Favorite Program Posts from the Archives!

This past spring as I was starting to make the move from my old blog space to this one, Courtney from the Public Programs Office of ALA reached out to me about being featured on a post of "favorite programming blogs" on ALA's Programming Librarian website.

While I was honored, the timing was tricky and I didn't want to muddy the waters and direct lots of new people to my old address when I was just intending on abandoning it. Also, I love programming, but aside from the occasional storytime sub opportunity that's not really part of my job anymore.

So, how humbling and hilarious was it that five out of the nine authors who ended up being featured named my old blog as one of their favorites?

Granted, I'm Internet Friends with each of them and we've been part of a shared blogging community for awhile (I know at least that I've been blogging about library stuff for 7.5 YEARS now...what?!). I've been incredibly fortunate that something I basically started as notes to myself (okay, a very terrible book blog that THEN turned into notes to myself that THEN turned into stuff people read sometimes) to be received so well by people I respect so much.

For a couple of years I used my blogging anniversary to lift up newer programming blogs, and then newer-to-me-blogs in general. I'm out of practice with it but I need to get back in the game. That's why, when this space is fully up-and-running, I'll be writing a post with a whole bunch of new-to-me programming blogs to add to your feeds. 

If you've started a blog that I don't know about it, please comment here so I can feature you, too! If you'd like to start collecting your programming thoughts in a place that's shareable, a blog is still a good place for that! Know that it's a lot of work, but you'd probably be doing it anyway for your own files, so might as well share your great ideas and maybe meet a few people along the way!

Bryce with some Internet Friends sitting round a restaurant table
and smiles for a picture at ALA Midwinter 2018

(From left to right those pictured are Soraya (Admin at Storytime Underground), Mary (of Storytime Underground and Miss Merry Liberry), Rebecca (of Hafuboti), Melissa (of Mel's Desk), me (of here), and Anna (of Everyday Diversity and Future Librarian Superhero).

In sum: I'm Nobody and You Can Be Too. Email me if you need encouragement! 

Anyway, wasn't I posting programs from the archives? Here you go (there may be some links that still need updating, but it'll send you right back here to the corresponding post):

Story Action Pod: Election Edition: Shark and Train face off in this passive program

Ninjago Library Party: At over 100 people between two branches, this was possibly the most successful active program I made with junk and hope.

Mythbusters for Elementary Kids: I completely forgot I did this, but there's four weeks of weekly plans for you.

Library-sponsored LEGO track at the Pinewood Derby: it was fun.

Spy School at the Library: those Ology programs were some of my favorites!

Tween Scavenger Hunt in the Library: great for class visits or other group trips.

Tic-Tac-Toe/Simon Says Mashup Game: one of my last inspired activities as a frontline staff member.

Library LEGO Checkout Club: one of my most-shared posts ever! Super easy.

Thrive Thursday July Round Up!

I'm happy to say that I'm hosting the Thrive Thursday School Age Round-up for July. Want to know more about Thrive Thursday created by Lisa Shaia? Check out past round ups at Thrive After Three. Make sure you don't miss a thing by following the Pinterest Board and Facebook group!

There are so many great things to share this week, so let's get started.

Spring Break at the Library: Stealth Programming For Days

So first off all, can we give a big round of applause to Chris from Criplold for her stellar  redesign of my blog? She's a graphic design artist, and had an awesome deal while she was distracting herself from other things. Chris is lovely to work with and hella creative. And I don't use the word "hella" lightly. Do you think I came up with any of this? Absolutely not. This is 100% Chris, and I'm kinda in love with it. Hit her up at her blog or on Twitter  to tell her how cool she makes me look, and to ask how you can be cool too.

OKAY, SO: Spring Break. The one week in the school year that tells you what a wuss you've become since last Summer Reading; the glimpse of what's to come that makes you rethink your day for maximum caffeine consumption. This Spring Break for our public schools also was National Library Week, and our library had a program where people could take selfies of themselves, tag them online with a hashtag, and be entered in a drawing for gift cards. I loved this idea, and was sure patrons would be into it; but in YS we looked for ways it could translate for kids.

Of course, there was only one answer:

Are Your Programs S.A.F.E.? A Librarian Look at the Afterschool Alliance Report

Last week, the Afterschool Alliance published a literature review/report called "Taking a Deeper Dive into Afterschool: Positive Outcomes and Positive Practices." First of all, if you didn't know the Afterschool Alliance was a Thing, I forgive you; but please immediately rectify this situation by adding their incredibly informative website to your radar and maybe even following them on Twitter.

Now, many of us librarians don't have the time, resources, or community interest for a daily/weekly afterschool program that this report focuses on; but we definitely can take some great suggestions from its Positive Practices to make our planning more deliberate to set our kid patrons up for success at our programs.

