Teen Movie Night

Every Friday during the School year Tualatin library hosts a Teen Movie Night. The library closes at 6, but the teen room stays open and the teens play games, and vote on the movie they want to watch. We often range between a dozen and thirty teens mainly middle-schoolers without other Friday night plans. We get many repeat teens and in teen movie night are able to build relationship s with them that carry on through the rest of our interactions in the library. I often find that the teens that come to teen movie night are more willing to ask reference questions and ask the all of the staff for help. Having programs like teen movie night makes teens especially feel welcome in the library.

Paper Pals Part 2

Today I conducted my second Paper Pals program. We had 4 stations-- card making, origami, drawing, and of course, Paper airplanes. The program went really well, I would have liked to have a volunteer to help give the kids the attention they would like. I enjoyed helping the kids both individually and in groups, and many asked when we were doing it again, so I think it was quite successful.

Craftastic Afternoon-- Altoid Tin Wallet

Today I had the honor of leading my first Craftastic afternoon with the teens of the Tualatin Library. It was a bit more chaotic than I had anticipated. We made Altoids tin wallets /gift boxes. Unfortunately, the teens are unable to come all at the same time, so each person was at a different step in the process at a different time. This worked well for not having enough supplies for every one but I kept thinking how much easier it would be if there were 3 of me to give the teens the attention and assistance they needed.
However, it was a success, the teens enjoyed themselves, and follow directions and made great wallets and gift boxes.
Next time I run Crafttastic (February-- book marks) I’ll do more planning into the prep of the program, and also have printed instructions for the teens to follow along with what we are doing.

Paper Pals

After the demise of Stick Buddies my supervisor offered for the other Reference assistant and I to have our won easy to run regular programs. The idea being that either of us (or any librarian) could put it together and go. Much like stick buddies—little preparation, just ease.

After Carson described her enjoyment of zines and drawing, and I mentioned how much I enjoyed having special origami paper we decided to form Paper Pals, a program for kids in grades 1-5 to hang out in the library and draw, trace, color, fold, fly paper airplanes, or any other number of activities you can do with paper.

We alternate who will be in charge of the program each month- September was Carson, and so I took October. Today was my first day in charge of Paper pals.

Setting up the room is an important part of each program. Things must be welcomeing, an din order so that kids have an idea of where everything belongs before they begin.

I set a LOOOOOONG piece of paper on the floor for big drawings, brought in a table and chairs for drawing and tracing, and pulled out tables for origami and card making ( a new edition from last month). And set up the flight test area for the paper airplanes. On Carson’s suggestion we only made and flew the airplanes in the last 15 minutes. Otherwise the kids go WILD! This wasn't quite enough time for them to fold and fly their airplanes-- they wanted to fly them in clean-up time! Next time I'll start them making airplanes half an hour before the end.

The program is fairly easy to do, after the room is set up the kids start to come in and go to what ever station they like-- drawing, folding, cards, and they choose to stay at that station or move between them. The trouble is that some stations, especially paper folding needs a lot of attention- this is where a volunteer is especially handy. I made the mistake of making a water bomb as an example and so all the kids also wanted to make a water bomb, which is a challenge piece of work.

The next time I do Paper Pals, I'll be sure to either have a volunteer for that station, or just scrap it and have the kids stick to drawing, tracing, coloring, and card making.

Every Child Ready To Read Workshop Pt. 1

After observing a workshop on Brain development last spring, my supervisor and I discussed the possibility of me co-presenting a workshop this fall. Tonight that comes to fruition.

I will be co-presenting an Every Child Read to Read workshop for parents and caregivers for children aged birth through 18 months-- just babies!

In these workshops we present parents with the findings of research showing the positive influence that reading, singing, talking, and playing with your baby has to their being ready to learn how to read when they enter school.

We'll discuss the 6 skills for Early literacy (Print Motivation, Vocabulary, Print Awareness, Narrative skills, Phonological awareness, and letter knowledge), and how parents can (and do) promote these skills with their babies right now. For example, I play to sing, peek-a-boo, twinkle twinkle, and the itsy bitsy spider. I'll bring in my rag doll (I can't find the Cabbage Patch doll), and we'll also-- as a little break, make a baby book out of zip lock bags to promote print motivation, narrative still,s and vocabulary.

