Children, Storytime

Little Books

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I’ve written many times before about my success stories using projects from MaryAnn Kohl’s book Preschool Art: It’s the Process, Not the Product – enough times that I’ve felt a bit redundant in my praise of Kohl and her book – but yesterday’s experience at storytime was good enough to warrant yet another post on the topic.

With my broken foot, I’ve struggled with how to continue with art projects in the weekly Art & Stories for 4’s & 5’s storytime.  Last week, I was still on crutches, so I thought long and hard and finally decided to go with an old standard project: rolls of paper laid out on the floor, kids lie on the paper, adults trace the outline of each child, and then the kids color in their tracings.  Huge success!  No set up for me – no tables, no stress, the parents did the tracings of the kids – and the kids kept going for forty-five minutes with their artwork.  (Of course, this makes total sense, since four and five year olds are still quite self-focused, and working on a self-portrait at that age completely fits their developmental level.)

So last week’s art project was terrific, and I was feeling the pressure yesterday to come up with a similarly awesome project.  But I’m still pretty gimpy: off the crutches, but hobbling around on a walking boot that comes up almost to my knee.  I knew I would be able to drag some tables out of the closet, but I also knew that I wouldn’t be able to sort through our stacks and stacks of awesome art supplies in order to set up a complex project.  What to do??!?!

A paper-only project seemed in order (especially since my coworker Carol, a recently retired teacher, had just donated three grocery bags full of the most gorgeous construction paper I have ever seen), so I opened up Kohl’s book, flipped to January’s projects as a starting point, and ka-bam.  There it was:  Little Books.  The only prep necessary was to use the paper cutter to cut some white copy paper down to half size, and also to cut some sheets of construction paper down to half size, and then I dug out pencils, markers, and some staplers.  The idea (without giving away Kohl’s project instructions – you REALLY should buy her book if you don’t already own it!) was to have the kids and their grownups work together to construct a little book.  Then the grownups stepped back and let the kids create the insides of the books.

Before we started on the project, I talked to the group about the process they would be going through.  One wise little boy, upon hearing that he would be creating a book, said, “But I don’t know how to write words!!!!”  And so I talked about how there are many wonderful books that tell their stories only with pictures, no words.  Perhaps, I suggested, if the kids knew how to write their names, they could do that, but otherwise they could just fill up the pages with pictures.

And they did.  And they kept going and going and going.  Some kids talked out loud as they created, telling anyone who would listen what their book was about, while other kids hunched over their creations so that no one could spy on their artwork as it was in process.  We started the project at 2:25, and several kids were still going strong at 3:15…and they would have kept going for quite a while if it hadn’t been time to pick up their older siblings at the elementary school.  Only a reassurance that there were markers and pencils at home to use kept these last artists from having a meltdown at having to step away from their book before it was finished.

Another huge success.  Now to find another project for next week that meets the criteria of helping a gimpy librarian run a great art project.  Thankfully, I have the resource to find that awesome project!

Book groups

Book lists updated!

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I’ve been procrastinating for a while (almost four years, shockingly) on updating the lists of books that Jennifer and I have used for our book groups, but today I finally got around to this large project.

Sadly, the Excel spreadsheet that I use at the library for tracking the books we discuss in the book groups cannot be easily pasted into my blog; I learned my lesson about the incompatibility of Microsoft products and WordPress a few years ago when I lost my entire blog after pasting something from a Word document into a blog post.  But today the library opened late due to the snowstorm, and then my boss and I agreed that perhaps it would be better if I and my broken foot stayed home today rather than try to negotiate the slickery snowiness from home to car and car to library – which meant that I had time to tackle this updating project.  (And, yes, I have a broken foot.  Four weeks on crutches, and now I have graduated to walking with a walking boot, which is both awkward and a bit slippery.)

As I added to the book lists, I was impressed by how many titles Jennifer and I have used with the groups over the years.  Some of the books have been terrific for discussion, others have been terrible, and the majority have been adequate.  If you have questions about any particular title and its success with book group discussion, please feel free to contact me about it, either here in the comments or by sending me an email (see my email address information in the “Comments” informational section in the blog header).

Children's literature, Pop culture

Trivia

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Last night, as Jim and I were out enjoying the gorgeous night on our evening walk, he gave me the coolest bit of musical and children’s literature trivia:  the song “The Cover of the Rolling Stone” was written by Shel Silverstein.  Way cool.  And, how did I not know that already?!?!?

Cats Dogs Plants Animals, Etc., Spare time - Culture

Ah, vacation…

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We had a great vacation – relaxing, refreshing, and fun.  Here are a few highlights:

Librarianship, Library events, Spare time - Culture, Summer reading

End of Summer Exhaustion and Vacation

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Between finishing up the summer reading program and Ophy’s ongoing health issues, this has been a loooooong two weeks.  I went in to the library yesterday to inventory and put away all of the summer reading prizes, and when I got home I sat on the couch to watch the news (Jim had band practice last night).  Next thing I knew, I was wakened by the phone ringing an hour and a half later.  It’s not my style to fall asleep on the couch in the middle of the afternoon or early evening (or ever, really), so I think it’s safe to assume that I was absolutely tuckered out.  Exhausted.  Worn down.  However you want to put it, I was tired.

I worked today, and managed to finish up everything that might potentially haunt me during my vacation week; this included submitting my statistics to the state for the summer reading program.  And even though I planned the summer and knew full well what was going on all summer, I was blown away by our statistics:  we ran 58 programs (including hired performers, storytimes, book groups, and other library-run programs) and our attendance at those 58 programs was just shy of 1,900 adults and kids.  Wow.  Wow.  No wonder I fell asleep yesterday!

