Exercise BINGO

Our library uses the Collaborative Summer Reading Program every year, last year's theme was Be a Hero Read. We partnered with the Mayo Clinic Health Systems and our Friends of the Library to offer an exercise BINGO sheet for kids to finish and earn raffle tickets for an end of the summer prize drawing, a hacky sack when they picked up the form and a free water bottle upon completion.

We had two new Story Walks set up in our town, one at a local park and one at our local school's nature walk. We included the Story Walk on the BINGO sheet as a way to promote it's existence.

This side program (with hardly any staff work) was a great success for our small library (Res Pop 3500). We had 126 kids pick up the BINGO sheets (tracked by the number of balls we gave away) and 44 kids returned them completed. AND this summer's theme is On Your Mark, Get Set, Read! which makes this BINGO sheet extra awesome because we will be partnering with the Mayo Clinic Health Systems and holding it again.

The, the, the, the. . . the Grinch!

December library display poster for the children's books. . . 

feels a bit like Seuss blasphemy. 

Have a very happy holiday season.

Back to School

Had to share my Pete the Cat bulletin board. We always have a calendar with our events, but our calendar needed some sprucing up this month so, I added Pete. Then I saw a post with

school jokes and added the jokes.

Homeschool Club, 3rd Edition

First day back with the Homeschool Club today, and I had 27 kiddos (huge for our library).

Two years ago, I worked with a local co-op to establish goals and the purpose of the group.

1. Get kids used to public speaking.
2. Give kids opportunities to work in groups (who aren't siblings).
3. Kids work with a different adult.

We have been meeting during the school year once a month for an hour.

What went down:

We started with a getting to know you game: on the way into the meeting room, kids were given toilet paper and told, "Take as much as you think you will need."  That was it, no further instructions. After all the kids had their toilet paper, I took 4 squares myself and started off by touching each square one at a time as I made statements:
1. My name is Kathy.
2. I work at the library.
3. I like to watch mysteries on TV.
4. I like to play volleyball.

One of the older kids had already played the game before, he had taken 6 squares and wanted to go next. After he went, I had the kids guess what the toilet paper was for before we had everyone else go. When some stragglers came in, the kids went wild suggesting the late comers take a lot or a little (got a little loud for a moment).

The kids all cooperated beautifully, even the kid who took 37 squares!

For each kid the first square was to say their name, and I would have the group repeat the name back to me. If they stopped listening, I would just ask them the last thing the kid said, "Did anyone hear what restaurant John likes to visit?" Occasionally I had to prompt kids, what do you like to do outside, what's your favorite color, etc,. This game took A LOT longer than I had anticipated, we were left with about 20  minutes.

I had the Alike, Different sheet ready as a back up activity to the main activity (that we never even got to), so I used it for the back up activity to the ice breaker!

We finished with the same and different game. The kids had to find 5 other kiddos and write something they had in common in the circle, and something that was different outside the bubble. The younger kids had a harder time with this activity (4 & 5 year olds) because they couldn't write/spell or were reluctant to do so, but between myself and some of the older kids, we got their sheets completed for them. This was great for working on initiating a conversation with people, you wouldn't believe how hard this is for kids. I had the opportunity to model for them A LOT! Incentive to finish the sheet: they could go when it was full.

Here's the blank sheet:

Picture Book Organization- Nature

Nature seemed like a natural category to have, with seasons and weather. I ended up with a few other subcategories. I ended up splitting food and plants up. Pizza isn't really a plant, but it is from nature, so. . . food! Creepy carrots could go in either, but since it wasn't really about growing carrots, and more about eating carrots it ended up in NATURE FOOD REYNOLDS.

These are the subcategories I used for Nature

Camping- we live in a touristy camping area.
Conservation- small, small section, but when Earth Day comes around they are easier to find.
Food-  food we eat, including plants that are being eaten or put in soups or on pizza.
Nature- water cycle, random nature love books, anything that doesn't fit into the other sub-categories.
Plants- Growing and harvesting go here, trees, flowers, and books about gardening.
Seasons- spring, summer, fall and winter are all here.
Weather- rain, wind, storms, tornadoes and other weather related books go in this section.

So where do those pesky apple books go? Seasons, food, plants? That is what I love about this organization system so much, it is flexible. If the book is not going out in seasons, I move it to food, or plants.