I'm Moving!

I've been getting inspired to start blogging again and I wanted a fresh start. So I've moved over to Wordpress with a new look and a new name: https://ohioanlibrarian.wordpress.com/. Even though I'll keep this blog up for reference, it won't be updated any more. Hope to see you all there!

Kim

Host a Supa Awesome Dog Man Party!

At my library (and I'm sure just about every other library out there) Dog Man is never on the shelves, so I decided to try my hand at hosting a Dog Man Party, with great results.

It was on a Saturday afternoon in the spring when the weather in Ohio isn't quite nice enough to be outside, but not awful enough to not want to venture out at all. It was geared for kids in grades K to 6, but I didn't turn anyone away. I ended up with over 100 attendees who came from all over the county!

Everything was self-directed, which freed me up to take photos, replenish supplies, and generally interact with the families.

Here's what I did:

Dog Man Comic Drawing
At this station I set out blank white paper, pencils, colored pencils, and blank comic templates and just let the kids draw. I copied Dav Pilkey's "How 2 Draws" from the back of the books and tried to have a copy of each Dog Man volume nearby. I also printed out his instructions on how to make a Flip-O-Rama, since those are in all of the books. This was one of the most popular stations. I had kids who spent the entire program drawing, which was awesome.

Pin the Head on Dog Man

I am lucky enough to have a maker space department in my library that was able to print out a big Dog Man body on vinyl (to make it reusable) and blow up some Dog Man heads to play the game with. 

Petey's Secret Lab

Since in the books Petey is always inventing things, and in one of them he makes a shrink ray, I busted out some leftover Shrinky Dink paper, Sharpies, and borrowed a couple of craft toaster ovens and let the kids make a Shrinky Dink. I ended up needing someone to man this station the entire time as it was really popular!

Lil' Petey's Robot Shop

Lil' Petey and 80 HD end up becoming good friends in the books, so I wanted the kids to be able to make their own 80 HD or other robot buddy. I literally put out random things that we already had in our craft cabinets and didn't give them any parameters on what to build. Here are some of the cool things they came up with:

One of my favorite things to do at programs is to set out random items and then observe what kids create with them. As always, they exceeded my expectations.

Flippy's Evil Fishing

I had purchased a simple plastic fishing set to use in programming. I took one of the fish (see the middle of the bin next to the egg-looking thing) and made it look like Flippy using Sharpie marker.

Take Down the Evil Weenies!

We had a plastic bowling set already, so I just used packing tape to attach photos of the evil weenies and kids could try to see if they could bowl them all down.

Save the Town!

I use this idea a lot in storytimes with younger kids and it was a hit here too. I just took some LEGO minifigures and other random plastic people/animals and froze them in ice cube trays and plastic containers of water. Then kids could use metal spoons to try to break them out of the ice in order to rescue them.

Superhero Creator

In the books, Dog Man and his friends come up with superhero names for themselves, so I wanted the kids to be able to do the same. I set out paper masks and string for them to decorate as well as a Superhero Name Generator and sticky nametags to show off their new persona.

That's it! I didn't spend any money on this program and would do it again in a heartbeat. Have you done a Dog Man program? What activities did you do?

Yoga Play - Jungle

For the month of February, co-worker and I lead a weekly yoga program for preschoolers. I've done yoga storytimes before for both babies and preschool, but working together with someone else brought to light a whole new way to run the program. Here's how we did it:

Welcome/Introduction: We introduced ourselves and briefly talked about the benefits of doing yoga with kids (breathing helps kids think better, yoga poses help build strength and flexibility, etc.).

Opening Song: I made up a song to the tune of "Goodnight, Ladies". We clap along and sing to each person in the room.

Namaste (insert child's name)
Namaste (insert child's name)
Namaste (insert child's name)
It's time to do yoga!

Then we pass out electric tea lights and place a plate in the middle of the circle. We talk about our inner light and what that means. Then everyone places their tea light on the plate and we tell them how our inner light shines brighter together.

