper projects and the only things I have replaced are the cutting mat. Some Cricut users have had good luck using different methods of "resticking" their mat after the tackiness rubs off. I have not tried any of their methods myself. I haven't changed the blade yet, but I probably will next time I do a bigger project.

Can you use other materials besides paper?

Yes. You can watch videos online with different techniques. You might want to invest in a deep cut blade & housing. I have not tried this myself but it is possible to cut felt and other fabric. There are lots of videos on YouTube for these kind of tips, so I would definitely watch them to see all the neat things Cricut can do. This is on my to-do list for appliques at home.

Would you buy it again, if given the chance?

Maybe, but I would also research some of the other cutters designed for home use. An Ellison was way out of our price range and I am not sure we would have used it as much as the Cricut. It is not as flexible. Definitely shop online for a good price ($20-$30) on cartridges.

Silly Sally

2011-06-17T09:56:00.000-04:00

Around here, Silly Sally is a storytime classic. So it seems fitting to post it for today's #flannelfriday. I know that some of my #flannelfriday conspirators sing this book to the tune of "Twinkle, Twinkle" but I prefer to read it. This is an easy one to accidentally memorize as well. By which I mean, to have read it so many times you no longer need to see the words.

Here's Silly Sally and her whole gang of colorful characters:

But my personal favorite from this cast of characters is Neddy Buttercup, surely one of the most memorably-attired characters in children's literature. You know, this guy:

You rock those green tights, Neddy.

Pattern source is Storytime Magic. You can download it here (pattern #340).

Be sure to check out Melissa's blog for our Flannel Friday round-up! Archives are here.

Summer Reading Manifesto

2011-06-16T13:56:00.000-04:00

Someone posted on our state library list-serv earlier this week about teens and summer reading:

Do any libraries have a special policy for allowing teens to use graphic novels as part of the summer reading program? We have a prize for the most pages read & are concerned that the teens reading classic novels are being cheated by the ones reading graphics. We thought about having a
word count instead of a page count...Any input would be greatly appreciated!

Here is my (slightly-edited) response to the question's asker:

Our teens are allowed to read whatever they want. I urge you not to think that graphic novels are "cheating". Some of them are "serious works of art" and some are serious fun. Should summer reading be a competition (what "cheating" implies) or should it be to encourage reading for fun?

When I was in high school, I liked reading all sorts of genres. I would have been mortified and/or very angry if a librarian told me what I was reading was cheating or not a real book. I spent 9 months of the year being told by adults what I had to read for school. I didn't have time to read for fun when I was a teen between school, sports, a job, and other extracurricular activities. Breaks from school were the only time I got to pick whatever I wanted to read.

Some kids like to read classic novels and many don't. Would we place this kind of judgement on adult reading material?

You might also wish to change your program and explore the idea of counting something other than pages read. We switched from pages read to time spent reading and have never looked back. It's less math for us and it levels the playing ground for slower readers.

One of the things I like most about being a Children's Librarian is that I am not a teacher. I get many (most) of the pros of being a teacher but I don't have to deal with standardized tests and many of the other cons of today's educational system. The kids come here (for the most part) because they want to. No one that works here is going to force a kid to read anything. How wonderful is that!

Kids can (and do!) roam the stacks for hours picking up books left and right. If they don't like it, they can put it back. If they do, they can take it home or read it here. It is not my job to teach them how to read. It is my joy to show them how much fun they can have reading. I'd like to see Google do that.

Summer Reading Week 1 Roundup

2011-06-16T11:33:00.004-04:00

Well, it has been an interesting first week of summer reading around here. My parapro and I have both been felled by the same cold. She had it worst last week and then I caught it over the weekend and missed the first half of the week. But I wanted to share our storytime plans for this week.

You may remember that I posted a crowd-sourced overview of the original plan, but with being sick, we had to revise. I really think that being flexible and prepared are the two keys to a really good storytime experience.

This week we were sharing stories about cars, trucks, and other things that go. The original plan was:
"Dinosaurs in Cars" Song
"My Dump Truck" felt board, (from Storytime Magic #397 here) (had to cut this as I ran out of time to make it!)
That's How by Christoph Niemann
I Stink by Kate McMullan (Thought it was too long for my poor voice--see below)
The Little Dump Truck by Margery Cuyler (I wound up liking The Grumpy Dump Truck better)

Well, when I was trying to do storytime while recovering from a cold, I realized that a lot of these books were too long and I worried about losing my voice. So I revamped a little. It actually wound up making for a really interactive storytime, which is my preference anyway. Of course, the more interactive a storytime is, the more its success depends on your crowd's personality and how much they can be coaxed into participating. But I've found that know that I've been here a few years, most of the families coming know what to expect and participate at their own comfort level.
Anyway, here is what my plan morphed into...

Opening stuff that I do every week:
-Open, Shut Them (with my group during the school year, I usually use "Jump Up, Turn Around" by Jim Gill, but since we have a much more diverse crowd with new people every week, it is easier to warm up the crowd with the small motions in this song)
-Little Mouse, Little Mouse
-Let's Hear You Roar Like a Lion (love this rhyme)

Theme-Specific Stuff:
First (and longest book) The Grumpy Dump Truck by Brie Spangler (lots of opportunities for the kids to make "grumpy" and "mean" faces)
Motion Song: Dinosaurs in Cars (takes a lot of energy but is so worth it. I also did this last summer with my dinosaurs theme).
Middle Book: Who is Driving by Leo Timmers (another good one for easy interactivity as the kids guess which animal is driving--good for the younger kids)
Last book: That's How by Christoph Niemann (I had a co-worker read the girl's dialogue and I supplied the boys. This was a big hit as the kids loved the illustrations of the "secret" ways various vehicles work.)

