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.

Reading for Healthy Families

I just had a 2 day training from Steven Engelfried for Reading for Healthy Families (RFHF). This is an initiative that partners public libraries with Healthy Start-- a group that helps first time parents to get the tools they need to raise their children to be successful. The training was INTENSE, but really helpful and educating and entertaining-- I'm just not used to sitting for so long.
We started by learning what RFHF was, and how it works-- Joanne Contini used Russian nesting dolls to explain that the ECRR that the ALA developed, an is being used throughout the country is being passed down to trainers, to the more local trainers (like Steven) to the Librarians and Healthy Start workers (us), so we could teach the parents, so the parents can work with their children.

We learned about Healthy Start from the workers themselves in small groups- this was very helpful to me, because, while I know the idea behind healthy start from their website and hearing other librarians talk about it, I didn't know how they put their theories into practice. What a strenuous job they have!And what important work!

Then we jumped right into the training on the early literacy skills. We received binders full of information to share with families, to learn ourselves, and bags upon bags of books to give away, books to entice people to come to the library, and books and toys for us to use when we pass the information on to families.

Steven is a wonderful educator-- he presented the information as we would present it to the parents we'll work with, giving us tips and hints he has found helpful, and making sure we understood what we are being asked to teach. My favorite teaching tip he gave us-- which he repeated a few times, is to present the information to parents, and then ask them to "fast forward" to the time when their child is in first or second grade and presented with a text they haven't seen and asked to read it. After learning print awareness he discussed that children who have developed print awareness will be excited to learn what the text contains and will be willing to work through the tough process to decoding to have the book make sense. After we learned about vocabulary he asked us to fast forward to when the child encounters a rare word and after decoding us (using phonological awareness and letter knowledge) realizes they have heard the word before, even if they don't use it themselves.

I am very grateful that I am able to be trained in these early literacy skills, and I feel such a great responsibility to go out and "preach" this early literacy gospel to 15 families. Now I just have to figure out how to find them!

Unfortunately I forgot my camera at the training, so have no photos of the Salem Public Library (or their AWESOME discovery room-- seriously-- go check it out, it's like OMSI in the LIBRARY!)
Here's all my bags unpacked:

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.

Tualatin Bulletin Boards

Another one of my duties in Tualatin is to create eye catching bulletin boards for the teen room. This board face out onto a busy street were traffic is often jammed, and an artistic choice in lighting calls attention to the board by cars and pedestrians, so not only must the display be attractive and interesting to teens who use the room, also the passers-by who come into the library to see what is up with those crazy lights.

Here is February's for Valentine's day-- a controversial holiday for many teens.


For National Poetry Month we celebrated the 6 word memoir. The bulitan board had many from the book "I can't keep my own secrets" and we asked teens to make their own 6 work memoir with the opportunity to win prizes.


This is one inspired by an "anti-Bella" book list from another library-- Kick Butt Heroines.



And here is the Summer Reading bulletin board-- Make Waves @ Your Library.

Program Flyers

As a reference assistant at BCL part of my job is to create the quarterly program flyer for all the children's activities at the library. Not only must I ensure that all the librarian's programs are represented, but also that the information is accurate, rooms have been booked, and the flyer is attractive and clear. Likewise, a separate flyer goes out to the schools, local day cares, and the branch library. Here are several examples of program flyers I've put together.

• Fall 2009
• Spring 2010
• Summer 2010
• Fall 2010

Teen Booklists

In my first few weeks as a public services assistant in the Teen Room I started making a book list for banned and challenged books, as banned books week was just a few weeks away. Aimee really liked it and asked that I crate more book lists. As this was a brand new teen room in a brand new library they didn't have any book lists for the teens to review. Using the BCL teen book lists as a model I created several book list that staff and patrons use every day. Aimee, the teen librarian encouraged and helps me keep them up to date, and Cherie, another ischool grad proof reads them and ensures they are formatted correctly. Here is a link to the Tualatin Library Teen book list page for the examples of the book lists I have made. Making book lists helps me really get to know the collection, as well as gives the the opportunity to read many reviews and understand how books are chosen for the collection, and how they are chosen to be highlighted on a book list, this has definitely been a great help as I build skills in both collection development and readers advisory.

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.

Book Lists for Teens: Money

Recently I was asked to create a quarter sheet book list (front and back) of books we own, or could purchase for teens regarding personal fiance for a workshop we will host in the fall. Here is the link to a pdf of the book list.

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.

Course Reflection LIS 569: Multicultural resources for Youth

The Cleary Professor of Children and Youth Services, Eliza Dresang offered her first online course: Multicultural resources for Youth, and I just had to take it. It was quite the eye opening experience as we spent approximately 2 weeks on each major racial group in the United States, discussing the quality and quantities of materials for children that were accurate and authentic to the culture and the people they were representing. We looked at how different racial and ethnic groups were portrayed in children’s books throughout time, and how progressive or non-progressive these books could be.