Breathing: We show kids how to breathe correctly in yoga using a Hoberman sphere as an illustration. We first ask them to hold their breath and tell us how that feels. Then we have them take short, shallow breaths and ask how that feels. Finally, we practice breathing correctly.

Then I teach them a new, different kind of breath. This week's was Lion Breath. First we sit on our heels nice and tall like lions. Then we take a big breath in through our nose, then breath out through our mouths and roar! We can even stick out our tongues on the exhale like lions do.

Warm-Up: Next, we do a warm-up to get our bodies ready to move. We use the "Wake Up" routine from the DVD Once Upon a Mat.

Then we do a Sun Salutation sequence. We begin in Mountain Pose, then raise our arms (inhale), forward fold (exhale), half-way lift up (inhale), forward fold (exhale), roll up to standing with shoulders raised (inhale), and lower shoulders back to Mountain Pose (exhale). We repeat 2-3 times.

Introduce Theme: Now we introduce our theme for the week! For this jungle theme, we went on a safari. We used the poses from the Pink Oatmeal website. We began in jeep pose. Then we drove along until we spotted different animals, then posed like them. We found a lion, giraffe, snake, gorilla, and elephant.

Book: Today we read From Head to Toe by Bill Martin Jr. and did the actions.

Activity: We always do some sort of group game before we wind down for the today. First we sang "No More Monkeys" from the CD Animal Playground by Putumayo. We had a bunch of monkey puppets so each child got to dance with one.

Then we practiced tree pose and made a forest all together.

Relaxation: Then we tell the kids that at the end of each yoga practice, we relax and breath. We have the kids lay down on their mats and give them "breathing buddies" (a.k.a. Beanie Babies or other small stuffed animal. You could also use bean bags.) We ask the kids to close their eyes and give their breathing buddies a good ride. Then we put on some soft music, such as the Acoustic Yoga CD by Putumayo. After a couple of minutes (or less depending on the mood of the group), we ring a chime and invite the kids to wiggle their fingers, toes, stretch and sit up.

Closing Affirmation: We close our practice by saying -

I am smart (put hands at forehead)
I am loved (hands at heart center)
I am wonderful! (spread arms out at sides)

Each child gets a small bottle of water to drink while we talk about the play activities for the day.

Play: This week we had 3 stations - jungle dramatic play, follow the animal tracks, and an elephant noisemaker craft.

Jungle Dramatic Play

We had this random cardboard structure, so my co-worker and I made vines and leaves out of packing paper and construction paper. Then we put down fake grass and set out various jungle animal puppets for free play.

Follow the Animal Tracks

We printed out 3 different animal tracks on long paper. Then we taped them to the floor and placed stuffed animals for each track in a basket.

Elephant Noisemaker 

I did this craft for my Jungle Storytime a few years ago and I still had leftovers pieces. Kids just color the elephant and put the party blower through the nose. Then they can pretend to be an elephant!

Toddler Art Explorers - Bubble Wrap Painting

At my current library, we host several programs for babies, preschoolers, and school-aged, but admittedly there has been a lack of options for the toddler crowd. So I decided to try a program I've done at my previous job: Toddler Art Explorers.

The idea came about when I started getting really tired of doing crafts (or product-based art) in my programs. While I know they aren't all bad all the time, I found that I was doing a ton of prep work to have the kids make something that they'd probably throw away when they got home. Then I started reading about process art, which seemed more up my alley.

With process art, there are no instructions and no right or wrong way to do it. It's about kids experiencing the material any way they want to. It helps children develop fine motor skills, vocabulary, and social/emotional skills through self-expression, among others. You can find some information about the research and reasoning behind doing process art with kids here, here, and here.

Geared toward children ages 12 months to 3 years-old, the basic idea of the program is to set out different art materials, give families the basic premise of the art project, and then let the kids explore. I can't take credit for coming up with the original idea for this program. I took lots of inspiration from the Library Makers blog.