So far, the take-home craft is going over very well. I think a factor working in its favor is that we are starting storytimes a half-hour later, so people are leaving sooner after the end of storytime. Which might not be for everyone, but with our space, time, & logistical issues (remember we are inside some storytimes and outside others) I am pleased so far.

As far as the non-storytime part of summer reading goes, I missed so much of this week due to illness, that it has unforunately been a little bit of a scramble. But the first week is hectic even in the best of conditions and luckily things seems to have gone relatively smoothly. I am definitely grateful to my co-workers for covering for me while I was gone.

Summer Reading Time

2011-06-10T14:03:00.001-04:00

I see that Abby is collecting summer reading posts, so I thought I'd write up a quick explanation of how we do ours at my library. We actually kick-off on Monday, but we let people sign-up the week before so they're all set to go. I had my first SRP-stress nightmare last night so I know we are in the crunch zone.

Signup: Basically the kids/parents fill out an index card and get a log. I just use one from the CSLP manual (we count time spent reading). The kids also get a wallet. This year it has a copy of the guidelines, bookmark, and a free library dollar (more on that in a minute) as well as a certificate for a free kids' meal donated by a local restaurant. (We didn't solicit this, by the way, one of the owners walked in and asked if they could donate kids' meals. I said sure, thinking he'd give us 10. We got 200 and he gave me his home phone number in case we need more. Awesome.) We file the index cards alphabetically for when the kids come back with a completed log. Logs ask for the child's name, address, phone number, grade, and email address (obviously that can be the parent's). The email address blank is new this year and I can already tell it is going to save me so much trouble trying to get ahold of people (see the Log section for why).

Log: The kids come back with their logs once they have read (or been read to) for 10 hours. We give the kids one library dollar (LD) for each half-hour they read, so they get 20 LDs for a whole log. They will also get a coupon for free crazy bread at a local pizza place (also not solicited) and a certificate for a free ride at the County fair in August (again they contacted us about collaborating).

We hold a Library Carnival in September where they kids play games and earn prizes with the LDs they earned. They also get a certificate and a prize back for earning at least 20 LD. We will probably have about 50 or more kids earn their certificate. We keep track on their sign-up cards of how many logs the kids have. We contact everyone who has gotten close to the minimum to double-check our math and hopefully we won't leave anyone out that way. Prior to my starting here, the kids competed against each other to see who could earn the most, but I have tried to move us away from that.

Programs: Our summer reading table also has our list of programs. This summer we have someone coming to teach juggling, a local musician/storyteller/poet performing, and a theatrical performance. I try to book more cultural stuff than purely recreational because there aren't a lot of affordable opportunities in our rural community. Families basically have to drive to one of the 2 cities we are situated between (either one is at least a half-hour away) to see a professional play or concert. We also do storytimes several times during the week. One will be inside the library and the other two will be (weather permitting) at a city park and public elementary school. The kids get 2 LD for attending these also.

Weekly Contests: This is new this summer but my old library used to do a weekly contest and I thought it would be fun to try here. Each week there will be a different question for the kids to guess. Winners will get some prizes left over from previous summer reading programs and a paperback book as well. The questions are all from the CSLP manual as I decided to do this fairly last minute. If it goes well, I might rework it into something more creative for next summer.

Middle School Summer Reading: We just started a program for older kids (middle school starts in the 6th grade here) last summer and I am hoping we can expand it more this summer. Last year we got around 20 kids, which honestly is not too shabby for the size of our town. It is also a very easy thing to put together so I am going to consider that a success for a first attempt. They also fill out an index card to sign-up and for every 5 books they read, they fill out a raffle ticket and put it in a box to await the drawing. Grand prize is a $25 gift certificate to the local movie theater, which we purchased. I do have some paperbacks (and a couple hardcover books) that I am going to give away to other kids as well this year.

"Five Little Trucks"

2011-06-10T09:48:00.000-04:00

Today's #flannelfriday is related to my previous "Five Little Firetrucks" which I made from a thrift store sheet, remember? Well, here's a regular "Five Little Trucks" version:

Five Little Trucks
(Adapted by Anne Neidinger. Sing to the tune of "Five Little Ducks")

Five Little Trucks went out to play, (Hold up five fingers)
Into the mud pit far away. (Make circle in front of you like hole in the ground with both hands and move far away from body)
When a big HONK HONK (Pat palm of one hand twice over fist of other like honking horn)
Came from Big Truck Mac, (Hold up fist only)
Four Little Trucks came rumbling back. (Hold up four fingers and move them from far away toward body)

And then you keep on counting until this final verse:
One Little Truck went out to play, (Hold up one fingers)
Into the mud pit far away. (Make circle in front of you like hole in the ground with both hands and move far away from body)
When HONK HONK, HONK HONK (Pat palm of one hand four times over fist of other like honking horn very hard)
Came from Big Truck Mac, (Hold up fist only and shake it)
All Little Trucks came racing back. (Hold five fingers and move them quickly from far away toward body)