November Story Times

I started doing story times this month. We have both preschool and toddler story times once per week. Here are the story times I had for November:

First Week: Friendship

Preschool
The books we did with the preschoolers this week were Maple by Lori Nichols and How to Lose a Lemur by Frann Preston-Gannon.

    

I love Maple, though the kids weren't super into it. They liked the lemurs more, probably because it is a bit more interactive (you can have them count the lemurs with you.)

This week we also had a puppet show based on "The Frog Prince", which the kids loved. I tried a few songs out on them, but they weren't very successful.

Toddlers
For books at this story time, we did Two Bunny Buddies by Kathryn O. Galbraith and Big and Small by Elizabeth Bennett.

    

The books were not too interesting for the toddlers--they are a pretty quiet group. If they are active, they are active in that wanting-to-go-somewhere else kind of way. The parents liked these, though. 

We did the puppet show here as well. The toddlers were more interested in the puppets than the play, which was fine.

Second Week: Being Different

Preschool

This week's story time was popular! We had a lot of attendees, and they were all pretty into the stories and the activities. We read Wow! Said the Owl by Tim Hopgood, Exclamation Mark by Amy Krouse Rosenthal, and Scribbleville by Peter Holwitz.

    

The kids really liked the first two books. Only the older preschoolers were really interested in Scribbleville--it was a little long, I think. Exclamation Mark really gives you some great opportunities to engage them, though, with the questions from Question Mark and the increasing exclamations from Exclamation Mark.

This week's activities were great. We did a Go-Slow-Stop activity with "traffic lights." The kids really got into that!

Toddlers

We also did Wow! Said the Owl at toddler time. However, unlike the preschool story time, we only had two attendees to toddler time. The other book we did was One by Kathryn Otoshi.

Since there were only two of them, they weren't really into the stories. They did like the lap bounce we did ("This is the Way the Ladies Ride"), but they were more interested in our after-story craft. I had them put paper shapes on a plate to reinforce the "different" idea. Different shapes, different colors, different sizes. The two parents there seemed to like that, too.

Week Three: Fairies

Preschool

This week slowed down a bit, and the kids didn't seem all that interested in the stories. In fact, they all seemed to be a little tired. But, we read The Tooth Fairy Wars by Kate Coombs and King Puck by Michael Garland.

I love The Tooth Fairy Wars. That being said, the kids didn't seem to be all that into it. I had assumed that these kids would have been told already about the tooth fairy, but none of them seemed to believe that they would ever be losing their teeth...  The grandparents liked King Puck, but the kids were not all that into it, even when I used a goat voice.

As far as the activities went, I tried to incorporate a lot of interaction. But again, they didn't seem to be all that interested in participation this week.

Toddlers

The toddlers were pretty young toddlers this week, so it was a little rough. We read Never Ever by Jo Empson and the "Cinderella" story from You Read to Me, I'll Read to You: Very Short Fairy Tales to Read Together by Mary Ann Hoberman.

Never Ever would have worked a little better if the kids were old enough to speak. However, the kids seemed to be interested in the pictures as I pointed them out. For "Cinderella," I actually made finger puppets and read both parts in the book. The book is meant for kids to read with their parents aloud, but it also works well with puppets. However, the kids were too young to really understand the story.

Week Four: Family

Preschool

Since it was Thanksgiving this past week and we don't have a great collection of actual Thanksgiving books, I chose to do a family-themed storytime. Our crowd this week was not the normal crowd--we had a lot of first timers. We read Your Mommy Was Just Like You by Kelly Bennett, Read Me a Story, Stella by Marie-Louise Gay, and Tiger in My Soup by Kashmira Sheth.

  

I thought Your Mommy Was Just Like You would have more appeal, but the kids weren't particularly into it. They got bored during Read Me a Story, Stella--I think maybe it's too disjointed for reading to a group. They, however, loved Tiger in My Soup. Even the parents were into it.

For activities this week, we did the "Baby Shark" song, which all the parents knew already!

Toddlers

We actually didn't have any of the regular toddlers this week, so it was all new faces. In fact, we had as many older siblings this week as toddlers, so it was actually pretty active. We read Little Frog's Tadpole Trouble by Tatyana Feeney and Hiding Phil by Eric Barclay.