First, some awesome and empowering words about our role in these kids' lives:

• A great feature of our programming is that we don't have to focus on standardized assessments and academic achievement. This allows us to focus on the meat of success in afterschool programs: personal development, such as social and emotional growth. (page 8 of PDF)
• a meta-analysis by the Collaborative for Academic, Social and Emotional Learning (okay I want to read everything by them right away, don't you?) found that children who attend afterschool programs "saw a significant improvement in their perceptions of themselves, improved positive social behavior and a decrease in problem behaviors" (page 8 of PDF)

Note that due to increased pressure of testing and emphasis on assessment-driven instruction (which may take intervention into the afterschool realm, like Club Z as an afterschool offering at Title I schools), we public libraries are uniquely posited to offer personal-development-focused programming. How does our programming support social and emotional growth?

Library LEGO Checkout Club

LEGO tower locked behind glass.
Sign explains rules listed below.

When I first came on to the La Crosse Public Library team, one of my very first ideas was a stealth program where the kids would add LEGOs to a pile/bin/whatever every time they check out. Then, at the end of the month or whenever, they would have a "Big Build" party and make something out of the LEGOs they had collected.

I am SO happy that idea didn't fly at the time, because what came of it nearly 3 years later is WAY better than that.

When it was time to debut our check-out club, Brooke and I racked our brains for an hour coming up with a cool, though straightforward name. We both liked alliteration, so we were looking for a word that started with the same letter as "LEGO" without distracting from what the club was about. We both have graduate degrees AND other degrees in language-related fields and I mean WHAT WORD COULD WE EVEN USE THAT BEGINS WITH L TO DESCRIBE A LIBRARY PROGRAM.

Summer Librarian Sanity: IFLS Workshop Recap!

The only advice you'll ever need.

Sooooooooo I've made it back alive from the Great White North(er), Menomonie, WI, where I actually got to speak to 60 awesome youth services librarians for an entire morning! I know. Me, the person whose philosophy is "if you can't say it in 3 minutes it's not worth saying." BUT it was not only really fun, but it also fulfilled this part of my professional life that I've been wanting to satiate for awhile.

See, one of my first jobs was as a reading coach. I gave professional development, but it was only to my district and sometimes only a few teachers at a time when it was really short. And the for the longer PD my colleague and I enlisted the grade level lead teachers in the school and set up stations, each with its own topic, that the rest of the teachers rotated to throughout the day. Ms Clary and I were at one of the tables, but they all came to us to discuss the DIBELS scores of their classes. The point was empowering the teachers to acknowledge themselves as experts, and it was really well-received.

Actually... I should revisit this type of PD sometime.

At my next job I began writing intervention and DIBELS analysis materials, and worked my way up (ahem, "laterally moved" according to my paycheck) to writing professional development for teachers statewide. Five-hour-long workshops, in fact; however, I never gave the workshops. That was up to consultants around the state. My belief in scripts is tied directly to this job.

So, for real, getting the chance to write and deliver a morning-long workshop on my own was kind of a dream come true, or one of those "at least I can say I can talk for that long!" types of things.

How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Passive Programming: guest post by Ariel Cummins

Behold, a Boredom Buster!

Ariel Cummins started her career as a teen librarian, but quickly decided there was far too much drooling with teens and switched to the under 13 set. She writes about her (sometimes bumbling) exploration of what it means to be a children's librarian at http://hushlander.wordpress.com/ and frequently Tweets about authors, librarianship, and ridiculous things at https://twitter.com/hushlander. She works at San Antonio Public Library, and will probably never leave Central Texas because: breakfast tacos.

When I transitioned from teen programming to children’s programming, I also transitioned from a very busy neighborhood branch to a huge Central Library located in a downtown area. While the collection at our Central Library is huge, it was really, really hard to get people to actually attend programs on a regular basis. It was more of a “tourists drop in on vacation” or “residents come once a year to get books for reports” kind of place, rather than a “part of families’ weekly routines” kind of place. We tried programming in the mornings, in the evenings, on the weekends, and on weekdays, with varying success.

Story Action Pod: Halloween Edition!

"Mullet. You know what it is."

An alternate title for this could be: How I dressed as a child's answer to a literacy extension activity for Halloween, and you can too!

Two years ago I created the fastest Story Action Pod I ever produced. I searched my library's catalog for "monsters", and came up with "Even Monsters Need Haircuts" by Matthew McElligot.

And the outcome was hilarious, as demonstrated by the submitted answer to your left.
In fact, I liked it so much, that I went as it for Halloween.

Awesome Box: Stealth Program

 Harvard library has created a"Awesome Box", a way of crowdsourcing Reader's Advisory and book recommendations. The Awesome Box was the brainchild of Annie Cain and Matt Phillips, and now is a project that involves many collaborators. Please read all about them here.

I decided to create something similar at the Story Action Pod this summer.

The result was the meme-filled station you see to the left. And it was super fun! Over the course of the summer we got about 50 recommendations from kids about books from liking The Pigeon Wants a Hot Dog because it's funny, to liking 39 Clues because there is at least one scene that includes swords.

Because Summer Reading Program always gives our circulation department approximately 50 million hours of extra shelving work, we decided to keep everything as inside-our-department as possible.