For this session, the focus was on bubble wrap painting. I always start with a hello song and a story related to the art project:

Hello Song: "We Clap and Sing Hello" (Tune: Farmer in the Dell)

We clap and sing hello (clap hands)
We clap and sing hello
With our friends at storytime
We clap and sing hello!

Continue with:

...We wave and sing hello
...We tap and sing hello
...We quietly sing hello


Book: Lots of Dots by Craig Frazier

Art Project: Bubble Wrap Painting

I set out pieces of bubble wrap, white card stock, washable paint, and paintbrushes. The basic premise of the activity was to have the parents tape the bubble wrap to the table so it wouldn't move around. Then the kids could paint the bubble wrap as much or as little as they wanted. When they were done, they could press a piece of card stock to the bubble wrap to make a print!

However...

There's no right or wrong way to do the project. If the child just wants to play with the bubble wrap or paint straight on the paper, that's fine! It's all about exploring the materials any way they want to. **

** The interesting thing for me that I've noticed every time I've run this program is how difficult it is for the parents to just "let go" and allow their child to lead the project. As much as I hammer it into them, they still want to take over and direct. It's an ongoing battle.

From https://www.simplefunforkids.com/bubble-wrap-painting-and-printing.html/  because I forgot to take photos 

for this portion of the program! But here's the general idea.

Group Project:

I also like to incorporate a big group project. For this session, I laid down a giant tarp with big white paper on top. I had the parents make bubble wrap boots for their child's feet. Then they could either paint their bubble wrapped feet together or step in the paint on a paper plate. Then the kids could dance/move around on the paper. I put on some dance tunes and they were off!

How It Went:

I thought the bubble wrap boots would either be a huge hit or a huge disaster. Luckily, it was the former. They also liked making the individual prints and one child decided to just paint directly on the paper. Parents commented on what a neat idea it was that they hadn't thought of before. So overall, a win-win!

Check It Out!: Library Services for Children Journal Club

Even as someone who's been in the library world for a few years now, I'm constantly looking to improve myself through webinars/workshops/etc. And I find myself searching for those learning opportunities that go beyond the basics. So I was extremely excited to read about a new initiative from Lindsey Krabbenhoft (of Jbrary fame) and Christie Menzo called the Library Services for Children Journal Club!

So what is it, you ask? It's a resource to help children's library staff stay current on topics that are relevant to our work.

How does it work, you ask? Every other month, those who want to participate will have the chance to read and engage in discussions on a selected topic. This could include an in-person group meeting (if there's one local to you) and/or online discussion.

This is a great (and free!) way for children's services staff to develop themselves professionally and to think more critically about why they do what they do. And hopefully it will also encourage participants to foster dialogues with colleagues.

I'll definitely be sharing this initiative with my professional learning network and I invite others to do the same. I would love to eventually create a meetup for those in my area, so if any readers are from the Ohio area, let me know!

For more information, just click here. I hope to see lots of people talking about it online using the hashtag #lscjournalclub!

Strategies for the Burnt-Out Librarian: OLC Northeast Chapter Conference - 3.30.17

Here are the notes from the Strategies for the Burnt-Out Librarian presentation at the OLC Northeast Chapter Conference yesterday:

Link to the Power Point

Symptoms of Burnout:

• fatigue
• irritability
• crying jags
• anxiety attacks
• loss of appetite
• weight gain 
• teeth grinding
• insomnia
• nightmares
• increased drug, alcohol, tobacco use
• forgetfulness
• low productivity
• inability to concentrate 

Audience suggestions:

• awareness of how long you have left to work on your shift
• low productivity - not feeling like completing tasks but not having the option not to do them

Causes of Burnout:

• budget pressures
• heavy workloads
• an overload of clerical duties
• the need to respond quickly
• administration demands
• difficult patrons
• technology-related problems
• little input into collection decisions
• few opportunities for advancement

Audience suggestions:

• being "on" at the service desk constantly or if you work in a small community, being "on" everywhere because you run into patrons outside of the library
• renovations
• having experience but being stripped of responsibilites
• in regards to "administration demands" above - someone suggested to just wait 5 years and it'll change - or hold out and try to be the change
• lots of gossip and venting to coworkers - creates a negative work environment

Strategies to Deal with Burnout:

• recognize burnout
• use your vacation time, breaks, etc.
• exercise, stretch
• eat well
• know your limitations
• learn to say “No”
• don’t be a perfectionist
• accept help from others
• go home on time
• straighten office everyday
• don’t take work home with you
• identify activities that relax you 
• develop a support network
• ask for new job duties
• consider a job change

Audience suggestions:

• don't think about work on vacation...or at home
• establish boundaries as a supervisor that work for you (e.g. not calling when off work, etc.)
• get out of the building at times when you can on breaks
• put headphones in and listen to music (or not!) to discourage distractions from others while on breaks
• do chair/desk exercises to stretch and refresh (use Google for ideas)
• how to say no to management:
• point out what you are already doing - offer compromise and other solutions
• suggest other coworkers to take on projects/tasks instead
• hide! (just kidding)
• have an honest conversation with your boss about being burnt out and break that barrier
• let your boss know what will suffer or not happen by taking on another task/project
• make it about the library and not you personally
• ask for help, even though a lot of us want control and think it'll reflect poorly on us
• go home on time and alleviate patrons staying after closing 
• turn off computers early
• make frequent announcements about closing times
• don't perform certain services that take awhile (new cards, passports, faxes, etc.) after a certain time
• don't check work email from home
• Google "satisfying videos" to find some relaxing things to zone out to
• identifying relaxing activities
• yoga
• meditation
• download the "Stop Breather Think" app
• look at the items in your collection for help (the 150s books, relaxation audiobooks, etc.)
• don't be afraid to ask for different job duties or swap some with others
• regarding job change - it might not be the wrong profession for you, but it might be the wrong organization for you

Resources:

• Librarian Burnout: https://librarianburnout.com/
• The Compassionate Librarian: http://www.compassionatelibrarian.net/self-care.html
• Pop Culture Librarians: https://popculturelibrarianwonder.com/2017/02/01/self-care/  
• 5 Min Librarian: http://www.5minlib.com/2016/04/what-you-can-do-to-combat-librarian.html  
• Read Sing Play: https://klmpeace.wordpress.com/?s=self+care  

Anything to add for alleviating burnout? Leave it in the comments!

YA Smackdown: OLC Northeast Chapter Conference - 3.30.17

Yesterday, I hosted my very first YA Smackdown session at the Ohio Library Council's Northeast Chapter Conference.

For those of you who have no idea what I'm talking about, YA Smackdown is an informal sharing session for teen librarians similar to Guerrilla Storytime. I put some challenges in a bucket and asked the audience for volunteers to choose one. They then read the challenge and answered it, then anyone else in the room could also contribute a response.

Although I was a little nervous at first about how talkative the group would be (I brought Hershey Kisses to bribe them with just in case), the conversation quickly got rolling and I ended up able to share all of the awesome responses here:

What horror movies are your teens currently into?

• The Visit
• Children of the Corn
• The Ring
• The Grudge
• Mama

What would you do if a teen monopolizes your time just chatting at the desk? (I'm paraphrasing these):

• I would let the teen know that I have a job to do and that they are part of the atmosphere here and they should go be part of it.
• It depends on what's going on that day. If it's not busy, I let them hang out.
• I'll ask them to help me with a task to keep them busy.
• I'll show them the new books to pore over to occupy them.

Favorite way you’ve recycled program supplies.

• Donate to Goodwill
• Put them in the recycle bin!
• Email other staff in the system to share
• Throw everything on a table and have an open-ended crafting program
• Host a Bad Art Night - Ask teens to make the worst looking art they can!
• Use them as prizes
• I used leftover glow sticks to make light saber bookmarks
• I had all of these leftover Goldfish crackers and licorice I would try to put out and no one would eat. When I hosted a program, I named these same snacks something to go with the program theme and they tore through them! Naming the food something clever enticed them to eat it.

