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.

Library Sponsored Public LEGO Track at the Pinewood Derby!

So last summer we were able to partner with the Boy Scouts to bring in a Pinewood Derby track for our LEGO Chima party. The next logically awesome step was to create a free track at the Pinewood Derby, JUST for LEGO cars!

The last time I attended a Pinewood Derby was sometime in grade school, so I knew nothing of the magnitude of today's races-- this was at the mall and there were computers to calculate exact times and everything! There were upwards of a hundred Boy Scouts and their families there from the surrounding counties (we're a city of 50,000 people, but we're the largest city for at least 2 hours on the freeway in any direction). The enthusiasm was contagious.

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.

LEGO Movie Party at the Library

A few weeks ago I held a party to get everyone pumped up about the LEGO movie coming out in February. Promising nothing but watching the trailers and talking about the movie with other LEGO fans, and some playing with LEGO, we had nearly 40 attendees on a sub-zero no-school day (read: they had no other reason to leave their houses, but they came to our program)! I also had WAY more parents come and stay for this than any other program I've held (it was about 2/3 kids) so it made me think that just inviting people of any age to come to a public place and geek out together about their favorite things might be a good idea for a program.

(I might just have adult programming on the brain, too, thanks to Audrey Barbakoff's awesome webinar at the Wild Wisconsin Winter Web Conference. I collected all the tweets on Storify here. Check out all the great programs, including one about unprogramming by Marge and Amy!)

As an aside, I wonder how much I could charge to live-tweet the shizz out of someone's webinar. You can't multi-task while you live-Tweet. 

Live-Tweeter for Hire.

I'll be all like ...

...all over you webinar about whatever.

Pinky-swear promise. 

(GIFs extra.)

ANYWAY: Here's how the LEGO party program went:

Star Wars Jedi Training Academy

Like everyone and their grandmother's library, October is a time for a Star Wars party. For those who may not be familiar, this is because of Star Wars Reads Day. Saturday programs tend not to work so well at my library when we want a big crowd event for older kids, so instead of having our party ON Star Wars Reads Day we had it on a no-school day. Oh, and we didn't call it "Star Wars Reads Day" because that name is more for adults than for kids.


I had a Star Wars party on May the Fourth Be With You, but I didn't blog about it because I knew I could do better. Then, I was being too canon to the films. Many Star Wars fans these days, though, mostly watch Clone Wars. Some kids don't know what a Wookiee is. They may not know that **SPOILER ALERT**

LEGO Chima and Pinewood Derby Party: Sneaky STEM

LEGO Legends of Chima is Ninjago's slightly less popular counterpart; probably because there were only 4 episodes at the time I ran my first program (I did one at the Main library and one at our North branch). Because I'm the luckiest jerk in the world, there are now 9 episodes, the fifth one airing on the day of my first LEGO Chima program. Between the two programs, around 70 people attended, a far cry from my 150 collective attendees at my two Ninjago programs. But, for the amount of time I put into it, I still consider it high-yield.

For the uninitiated, LEGO Legends of Chima follows the exploits of 8 tribes who live in the Land of Chima, where the "life force" Chi gives power to animals to walk and talk and fight with swords. Except that it's not REALLY a life force, because we find out a few episodes in that the animals who never took Chi and are just regular-ass lions and stuff are still around, but they're called "Legend Beasts" because the Chima animals never see them much. Once in awhile the tribes gather and race on Speedorz for some golden orb which is supposed to be better than normal Chi. Also, the Legend Beasts give them immunity because they've never taken Chi and so have no swords or opposable thumbs. In other words, it doesn't make much rational sense, unless you think it reminds you exactly of another show. But they're talking animals, so whatever.

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":