Here's how it went down:

Mythbusters for Kids: Sneaky STEM #2

In April, I decided to do a bunch of science programs and call them "Mythbusters." The premise was based on the fact that this website exists, but when I got deep into what I could plan for cheap/free and what wouldn't need parental waivers or worry about balloon allergies and stuff, I turned to other science books and websites. And just when I  thought I was done for, I turned to the mother of all STEM websites, Gizmos, Gadgets, and Goo. I link to that so early with the implied promise you'll come back here. I talk about it later + an extra treat for you!

Everyone knows the best part of "Mythbusters" is proving whatever family member/high school acquaintance who shares those memes on Facebook wrong (or right). It's the vindication, the ability to say, "I saw that happen, man." This is why, when we Confirmed, Busted, or "Plausible"d a myth, it was based on whether or not we could do it. If our conclusion conflicted with science, I'd say something like, "look at this! Some scientists have actually said this myth is CONFIRMED, but we said it was BUSTED! We're making new science right here in this room!"

Time Crunch Librarian

Click here to see our slides

A few weeks ago I was able to present with Anna (Future Librarian Superhero) and Anne (So Tomorrow) at the Michigan Library Association's Spring Institute in Lansing, MI. Though Anna, Anne and I talk through various social media outlets, I just met Anna in person last May at the WAPL conference, and neither of us had met Anne until the day of the presentation. If you're wondering how we managed to stay relatively on message for this hour long break-out session, I'll have you know it was due to the wonder of technology. We mostly brainstormed on Twitter and Google chat, and created a shared PowerPoint on Google Drive. While adding to the presentation, you could see where someone else was adding to their part or doing some revising. It was simultaneously a magical and creepy experience.

Maker-Spaces for Kids, Attempt #1

During our school's spring break, it was the perfect time to try out this trendy new "Maker Space" thing I've heard so much about. Back when we had to have programming list completed for Spring, I wasn't sure what I'd do; but whatever it was, it would have to be a Maker Space. Afterward, searching for things to do, I encountered many arguments supporting the idea that "Maker Space" is just a fancy-wrapping name for things Youth Services librarians have been doing for years, in a way that's appealing to adults. I wholeheartedly agree with them.

It's kind of funny how everything gets repackaged every so often. Most recently, I read a tweeted-out article about Flipped Classrooms that claims, "Self-Directed Learning is the New Learning." Yes, it's so new that it's been around since the dawn of Man. I would go way farther into how this the article actually kept me up one night so that I had to write extensively about it at 2 AM, but here we're talking about Maker-Spaces.

So anyway. Spring Break "Maker Spaces":

The Think-Aloud Librarian

Source

Over the weekend, I helped an 8 year old girl find a "Jack and Annie book." I led her to the Magic Treehouse books, talking the whole time: "Oh yeah! The Magic Treehouse books. I know exactly where those are. They are in our Chapter Book section, under O. The author's last name is Osbourne. So here's books by authors who start with N.... Okay, O! Here we go, Osbourne. Right here."

Sound familiar?
You're a Think-Aloud Librarian.

Why Do We Do This? 
It sounds like we're talking to ourselves, right?
In the education world, we call it the "think-aloud": a little tidbit that helps students follow your train of thought or reasoning; or, in a student-directed lesson, help you understand the student's train of thought or reasoning. In either instance, it's a chance an opportunity for learning.

Story Action Pod: BOT edition

C/O Mr Schu Reads

So after the overwhelming fun that emanated from our last Story Action Pod (which, by the way, was a landslide victory with a write-in candidate) I was energized to create another one. After all the sharks and trains, I decided that the Story Action Pod was severely lacking in the robot department.

I went with "Boy +Bot" by Ame Dyckman and Dan Yaccarino, which I snatched greedily from the fingers of an unsuspecting child while laughing maniacally and possibly pointing before tearing off on my Harley. 

Or from the new picture books display. I promise. It's another one of those, though, that we probably should have more copies of, because it is literally never available. So after I checked it out to myself, I smacked one of these bad boys on it to prevent it from walking away:

Story Action Pod: Election Edition!

I went back and forth a lot as to whether I should put something in the Story Action Pod about the election. I've heard of other libraries doing Vote-for-Characters, such as Best Bear in a book or something; I'm sure that works for them, but I just couldn't get excited about it. And as Joyce Sidman said in her luncheon address at the Wisconsin Library Association Conference last week (more on WLA later): "Kids know when you're really into something." And I just wasn't. (On a personal note, the first election I could legally vote in ever was the 2000 presidential election. Hopefully, you can see how that would be a total bummer).


More than that, though, I have a problem with any kind of program that doesn't have a far reach. If they have to come at just a certain time, or they have to come back to get anything out of it, or if they have to read widely to even know what they're talking about... okay, so I know I sound like a jerkface, like I don't want kids to read or something, but our regular patrons are just a small scope of who we serve.

BUT: the Story Action Pod allows for a small engagement in the library no matter when you're there, who you're with, what you read.

So I decided to create a Story Action Pod based on a book that kids could use to make an informed opinion in one sitting: Shark vs Train by Chris Barton and Tom Lichtenheld.