What is your favorite teen book that deals with issues of body image?

• Eon: Dragoneye Reborn by Alison Goodman
• Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell
• Butter by Erin Jade Lange
• Faceless by Alyssa Sheinmel
• Paperweight by Meg Haston
• Bruiser by Neal Shusterman
• The First Time She Drowned by Kerry Kletter
• Dumplin' by Julie Murphy

What would you do if a non-teen came to a program? Does it make a difference if they’re too young or too old?

• I would tell them that this is a time just for the teens
• If the parents want to stay, I try to encourage them to wait just outside of the room
• I tell the adult that wants to participate that we can talk to the Adult Librarian to see if we can offer a separate program on the same topic for adults
• I try to have the program in a separate blocked off area to discourage just anyone from coming in
• I have multi-age programs where it won't become an issue, like a board game night for teens and adults
• If it's someone younger, I explain about the program being developmentally inappropriate. If it's someone older, I explain that this is a space for teens to be able to be themselves with other teens.

What is your favorite readers’ advisory resource?

• Goodreads
• Novelist
• Amazon
• Barnes & Noble bestseller and other lists
• Book Riot
• Fantastic Fiction
• We Need Diverse Books
• Google
• projectalexandria.net

What board games are popular with your teens?

• Pie Face - We had a tournament to go along with March Madness
• Dungeons & Dragons
• Clue
• Sporkle
• Battleship
• Pictionary
• Apples to Apples
• Just regular playing cards
• Yahtzee
• Uno

Audience Question: Does anyone have a mobile makerspace in your library? If so, what does it look like?

• We store stuff in a cabinet and rotate the equipment out. We have basic things like Sphero and K'nex. People can sign up to use the equipment for 15 minutes at a time.

Audience Question: How do you engage teens after school with severe lack of space and a security guard that intimidates them from staying?

• Unfortunately, this question was asked at the very end of the session so we didn't have time to get responses. If any readers have a solution, please share in the comments!

If there are any needed edits to responses, or if anyone has a good response to add, please comment below!

I'm Back!

Hello again! It's been quite a while since I posted. I've been busy serving on the 2017 Newbery Committee, which was an ABSOLUTELY AMAZING experience. I could go on and on and on about what I experienced this past year, but Abby the Librarian already has it covered in an excellent post with all of the details.

However, I do have to say how incredibly happy and proud I am with the winners and honors that our committee chose this year (can you tell by my photo?):

2017 Newbery Medal: The Girl Who Drank the Moon by Kelly Barnhill

2017 Newbery Honors: Freedom Over Me by Ashley Bryan; The Inquisitor's Tale by Adam Gidwitz; Wolf Hollow by Lauren Wolk

This reaction video also helped seal the deal for me:

But after a brief recuperation period of doing nothing but binge-watching television, I'm definitely ready to finally start blogging about books, my programs, and storytimes again.

As well as reading for the Newbery, I changed jobs! I am now an Early Literacy Librarian at a small library branch. I do still get to work with tweens and teens, but now my main focus is on kids from birth through 2nd grade. It's the first time that I've basically been a department of one, which brings about its own strengths and challenges. I'm also doing a LOT of outreach visits now, so I'll be blogging my outlines for those.

I've been in a bit of a reading bubble, so I'm kind of out of the loop with what's new and exciting reading-wise. Any middle grade, teen, or adult recommendations?

Mineways 3D Printing

Source

I don't know about you, but at my library, Minecraft is as popular as ever. I host a monthly Minecraft Club where we play on a server together. I also host one-time build-off competitions for both tweens and teens. So I was trying to come up with some new ways to integrate Minecraft into my programming, when I stumbled upon Mineways.

Mineways is a free program that lets you export your Minecraft creations into models for 3D printing. It's really easy to use! My IT department downloaded the software onto our computer lab PCs and we were good to go.

