It's Almost Time! #alamw15

I'm off to ALA Midwinter in Chicago tomorrow and will be tweeting and live-blogging my adventures. Look for my post on Twitter @libraryladykim or on the ALSC Blog.

If there's anything in particular you'd like me to blog about, let me know in the comments.

If you're attending as well, I hope to see you there. Feel free to say hello!

Flannel Friday Roundup: 1.17.15

Happy Saturday, everyone! This is my first time hosting Flannel Friday and I was blown away with the amount and variety of the submissions. I'm walking away from this post with a whole new set of storytime ideas and I hope you all do too!

First up is Kathryn, from Fun with Friends at Storytime. She has a cute and colorful set of laminated balloons and includes a variety of fun songs, rhymes, books, and even a craft to go along with them. If you've ever wanted to do a birthday-themed storytime, she's pretty much already planned one for you!

Nikki from heytherelibrary posted a cute and easy cars flannel that's great for teaching storytime crowds all about their colors.

Maggie from Playing the Hits shares her "Where is (insert animal) hiding?" game. She uses a mixture of die-cuts and freehand design to create various animals as well as places for them to hide behind. This is a neat way to teach kids various concepts: vocabulary, colors, animal names/sounds, counting, etc. You could use this one with everyone from babies to preschoolers.

Miss Tara shares her awesome glow-in-the-dark storytime outline, which includes a "Five Little Firecrackers" flannel. The idea of using gift wrap bows/ribbons for the "exploded" firecrackers is genius, This one is sure to be a hit!

Jesse combines a slinky with a 3D printed model of a worm head (cool!) to create a "Herman the Worm" puppet. He also shares a more basic prototype for those of us who aren't as technically savvy. Herman the Worm makes me remember my early Girl Scout days, where this was pretty much the only song we sang. Thanks for the flashback, Jesse!

Emily from Literary Hoots shares two very seasonally-appropriate flannels using polar bears and penguins. Both are a wintery take on the popular "Five Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed" song. You could use either flannel with kids of all ages!

Lisa over at Thrive After Three takes us through her amazing Bear Hunt Obstacle Course! She wonderfully includes lots of photos so we can see her materials/setup. And because children's librarians love to get a lot of mileage out of our hard work, she also includes other ideas for "hunts" to use with her props.

Last (but certainly not least), Storytime Katie shares her gorgeous goldfish flannel puppets. I love not only how large they are, but that she generously includes her template!


And here are a couple of special announcements from Flannel Friday:

• Anne and Melissa, two of our founders, will be hosting the first Storytime Petting Zoo at ALA Midwinter on Saturday, January 31st at 2:00 p.m. It will be in the Networking Uncommons right after Guerilla Storytime. Anyone who's planning on attending is encouraged to bring a flannel to share if they like. I'll be there!

• The help celebrate Flannel Friday's 4th birthday, they have something fun planned for the week of March 4th: their first Guest-Post Palooza! If you've always wanted to participate in a Flannel Friday, but don't have a blog of your own, here's your chance! They are looking for people who would like to post about their flannels as well as bloggers who are willing to host. Check out Mollie's post about it for more information and to sign up.

For more information about Flannel Friday, check out their official blog, Pinterest page, Facebook group, or follow #flannelfriday on Twitter.

Happy flanneling!

Flannel Friday Placeholder

Happy January, everyone! I hope you are all staying warm and cozy, regardless of where you are.

My daily outfit in Ohio right now.

Please comment below with a link to your flannels and your name by Friday at 10:00 p.m. and I'll post the roundup on Saturday.

For those of you who aren't familiar with Flannel Friday, check out their website, Facebook group, or Pinterest page.

Happy flanneling!

To Rock with Resolve in 2015

The awesome librarians over at Storytime Underground are challenging everyone to set some professional goals for 2015. Others are already setting the bar pretty high with theirs, but here are mine for the coming year:

1. Read more - I know this one sounds pretty obvious (and maybe a bit lame) but in 2014 I found myself in a bit of a reading slump. I had just come off of an exciting experience on an awards committee where I had to read a crazy amount of books, so I found myself a bit book fatigued. This year, I plan to get back into the swing of it and resolve to read more. I set my Goodreads goal to a modest 100 books and will try The Hub's reading challenge to help keep me on task.

2. Put myself out there more - Amy Koester had a great blog post a few month's ago about her experience at ALA conferences in regards to meeting new people in a professional setting. I, myself, am not a wallflower per se, but the thought of heading to Midwinter this month not knowing anyone else attending kinda terrifies me. I'm lucky to be connected with some really great librarians on Twitter and such, but I'm a bit intimidated to just approach one of them in-person. Also, the sheer scope of an ALA conference in and of itself can be overwhelming. Amy had some truly sound advice and I'm going to resolve to follow it in Chicago.

3. Let it go - In 2014, I found myself wanting to do it all and be it all. So then I found myself stressed out, overwhelmed, and over-extended. This year, I resolve to realize that I don't have to take on everything myself and that it's okay to let others share the load with me.

4. Become good enough at the ukulele to play in storytime - This goal is a carryover from last year. I tried videos, books, and even some not-so-helpful private lessons, but I've just never felt comfortable enough to "pull the trigger" and play in storytime. This year, I'm going to try at least 1 song in storytime in front of an audience.

5. Blog more - I'm pretty comfortable blogging write-ups of my programs and storytimes, but I haven't really tried my hand at blogging on the more theoretical side of librarianship or reviewing the books I've read. I'm going to see if that's something I can do well and will be helpful to other youth librarians out there.

What are your goals for 2015?