We took the time to explore the many different ALA awards that highlight the best books for children, representing authentically different racial or ethnic groups—these awards (some of which are controversial) are extremely useful to teachers, librarians, parents, and so many other adults in growing their collection, and helping to distribute authentic materials for children.

This course left me with an extensive resource list—I subscribed to many blogs such as the Brown Bookshelf, and those by Debbie Reese, as well as many other awards sites and information that I know check on a regular basis to keep up with the new materials begin produced that focus on different racial groups tat may not be represented very well in the collections I work with.

Our final assignment for the class was very practical and useful. We looked at an existing collection of materials for youth, recognized points where the collection was lacking in materials for a specific racial group, and then created an annotated bibliography of materials that could be added to the collection. I took at look at the Teen materials in the Tualatin library which I am familiar with, and after talking to the teen librarian, I chose to focus on books and materials for and about Asians and Asian American. Here is my final annotated bibliography.

Course Reflection LIS 566: Young Adult Materials: Evaluation and Use

While I see my future career to be centered on library services for Children, I have great respect for YA librarians, and the teens they work with. In fact I work 15 hours a week with teens in the Tualatin library. It was a great pleasure for me to take LIS 566: YA materials.

In this class we covered many different genres and types of YA materials, from traditional genres literature like sci-fi, fantasy, realistic fiction, and mysteries, we also covered graphic novels and manga, and lots and lots of online resources and websites to find both fiction and non-fiction for teens. We discussed the teenage brain, and what information needs teens today have, and the anonymity they feel they need to access that information. We discussed teen created materials and how they share them with each other and we even touched on programming for teens.
For my program I created a Read-In which is described here. This program was implemented by the Tualatin Library during the Summer Reading Program 2010.

Course Reflection LIS 565: Children’s Materials Evaluation and Use

At the same time I was taking LIS 567 (see post below), I also studied Children’s materials. In this class we DID focus on collection development, from everything from board books, picture books, early readers, series paper backs, chapter books, tween books, magazines, DVDs, music CDs, console games, websites, and just about everything that one finds in the Children’s section of a library. It was a whirl wind tour, but one of the best classes I’ve taken.

In the last week alone I’ve drawn on knowledge I learned in this course in helping patrons choose books for their own reading, my family members choose gifts for babies, and my own reading choices. We looked at printed reviews in places like School Library Journal, and Booklist, and read a very large amount of the actual materials- things we wouldn’t have normally done on our own (at least those of us without children of our own to read to). Here is a document with all I read for this class, and my own reviews of it.

We also created booktalks—commercials for books, to get kids excited about reading. Here are mine for We are the Ship a non-fiction chapter book relating the story of the Negro baseball league, and The True Meaning of Smekday by Adam Rex.

Reflection LIS 567: Youth Services in the Public Library

When I saw that Youth Services in the Public Library was offered through the UW ischool I just HAD to sign up. I’ve worked in children’s and young adult departments of public libraries for four years, and I intend to work as a children’s librarian for many years to come.

In LIS 567 we covered aspects of what a youth services librarian does that are not directly related to collection development (covered in LIS 565 and 566) or storytelling (LIS 561). We did observe and reflect on librarian’s storytimes, and interview current youth services librarians about aspects of their work. Here is the final presentation for Internet Explorer and here it is for Fire Fox I created outlining the work that the Children’s librarians do at The Beaverton City library, where I work as a reference assistant.

We also tackled programming for youth, both special programs and clubs. I chose to create an Alice in Wonderland themed program for children, as the Alice in Wonderland movie was set to come out in the spring 2010. I gave my program to one of the children’s librarians at Beaverton, and she used a couple of my ideas in an Alice in Wonderland program she developed in the spring.

As the freedom to read what ever you like is a tenet of libraries, we spent a lot of time in LIS 567 discussing how to handle challenges to books. I chose to review The Earth, My Butt, and Other Big Round Things. Here is the assignment.

Reflection of LIS 561: Storytelling

I must say I was amazed that Storytelling was offered as one of my on-line courses through the ischool. When I applied to the online program I had excepted it would have been one of the courses only offered to residential students.
I'm very glad I took this course, I not only learned and practiced live storytelling, but dabbled in how storytelling can look in an asynchronous online format.

For this course I borrowed a ukulele from a co-worker and wrote a three-chord song for the Very Hungry Caterpillar. Since then I have purchased my own ukulele and have dabbled with it. I use it in storytime at my library, and whenever I'm asked to preform for groups of children.
Linked here is the blog that each of us kept throughout the course. You will see my written assignments, as well as links to audio versions of my stories created for this course.