Here's a brief tutorial on how it works:

The day of the program, I start out by opening up Minecraft and going over what all the options mean in Mineways. The nice thing about Mineways is that a lot of the 3D print configuration setting are done for you. So you really don't have to mess around with it too much unless you want to. To create my outline, I used this page (scroll down to Export Options).

Source

Then I let them take about 90 minutes to build something in Minecraft (on creative mode, single-player, though you could let them partner up to build something together) and upload it to Mineways. Then I save their prints to a flash drive with the file name as their first and last name so I don't get them confused. I let the teens know that it will take a few days for their prints to be ready to pick up.

How It Went:

The program itself went really smoothly. I was able to walk around and help the teens with exporting their designs. We created a shortcut to a free .stl preview site so teens could make sure their Minecraft creations would translate well as a 3D print. If not, they could then go back and fix their design.

Depending on the 3D printer you have (we have a MakerBot Replicator 2), you may have to warn your teens that it won't print smaller, more detailed things from Minecraft like fences or flowers, even if you choose to "Export lesser, detailed blocks" and it shows up okay on the .stl viewer. I had to call a couple of my teens back in to redo their designs because they wouldn't print correctly.

Have you done a Mineways program? Or have you used a different program, like Printcraft? If so, how did it go?

Pizza and Pages: The Scorpio Races by Maggie Stiefvater

Type of Book: Fantasy

Plot Summary: From Goodreads: "It happens at the start of every November: the Scorpio Races. Riders attempt to keep hold of their water horses long enough to make it to the finish line. Some riders live. Others die.

At age nineteen, Sean Kendrick is the returning champion. He is a young man of few words, and if he has any fears, he keeps them buried deep, where no one else can see them.

Puck Connolly is different. She never meant to ride in the Scorpio Races. But fate hasn’t given her much of a chance. So she enters the competition — the first girl ever to do so. She is in no way prepared for what is going to happen."

Average Teen Rating: 3.375

Being that this is one of my favorite YA books ever, I was absolutely shocked how much my teens disliked this story. They complained about the characters being boring (though they liked Puck slightly better than Sean) and the story being too slow-paced. 

Discussion Questions: Scholastic has a discussion guide with a plethora of questions as well as the University of Dubuque.

Pizza and Pages: The Demon King by Cinda Williams Chima

Type of Book: Fantasy

Plot Summary: From Goodreads: "Times are hard in the mountain city of Fellsmarch. Reformed thief Han Alister will do almost anything to eke out a living for his family. The only thing of value he has is something he can't sell—the thick silver cuffs he's worn since birth. They're clearly magicked—as he grows, they grow, and he's never been able to get them off.

One day, Han and his clan friend, Dancer, confront three young wizards setting fire to the sacred mountain of Hanalea. Han takes an amulet from Micah Bayar, son of the High Wizard, to keep him from using it against them. Soon Han learns that the amulet has an evil history—it once belonged to the Demon King, the wizard who nearly destroyed the world a millennium ago. With a magical piece that powerful at stake, Han knows that the Bayars will stop at nothing to get it back.

Meanwhile, Raisa ana'Marianna, princess heir of the Fells, has her own battles to fight. She's just returned to court after three years of freedom in the mountains—riding, hunting, and working the famous clan markets. Raisa wants to be more than an ornament in a glittering cage. She aspires to be like Hanalea—the legendary warrior queen who killed the Demon King and saved the world. But her mother has other plans for her...

The Seven Realms tremble when the lives of Hans and Raisa collide, fanning the flames of the smoldering war between clans and wizards."

Average Teen Rating: 5.78

The teens were so-so on this one. Some of the die-hard fantasy fans liked it, but my other readers thought that Han was a boring character and disliked his chapters, If you have a lot of fantasy fans in your book club, this is a good pick.

Discussion Questions: I had a hard time finding questions for this title, but the Choose to Read Ohio website has a nice toolkit.

Pizza and Pages: Salt to the Sea by Ruta Sepetys

Type of Book: Historical

Plot Summary: From Goodreads: "Winter, 1945. Four teenagers. Four secrets.