Because we did have so many older siblings, Little Frog's Tadpole Trouble actually went really well. We also counted all the tadpoles and did the small amount of math in the book, which seemed to go over well with the parents. Hiding Phil was a little too simple for the older kids, but they all liked the illustrations.

We had a lap bounce this week, which didn't work too well with having all those older siblings present. We did have one older sister who brought along her stuffed animal, so she actually got to do the lap bounce, too!

Overall, my first month of storytimes was a great learning experience. I hope that now I've got a handle on the kids and what they like, so our future storytimes may be even better!

Shelf Talkers

I loved this idea so much that I just stole it directly from Carolyn @ Risking Failure. I haven't had too much success with it yet, but some kids really get into it. I did hit a few snags though, which might hit you too, if you try this out.

1. The books on lower shelves (i.e. not the top shelf) do not allow for the shelf talkers to fit. I had to use binder clips and attach the shelf talker to the side of the book, rather than above.

2. I didn't know what to do for the kids who wanted to take the books. I didn't want them to keep the shelf talker signs. I decided to place three stations around the library (one in the youth area and two at our self-checks) asking them to leave the shelf talkers if they checked the books out. So far, none have been taken away.

Biographies

Our biographies section is seemingly excluded. Unimportant. Ignored. I decided to showcase it a bit. Each month, I'm going to focus on a different occupation. This month, I did inventors.

I displayed one book on each "featured" inventor, as well as two others that the kids may be interested in. I really hope this will help increase the checkouts of the biographies. They are so neglected!

Thankful Cornucopia Display

My first display idea was interactive. I wanted to do a cornucopia, but allow patrons to participate by telling us for what they are thankful. This one is mostly for the parents--we don't often have kids requesting to do it if they haven't been prodded first.

I wanted to get some shapes completed before putting the actual display up, so I had staff fill some out. Patrons weren't really interested until the display actually went up. But as it gets closer to Thanksgiving, we have more and more people who want to fill out a shape! Now it's fleshed out pretty nicely and looks very festive.

It's growing steadily. I may add another picture in a few weeks.

Update: 11/30/14
As you can see, it was a great success:

Beanstalk

I came into this library wondering why it was so drab. It was the youth area, and it was stark white, aside from a smattering of posters. This was my first idea to really spruce it up.

I wanted to put Jack's little legs sticking out from the top, but I didn't have any assistance, so I was afraid of the ladder tipping over.

Anyway, I added the "Fee Fi Fo Fum," hoping for some additional pop. I may change this out after a few months to something additionally cylindrical--Rapunzel's tower, perhaps?

Fugitive Book Characters

My first real passive program at my first real librarian job. I came up with this scavenger hunt by tweaking a program blogged about by Carrie @ The Lion is a Bookworm. However, instead of just making it a scavenger hunt for character silhouettes, I changed mine up a bit.

Mine turned out to be a plea for help from the library to the kids. Several dangerous book characters had escaped their books and needed to be caught. I hid multiple (2-3) pictures of the characters throughout the youth area and had the kids find them, writing their locations (with or without help) on their wanted posters (sheets with the images, names, and crimes of the characters). I made sure they understood that the characters found on book covers were actually impostors, and thus did not count.

The crimes went a little over the kids' heads, but the parents thought they were funny. For example, Winnie the Pooh stole honey, Where's Waldo had committed international espionage, etc. Even kids who can't read or write yet really like it.

Both kids and parents (and staff!) love participating in the hunt and sometimes get really excited by where the characters are hiding (Spiderman is hanging off the clock). We give out little prize bags (nothing exciting), which they like too. Overall, it's been a great success.

The Calendar!

So, my desk is right behind this window looking out into the youth area. The board books are directly below said window.

Basically, it's creepy. People just look at me while I'm on break or doing work. I didn't like it. So I needed a permanent-ish display to put up.

Hence, the calendar. I update this monthly to reflect, you know, the calendar. I have pretty much gotten all my holidays from Chase's Calendar of Events, which is working out great. The kids love to look at it (though they are upset when the day doesn't have a holiday). I also added book titles to correspond to the holidays to make it more library-centric.