I hope this will be a fun and insightful evening. I'll post more about it after the fact.

How to Train your Dragon Program

In anticipation of the animated movie BCL hosted a "How to Train your Dragon" program for kids in 3-6 grades. We made dragon sock puppets (my idea and model), had a yelling contest (complete with audio measuring devise....), played stick ball which ended up a lot like hockey, drew pictures, had dragon races, completed an obstacle course, and many other fun and viking inspired activities.

Wild Things Program

In preparation for the release of Where the Wild Things Are as a feature film (big disappointment imho...) we celebrated with a Wild Things party at the BCL. We used the monster clompers (purchased for Ramona Q party) in a maze sort of thing for the kids, and made monster feet from paper bags, monster masks, clay boats, read the story, roared our terrible roars, gnashed our terrible teeth and rolled our terrible eyes while we had a wild rumpus of a time as we made one kind of mischief and another.

Ramona Party

Last summer (2009) BCL hosted a party based on the Ramona Quimby books by Beverly Cleary (this was before we knew that there was going to be a Ramona movie in 2010.... oh, well-- guess we have to have another party).
Similar to Fancy Nancy, we had a dress up station and a photographer to take the kid's pictures ("Peas," anyone?). The kids made a photo frame from Popsicle sticks, made flags for a parade, drew the longest picture in the world, ate bananas and drank oveltine, played "gray duck" or "duck, duck, goose" and in general had a creative, exciting, and run-around good time.

Because the comments we received after Fancy Nancy included having more obvious tie-ins to the book series we had both a read aloud from the first chapter of Ramona the Pest (by Children's librarian, Ann B.) and a book display of all the books that had been referenced in the Ramona Series.

I learned from this program, that while dress-up is fun and imaginative play, it should not be done in the same program in which we use puff paints.

Fancy Nancy Party

In my first year at BCL I helped with a party based on the popular Fancy Nancy books. We aimed this program at kids age 3-5, and had mostly girls in princess dresses show up. (It was very cute). We had several different stations for this kids and the parents to visit including a dress-up station with a red carpet for photo shoots, big dogs, spectacular spectacles, fancy cookies (the circus animal crackers), butterfly name tags, and so many other fun activities. Here is the passport I created so the kids knew what stations they were able to visit.

In this program I learned that it isn't enough just to have references to the books in each activity but must tie in the books and characters even more with at least a display, and preferably read the book out loud. It was a great first program for me to help with.

Program Reflection: Phineas L. MacGuire Erupts Volcano Party

At the BCL on Friday I helped to host a Science Party based on the Phineas L. MacGuire books by Frances O'Roark Dowell. We had 27 boys in grades 3, 4, and 5, and many of their caretakers (Moms, Dads, Grandmas, and a couple older brothers) participate.

Ann B, one of the Children's librarians at BCL was the main coordinator, I, as assisting reference Assistant came up with 2 of the 6 stations and the grand finale, and we had 2 invaluable summer inters helping coordinate the volunteers and get the program ready.
The program ran for 2 hours in the spacious meeting rooms of the library.

There was a puzzle race, a trivia table, a book auction, a paper construction table, and my 2 tables: individual volcano (backing soda and vinegar), and flubber (glue, borax, and water).

After getting our high school volunteer set up with the baking soda and vinegar table, I coordinated 6 groups of 4-7 boys making flubber. We observed what the glue and water mixtures looked like, and mixed food coloring in, then we added our borax and water solution and mixed until the reaction occurred. There was about one kid in each group that was hesitant to stick his finger in glue, but once they saw how much fun the other kids were having they dove right in.
Flexibility is required in putting on programs like this-- for example getting the kids to a sink to wash their gooey hands was an unplanned for necessity, but we all did really well with it.

For the grand finale of the program the Summer Intern, Dawn and I went out side the meeting rooms and the kids gathered around the window. Once outside Dawn and I showed the kids the infamous diet cola and Mentos reaction making a soda geyser shooting 25 feet in the air. Not only were the kids and their parents impressed, but also many people walking along the street.

I've done several special book programs, and this one has been my favorite so far. Mush in thanks to the planning of the librarian, and interns, and the maturity of the kids.
This is defiantly a program we can repeat parts of in the future.