Each one born of a different homeland; each one hunted, and haunted, by tragedy, lies…and war.

As thousands of desperate refugees flock to the coast in the midst of a Soviet advance, four paths converge, vying for passage aboard the Wilhelm Gustloff, a ship that promises safety and freedom.

Yet not all promises can be kept.

Inspired by the single greatest tragedy in maritime history, bestselling and award-winning author Ruta Sepetys (Between Shades of Gray) lifts the veil on a shockingly little-known casualty of World War II. An illuminating and life-affirming tale of heart and hope."

Average Teen Rating: 8.45
All but one of my teens loved this one. (And the one that didn't only read the first 2 chapters.) They thought it was fast-paced and interesting. We had a lot of great discussion around this one. Highly recommended.


Discussion Questions: I used the Penguin Discussion Guide and the Lit Lovers site.

Anime Club: Fuse Bead Art

It's that time of year for me where I am gung-ho about spring cleaning, which at work means clearing out my craft supplies!

I had purchased a huge tub of fuse beads (or Perler beads to some) for another program last year. In the midst of wracking my brain for easy anime club activities, it came to me: 8-bit art!

All I did was set out bowls of the fuse beads and the set of bead boards we had already purchased.

Then I explained to the teens that they could either look up a pattern online, or make up their own design. Kandipatterns or Perler Bead Patterns or even just Google are all good places to look.

As a teen finished their design, I had them bring it up to me to iron for them. I set my iron on med-high and used the ironing paper included with the beads. You could also use parchment paper. I ironed the first side really well by moving in a circular motion over the beads.

Here are some of the finished designs:

This activity was super easy and the teens seemed to really get into making elaborate designs.

The only things I would do differently: 

I had originally only set out 5 large bowls of beads for the teens to share, but it would have been better for me to give each one their own smaller individual bowl to use. Also, I would purchase a container of black only beads. This was the most coveted color bead as a lot of them wanted to outline their creations in black.

Flannel Friday Roundup - 3.26.16

Happy Saturday, everyone!

First up is Wendy from Flannel Board Fun. She's a definite overachiever with five adorable flannels sets!: Town, Space, Flowers, Ocean, and Dinosaurs.

Emily at Literary Hoots shares her perfectly-timed flannel based on the book Chester's Colorful Eggs. She gives us other options on how to use the flannel too. It has the added bonus of helping children learn their colors!

Jane at Piper Loves the Library turns her lovely flannel from In My Nest into a lesson about nature. I love how she also details the rest of her program, which includes a neat nest art activity!

Spring is in the air for Kathryn over at Fun with Friends at Storytime! Her bee flannels have multiple uses and she's nice enough to include some song/fingerplay ideas to get us started with planning our storytimes.

Last but not least, Kate over at Felt Board Magic shares her fun take on "Five Monkeys and the Alligator" with Five Little Fish Swimming in the Sea. She includes the song lyrics and examples of the different fish she's made!

What a great variety in this week's roundup! I'm excited to try making some of these myself.

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

I don't know about you, but in Ohio it doesn't quite feel like spring yet:

Image source

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!

Makey Makey Workshop

When searching for tech program ideas for tweens and teens, I found Makey Makey to be one of the easiest and most rewarding.

What is Makey Makey, you ask? It basically an invention kit that allows user to take regular objects that they'd find at home and connect them to the computer. The kit looks like this:

Source

You can buy a kit for around $50 on Amazon. We purchased 8 kits so that we could offer a workshop for up to 24 participants (having them work in groups of 2 or 3). I created a one-time, 1 hour workshop for grades 3 to 5 that you can alter for really any group ages 8 and up. Here's what I did:

1. Give a brief overview of electricity/circuits. Because using the Makey Makey is basically just making circuits and some kids might not have learned about them yet in school, I showed them a brief video from Bill Nye (or you can use his Electricity DVD which has the same short video)

2. Show some short videos of cool Makey Makey projects. First I showed them the introductory video from the Makey Makey website. Then I showed them some other cool projects from YouTube, such as the guy playing "O Say Can You See" by eating/drinking. I literally just Googled "cool Makey Makey projects" to find my examples.

