Have a BUNCH of new ideas coming at you over the next couple of days and weeks. Gonna start with a little bit of a crazy one for Lego Club. Like I said in my Lego Club management post here, I always take photos at the end of Lego Club with my kiddos and what... Continue Reading →
This one came to me a little randomly. I often ask kiddos to make 3 or 4 panel comics as one of the learning activities for our Summer Learning Program. Comics are an easy way to both tell a story and exercise your artistic muscles. As I'm sure you know, kids love telling stories with... Continue Reading →
I got this idea while viewing the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library in DC this year. In their children's library, they had a map handouts of their children's library that doubled as not only a coloring sheet but a look-and-find page. Perfect! Mine was really easy to make. All I did was scan our... Continue Reading →
I heard about impact stories in passing while attending ALA Annual in July 2022. Since then, I feel it can be a game changer to how you not only handle story time, but also marketing, outreach, and just how you see yourself in the library. Think of impact stories as just a positive survey, or... Continue Reading →
Dungeons & Dragons and other RPG games have become increasingly popular recently in libraries. It's a great way to engage with kids, but can cause some logistical problems. First, getting a good group together can be hard, as everyone may have different levels of experience. There's also different personality types to contend with, some people... Continue Reading →
Scavenger hunts are always an easy win. But cutting out all your Waldos or whatever, and placing them around the library can be a pain. That's why setting up a "permanent" scavenger hunt can be a huge time-saver. It's great for rainy days or large groups too!! I got this idea from the Milwaukee Art... Continue Reading →
It's been awhile, but I have a new Lego challenge idea! Was looking through my old challenges and came up with an idea similar to my Monster Mash-Up challenge I did a few years back. So this idea is about building a Mirror World! So you'd build one half of a car, or an animal,... Continue Reading →
When I started at my new library, one of the first things I did was change my summer reading program to a summer learning program. Our old program might have looked like yours. For every hour or every number of pages, you got raffle tickets. More you read, the more you got. It felt like... Continue Reading →
I'm back! Really looking forward to blogging again here and there. Took some time off to focus on Newbery, plus there wasn't a whole lot of programming happening over the pandemic. But looking forward to thinking of some new ideas, and passing the savings on to you! In the meantime, I'm reblogging a interview I... Continue Reading →
Over the summer, I was struggling with how to do programming that would be safe for our community and our kiddos. Like many of you, I decided to do an outdoor scavenger hunt, but I put a little bit of a spin on it. Similar to the "The Amazing Space Race" idea I did a... Continue Reading →