Collect some book boxes. Gather markers, plates, paper, glue and other craft supplies. Pick out some short movies or TV episodes that you have the license to screen publicly. Get ready to host a drive-in movie at your library!
Author: Claudia Wayland
I am the Youth Services Manager at the Allen Public Library in Allen, TX and an Adjunct Professor in the University of North Texas College of Information. I am a member of the ALSC Managing Children's Services committee and the Texas Library Association Children's Round Table webmaster. I am a member of the TALL Texans class of 2015.
Guessing Games
At my library we have a monthly guessing game in a display case near the Children’s Services desk. Last month’s theme was guessing the number of drops of water in a bottle. This month’s game has lots of puppets stuffed in the case. In the winter it was about snowflakes. The library has been doing this since before I started working there, and I can see the positive effects of the game. To participate in the month’s game, a library visitor must fill out a guessing form at the Children’s desk. A child doesn’t have to be able to write to participate; family members can help make sure the guess itself is legible. There is generally an employee working at the desk, and having the forms and pencils near us encourages interaction between the families and staff. Sure, we greet people as they enter the Children’s Library, but the guessing…
Museum passes
This month I am thinking about the trend of public libraries offering museum passes for check out. The idea is to partner with local museums and other fun, family-friendly, educational and/or cultural places and create an agreement that allows the library to circulate day passes to the partnering institutions. From the small amount of research I’ve done, I see there are many ways to go about doing this. Some libraries are high-tech and have web portals that allow patrons to print off museum passes from any computer. Some libraries have actual tickets that circulate like any other physical materials in the collection. Does your library have circulating museum passes? Do the tickets allow an entire family in to a facility for free? Do the tickets cover any kind of additional fees (like parking)? Here are some examples of this kind of service – this is just a few, there are…
Picture Book Brackets at the Library
It’s the time of the year for brackets – and we are hosting our own tournament to determine which picture book series is the favorite in our community. Our informal competition was organized by Sarah Davis, one of the Youth Service Librarians here at the Allen Public Library. We started with the top popular children’s picture books according to circulation stats and didn’t allow for multiple books from the same series. The 16 books that came to the top were: Barbie & the Secret Door, Pete the Cat: I Love My White Shoes, We are in a Book (Elephant and Piggie), Thomas the Tank Engine, Berenstain Bears and Too Much Junk Food, Ella Bella Ballerina, If You Give a Cat a Cupcake, Everything Goes on Land, Hug Machine, Pigeon Finds a Hot Dog!, Dora Saves the Crystal Kingdom, Pinkalicious, A Sister More Like Me (Disney’s Frozen), and Happy to be…
Texas Bluebonnet and 2×2 Reading List Updates
Howdy from the Lone Star State! The Children’s Round Table of the Texas Library Association had a strong start to the new year. In January the Texas 2×2 Committee announced the 2016 Texas 2×2 reading list of 20 recommended books for children, age 2 through grade 2. The content, presentation and interest levels of the books vary broadly and generally range from board books to beginning chapter books. On its website the committee also provides a cute boot-shaped coloring page and recommended activities and discussion points. Even if you do not live in Texas, I recommend that you look at the great selection of books! Another exciting recent development occurred in early February. The Texas Bluebonnet Award committee announced that When the Beat Was Born: DJ Kool Herc and the Creation of Hip Hop by author Laban Carrick Hill and illustrator Theodore Taylor III was 2016 Texas Bluebonnet Award Winner! You can watch the announcement video that…
1,000 Books Before Kindergarten Update
In last month’s post I shared my library’s experiences during the planning phases of our 1,000 Books Before Kindergarten reading initiative for preschoolers. This month we launched the program, and I have some updates to share with you. Our 1,000 Books Before Kindergarten program launched the day we started our first 2016 session. Since last Monday we have been registering children in person and on our website. If caregivers sign up online, we e-mail them the reading log for the first 100 books. To receive prizes and subsequent logs, they must visit the library in person. We publicized the start of our new program in several ways: we inserted a PowerPoint slide at the beginning of every story time presentation, our bulletin board artist, created a colorful display showing a tree with books for leaves, and we included a blurb about it in our January youth events flyer. In the past nine…
1,000 Books Before Kindergarten
I am happy to announce that my public library will be rolling out our 1,000 Books Before Kindergarten program in January 2016! Allison, one of our Youth Services Librarians, has been hard at work this fall planning the details and creating print pieces for our upcoming soft launch. Have you heard of the 1,000 Books Before Kindergarten program? It’s a program in which preschool children (with their caregivers) register either in a library or online to attempt to read at least 1,000 books before the child enters Kindergarten. The caregivers keep track of the books they read with the child, and at certain milestones the child earns prizes. Once the child has read 1,000 books, they’ve completed the program and receive great accolades, in addition to all the benefits of being exposed to a variety of children’s literature. Of course it doesn’t necessarily have to be 1,000 different books; we…
Organizing Easy Readers
Let’s talk best practices for organizing easy or beginning readers. I mean the books used by new readers to facilitate print word recognition. The easy reader collection is difficult to browse. Not easy! There are as many leveling systems as there are publishers that use different letters, numbers, or colors depending on the series; sometimes a level 1 is harder than something marked as a level 2 or 3. This makes parents and new librarians confused when browsing the collection. How can we simplify things? I am looking to you for help! Give me some ideas of how your library treats the not-so-easy-to-browse easy reader collection. Help me (and maybe others) in future decision making by answering the following questions in the comments: Does your library separate materials in the easy reader section using a leveling system? How easy is it to browse the easy reader collection in your library?…