3. Go over the parts of the Makey Makey. As I explained each part, I had the tweens follow along by connecting the various cables as well as the Makey Makey itself to the computer.

4. Give the tweens specific challenges to make sure they were all on the same page. I used the "How-To" page of the Makey Makey site for challenges:

• Use the Makey Makey with the space bar key
• Play the drum kit using the Makey Makey

You can give them more challenges before setting them loose if you want, but I found these to be the best two in order to get them comfortable using the kits. I briefly explained the more complicated connections on the back of the Makey Makey board in case they wanted to try its but told them that was completely optional.

5. Go over the various conductive materials available to use. We briefly talked about conductivity and the items I set out for the tweens to try out. These included:

• bananas
• celery/carrots
• marshmallows
• gummy bears
• aluminum foil
• quarters
• pencils/paper
• Play Doh

6. Let them tinker! I gave them free reign to try out the Makey Makey and came around to help with any questions/troubleshooting. The most popular items were the Play Doh, the marshmallows, the gummy candy, and the bananas. The pencil/paper drawing were hit and miss. The next time, I would practice using these materials beforehand. I also gave them some links to games that worked well with the Makey Makey controller:

Mario Bros. - https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/31583772/ 

Pac Man - https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/14608394/ 

Scratch Piano: https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/2543877/ 

Whack A Frog: https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/2543877/ 

Tetris: http://www.freetetris.org/game.php 

Full Pac Man: http://www.freepacman.org/welcome.php 

Pong (uses mouse): https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/10128515/ 

Pong (2 player): https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/49420956/

7. (Optional) Just before class ended, I had them create a circle holding hands and played the bongo game. This showed them that we could create a giant circuit using just ourselves!

That's it! I'm planning a workshop for teens where we get more involved with what the Makey Makey can do.

Have you ever done a Makey Makey program? What did you do?

Anime Club: Onigiri

Onigiri (or rice balls) is a popular Japanese dish. It's also pretty easy to make! So I decided to try it as an activity at my last anime club meeting.

I found this website, which details a great method for making onigiri using saran wrap.

What You Need:

• Sushi rice (You must use sushi rice specifically. You can find it at your local Asian market or Amazon. See the website above for more info on the differences in rice.)
• Salt
• Water
• Saran wrap
• Small bowls, cups, or round containers (I found these, which ended up being the perfect size.)
• Fillings such as tuna, chicken, pickles, etc. Really anything salty is good.
• Nori

I made a big batch of rice in my rice cooker the day of the program. If you have an anime club and do several food programs with them, a rice cooker is a great investment!

(Please forgive the poor quality photos. I was taking them while the teens were watching anime with the lights down.)

1. First, put some Saran wrap in the bowl. Sprinkle some water, then salt in the bottom making sure to cover the sides too.

2. Then scoop some rice in the bottom. I measured out about 1/2 cup for each teen, which made a pretty good sized rice ball.

3. If you want to add a filling, poke a hole in the middle with your finger. If not, skip to Step 6.

4. Scoop a small amount of filling into the hole. For fillings, I provided canned tuna, teriyaki chicken, dill pickles, soy sauce, and bonito flakes for those that wanted a more traditional filling. The teriyaki chicken was by far the most popular choice with my teens.

5. Cover the hole with a small amount of rice.

6. Gather the ends of the Saran wrap and twist in order to get all of the air out.

7. Shape the rice using your hands into balls, or triangles, or whatever shape you like! Add a strip of nori seaweed to the bottom to make it easier to hold/eat.

I had some toasted sesame seeds left over from another program, so I set those out for the teens to add as a topping (right).

One of my teens was really good at making triangles. Me? Not so much...

That's it! These were so easy to make and the teens loved it. I highly recommend this for any anime club.


Have you made onigiri at your library? What other food programs worked for you?