So goodbye to summer reading 2012 – it was a good summer, and we all enjoyed it and got lots of reading done.  (The kids read for over 5,200 hours this summer!)  And hello to Abby’s vacation 2012 – a stay-cation, of course.  I’m looking forward to sleeping in and making a full pot of tea every morning (and drinking the whole pot, too) and reading lots of books and going on adventures with Jim and repainting the exterior of our house and helping Ophy to recover.   Woo-hoo!

Storytime, Teaching

Tooting my own horn

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One of my storytime regulars said the nicest things to me today – so nice that I just had to share them, though I know it comes close to blatant self-promotion…

This storytime regular (who drives in from another town) has been coming to my storytimes for a few years now, first with just her oldest son, then with both of her sons once the younger was born.  Their family has come to my Mother Goose on the Loose storytimes for a long time, and then the oldest son grew older and they also started coming to my Storytime for 2’s & 3’s.  And today they tried out my Art & Stories for 4’s & 5’s for the first time.  As the kids in the group settled in to their art project, this mom came up to me and said, “Abby, you are phenomenal.  You’re good with all the ages – some people are only good with one age, but you’re good with them all.  You’re phenomenal.”  She went on to say some other really nice things, all of which made me feel appreciated and understood in a way that I haven’t in a long while.

And then later we were chatting again as I rinsed out paint-filled Chobani containers and messy paintbrushes.  I mentioned that my mother had been a teacher, and that she had always wanted me to be a teacher, too, grooming me from an early age; Mom even brought me with her to work when she was a preschool teacher and I was ten or eleven, putting me to work with the kids and talking me through how to work with them.  “The sad thing is,” I said, “my mother never lived to see me in this job.  Which is a shame.”  And this lovely storytime regular said to me – bringing tears to my eyes then and now – “I bet your mom knows exactly what you’re doing, and that she’s watching and smiling down on you.”  And then she went on to say, “It’s definitely in your blood, teaching.  You’re a teacher-librarian, that’s what you are.”

So here I am tooting my own horn, but also expressing gratitude to someone who did what we all should do more often, but don’t: telling another person that you value and appreciate them.  It’s such a great feeling to know that you’re making a difference in the world, because I know that there are many days that go by where I’m not sure if what I’m doing is having any impact.  Today, happily, is not one of those days.  Today I am reassured that what I do every day is worth doing.  Thank you!!!

Children's literature, Librarianship, Spare time - Culture

Study break

I’ve been working hard all day at more book ordering, this time making my way through issues of School Library Journal.  It’s fantastically fun, really, though maybe not my first choice of a way to spend my Sunday [yes, yes, yes, it’s off the clock…I do that a lot!].  Fun because I love seeing which series have a new title – sometimes it will be several years from one entry in a book series to the publication of the next, sometimes it will only be months – and which of my favorite authors have come out with a new book.  And I also love seeing what unusual nonfiction topics have now been addressed in a children’s book.  Sometimes those nonfiction books aren’t worth buying, but lately there have been a ton of great nonfiction children’s books on cool topics.

And I’ve enjoyed ordering today because it’s given me a chance to spend some quality time with Ophy as she (hopefully) recovers.  I’m sitting in the middle of the couch with my laptop and the review journals, and Ophy alternates between napping curled up to my left leg and then my right leg – with water drinking breaks in between.

Study break is over, though – I still have more ordering to do, and I suppose it might be wise to eat some dinner, too.  My goal is to go on my vacation next week having absolutely no loose ends at work, and I think I can achieve the tying of those loose ends this evening.  Yahoo!!!

Library events, Pop culture, Summer reading

Winnie the Pooh

Last night’s movie night was hands down the sweetest movie night ever at the library.  We showed the 2011 film Winnie the Pooh, and the audience was full of younger kids (all under the age of five, I believe), some of whom had never been to a movie night before.  They were so sweet and so attentive and so wrapped up in the flow of this very gentle movie.  Lots of giggles when Pooh’s tummy grumbled, lots of delight when Tigger bounced and sang.

And from my adult perspective, I was impressed by how Disney constructed this movie.  Mid-way through the movie I went and checked the DVD case to make sure this was actually a new film, because it has the look, feel, and spirit of the older classic Disney movies.  The animation is lovely (the DVD case says that it’s hand-drawn) and the plot is gentle, with just enough tension to make things interesting, but not so much that younger children are anxious.  And I loved the way that the original text of the books is integrated into the film.  The text is almost a character in the film, as full page spreads of the original book (or a facsimile thereof, I’ll have to look at the book to figure that out) appear from time to time, and then the words and letters will move and fall and incorporate into the action of the movie.  My favorite bit was when the characters are stuck at the bottom of the pit they have dug, and then they use the words of the text to build a ladder to climb out.  So cool.

The best part of last night’s movie?  Everyone left happy, and got home in time to get to bed at a reasonable hour (a major benefit of a movie that’s only one hour).  That happy-and-bed-at-a-reasonable-hour includes the children’s librarian, by the way.  🙂

Summer reading

I take it back

Did I say in my last post that summer reading was winding down and things were getting a bit quieter at the library?

Then again, maybe not.  After an extremely busy Monday, I take that back.  I saw kids today that I haven’t seen all summer – and some of those kids have read twenty hours or more so far.  And then there were the reference questions!  Tons of kids and their adults looking for books today…and happily, I was able to come through for most of them with a book in hand.  The rest have books requested for them, soon to arrive.

It was a very fun day.  Very fun.  But definitely not quiet.  And now for some rest to prepare for tomorrow, which promises to be busy again.  (Especially since the road construction seems to have come to a halt.)

P.S. Total time reading by kids in the summer reading program now stands at 3,809 hours.

Reflections on children, literature, libraries, and life…and cats.