Gaming for Elementary Kids: A Program, Full Stop

Last week I held a program on a no-school day. It was two hours long, and was especially for kids over 8 years old.


And we went on....

...the Internet.

Preschool Tour: Dog's Colorful Day



 After the success of the school-aged tourlibrary Field Trip ADVENTURE!, we decided to revamp the preschool tour library Field Trip ADVENTURE!.

As always, the preschool tour we offer revolves around a book. Last year was "Knuffle Bunny" by Mo Wilems. This year the book du jour is "Dog's Colorful Day" by Emma Dodd.

Cover of the book "Dog's Coloful Day":
A wyote dog with a black spot on its ear sniffs a rainbow bone

Childn00B Programming

Okay, so the title's pushing it since there's no clever way to incorporate my #n00brarian status. Or there is, but my sad trombone wittiness has been beaten out of me by a horde of children whose only weakness was Spiderman books (but at least they had one!). It's the calm after the storm now that my Spidey sense for misbehaving children has been deactivated (or, maybe it's more of a release valve. It slowly hisses out).

I constantly think of stuff to do at the library. Like, when I'm in the shower, in the middle of the night, watching a horror movie (not all at the same time). But, being new, I did have a fear of planning something that doesn't sound good. Not for fear it would fail, but the fear of something like this:

Boredom Busters and a Halloween Story Action Pod

Today marks the 6 month anniversary of me starting my job, and it's also when benefits kick in. I'm using a floating holiday to take off Thursday, thereby turning an unthinkable 10 day stint into a slightly grating though bearable 8 days of library goodness [2018 edit: I believe there was a time a few years later that I worked 17 days in a row. Having grown up in Downriver Detroit, getting ready for work at all means "work day" so if I work 4 hours I might as well have just stayed for 10. Not that I did, but the feeling, dude.]

This is also Day 3 of a week-long Reference Question Tally. We do these twice a year in our department, which I understand is way better than the daily tallies others make, but it is the first time I've ever done this.

Being me, I usually go about unaffected by any kind of crazy questions or requests I get. But, now that I am forced to think about it, my humor radar is sharply attuned.
Here's a few choice questions I've heard in the past few days:

(Iron Fist Sold Separately): Welcoming environments

The first professional development I'll be giving (when I talk about The Boat) is tomorrow. Last night I wrote up some things I'll be saying to go along with the morning script, which was given to us but needs to be embellished a bit. I get to talk about two "principles" to mindfulness with patron interaction-- one is relating to a feeling powerlessness and another is creating welcoming environments.

Powerlessness: The script says to talk about "last week" when I saw a mom and kid in the grocery store: "I was the grocery store a few weeks ago. A woman had two toddlers and was talking out loud. She said, 'James, it is not my fault that you did not take your nap. I'm tired and I need one, too!'

We all have this happen, this powerlessness. People are doing the best they can with what they have!
We need to have compassion and understanding. We don't need to know the whole scenario, but it helps to remember."

A mean looking baby. Text says "you nap when I say"

Now, this is a fine story. But it didn't really happen to me, or to anyone I witnessed. I figured this was disingenuous,  and that the principle of "powerlessness" isn't about an objective understanding of the idea of powerlessness and more about recalling (probably hurtful) memories of times that we have felt powerless in order to empathize properly.

Here is what I am going to add. This is a true story:

Child Management. With an Iron Fist.

In the middle of the children's department at my library, there is a boat.

Yup. A boat.

Wall of a library that is a replica of the side of a steamboat.

This monstrosity lines the entire right (erm, starboard) side of the room with bright colors, steps and a facade that clearly screams: PLAY ON ME!

I hear it used to be worse. It used to have a steering wheel and I think paddles, and like, cannons, or something. Its safety has increased (there is now vinyl lining the steel sides, and the wheel was taken down after only two kids' heads got stuck and started bleeding). 

But the worst part about it, is it's a memorial. So that means, no matter how many times the staff can be like, "seriously, there's a boat in our library" it cannot be taken down.

I wish I was kidding or even remotely hyperbolic about any of this. Maybe there weren't any cannons, but really, that's it.

Story Action Pod: Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus!

The kids made another book at the Story Action Pod! This time it was based on Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus! by Mo Willems. This activity was a little more vague, and solicited a wide variety of responses. I decided to take a more narrative approach so that everything could be included and make a coherent story.

A laminated white page. Texts says, "Don't Let the Pigeon Drive
the Bus! by the kids at LPL." Pictures of Pigeon and the Bus Driver
are added to the right hand side of the page.

In-Room Kids Library Tour When You Don't Have Much Time or Space

I bring a lot of things that worked as an educator to my job. I actually bring it everywhere, because well, once you learn how people receive and retain information, it's easy to see it being employed (effectively and ineffectively) all around. It's pretty impossible to un-see it. So when I was charged with making a tour for elementary kids completely from scratch, I immediately started thinking about it like I would any lesson plan or even professional development. What do I want them to take away? What preconceived notions might they have that would keep them from learning meaningfully?

To jumpstart my thinking about these things, I turned to fellow FSU grad Tina, a school librarian in Orlando, FL (or, for those of you who have never lived in the South, "Disney World."). She brought up some really awesome points about how kids don't really know how to choose a book. Talking to her also got me thinking about why the kids would want to go to the public library, when I'm sure they might think, "I have a school library. I don't need another smelly old library." Basically, what's cool about the library? If you, the librarian, don't know what makes the kids' library awesome, it's hard to fake it and make it fun. I went about creating a "tour" that would work on debunking this preconceived notion. What follows is the write up I did for my coworkers:

Story Action Pod: A Completed Book of Kid Answers!

As you know I've pretty much downplayed the awesomeness of my Story Action Pod since its inception (no, no I never did).

White piece of paper taped to a binder.
Text reads, "If you Give a Mouse a Cookie...
and other awesome ideas
by the kids at Family Storytime and the Story Action Pod
Summer 2011

But lo, in the seventh week of the Summer Reading Program, it came to pass that kids' versions of "If You Give a Mouse a Cookie" were combined and bound. And it was good.