November Milk & Cookies Story Morning

November marks my ninth monthly Saturday morning Milk & Cookies Story Morning, and the program looks to have developed quite a following. Month after month, I see a combination of familiar faces who express total excitement at the prospect of story time. I also continue to see plenty of new faces, usually accompanied by caregivers who tell me how grateful they are to have a Saturday library program option for their little ones. When I was in library school, one of my professors advised that any new program should be given at least a 6-month trial before deeming it successful or not; nine months in to Milk & Cookies Story Morning, I feel I can start to say that this program is something much needed and appreciated by the community I aim to serve.

Opening Song: "Open, Shut Them"

Story: Tiptoe Joe by Ginger Foglesong Gibson, illustrations by Laura Rankin
     This simple rhyming story invites audience participation, so we all stood up to follow Joe, a bear, as he tiptoed through the forest to share a secret with his friends. Page turns bring a new animal to identify, including a fun sound for the animal's footfalls. These animal sounds just beg to be acted out, and the kiddos are happy to oblige. Discovering Joe's secret at the end of the story doesn't fail to delight, either. Give kids some space to stand up and have their feet make different sounds when you read this one--a perfect opportunity for play.

Song: "Bluegrass Jamboree" by Hap Palmer
     Since we were already standing for the preceding story, we kept standing up to dance along to this song. It includes simple, fun actions as the song lyrics, and the strong beat of the song helps pump up enthusiasm.

Song: "I Can Shake My Shaker Egg" by Mr. Eric and Mr. Michael
     After passing out shaker eggs, I explained to the kiddos that we would try to shake our eggs along to the beat of the song--if the song was slow, we would shake slow; and if the song was fast, we would shake fast. The dramatic increase in tempo of this song set to a classical music staple provides a perfect background for reinforcing rhythm.

Story: There's Something in My Attic by Mercer Mayer
     Before I started this story, we talked about a few things. First, where in a house is an attic? Did anyone in attendance have an attic at their houses? We also talked about how things can happen in stories that cannot happen in real life. When I've got some younger kids in a program in which we're going to read a story that might be interpreted as scary, I always talk about how these stories are made up and that pretend things can only happen inside the pages. By the time we got to the end of the story, kids were twirling their pretend lassos with nary a nightmare fear in sight.

Song: "Five Little Ducks"
    Our song cube landed with the illustration of five ducks facing upward, which meant we would sing "Five Little Ducks." We all practiced showing numbers on our fingers, and we had great fun making big, huge quacking noises to bring the little ducks back home.

Story: The Gingerbread Man by Beatrice Rodriguez
     The simple, sometimes-silly illustrations in this version of The Gingerbread Man are quite delightful lend plenty of opportunity to talking about the pictures. Most of my attendees had not heard this folktale before--a fact that doesn't shock me as much as it used to, that kids aren't familiar with classic tales. By the end of our reading, though, they were reciting the refrain with me like pros. I've said it before, and I'll say it again: these folktales are classics for a reason, and their pacing and building of suspense are often exquisite. That, combined with the fact that kids need a basic knowledge of these tales to understand many, many things in life, is why I always strive to include a folktale when I can.

Rhyme: "Five Little Monkeys Sitting in a Tree"
     Together, we sang and told the story of the five monkeys in the tree and the alligator using Marge's terrific sign language version. Even the younger kids in the group caught along on several of the signs, and the excitement of seeing that alligator's jaws open wide was quite thrilling.

Milk and Cookies Time!
     We enjoyed Teddy Grahams and either 2% milk or 100% apple juice. I've learned to pour just a bit of drink in each cup to start in order to minimize both spills and waste.

Free Play Time
     Our four play stations for the day took advantage of the early literacy play kits currently residing at my branch for November. In addition to our perennial favorite wooden garage-and-cars station, we had foam building blocks; play fruit that can be slices with a play knife, a pencil, or other thin implements; and a variety of magnets (alphabet, dinosaurs, vehicles, animals) with magnetic boards. This variety of play items worked well with the age range of attendees. While younger kids veered toward the blocks and garages, older ones sliced and matched fruit and vegetables or created their own magnetic stories. I was lucky enough to get private readings of a number of these stories, and they were extremely well plotted.

Life-Size Chutes and Ladders

I've seen several blog posts from librarians who have offered life-size Candy Land programs for their preschoolers. As whimsical as these programs looked, I must admit I found the idea of transforming my library's multi-purpose meeting room entirely into Candy Land--then immediately tearing it down before the evening's homeowners association meeting--incredibly daunting. The idea of a life-size game really stuck with me, however, and I put it in my Google doc of back-burner ideas.

The meeting room turned into a
Chutes & Ladders game board

I finally figured out a life-size game that made sense to an unprogramming-inclined librarian like me: Chutes and Ladders! The game is a classic for kids, it's pretty self explanatory, and it doesn't require its own world for real enjoyment. Earlier this week, I offered our Life-Size Chutes and Ladders program to school-age kids in my library. We had a dozen kids participate--a perfect number for a first go at a life-size game. Here's what we did.

Room setup - With help from a page, I moved the tables to the back of our meeting room. With chairs along the walls for spectating caregivers, the bulk of the floorspace was wide open. I grabbed stacks of construction paper in red, yellow, green, and blue, as well as a roll of book tape, some yarn, and a roll of electrical tape. I used book tape on the back of construction paper to make the game board path. Chutes were made of yarn and connected two colored spaces on the board. Ladders were made out of electrical tape, and they also connected two colored spaces on the board. I set up the game board with 50 colored spaces, 4 chutes, and 4 ladders to start. (If you anticipate a bunch of kids or want shorter gameplay, decrease the number of spaces on the board.) I also set out a table with some of our books with kids' games.

How to play - As kids came into the program, I had them make name signs for themselves. Each sign had a number, starting with 1, and I asked the kids to wear their signs around their necks with the assistance of yarn and a hole punch. The numbers were so I could make sure everyone took turns in order. On a child's turn, he or she would spin a game spinner borrowed from Twister; the Twister spinner has each of the four game colors on it, and it told the child what game space to move to. If he landed on red, he moved to the next red space. If she landed on green, she moved to the next green space. Once on their new spaces, the kids looked to see if they found themselves on a chute or a ladder. If they did, they moved accordingly. Finishing the game meant spinning a color no longer left in front of you.

Keeping the game going - With a dozen kids all starting from the same space, the game was a big congested at first. After about three rounds of turns, though, the human game pieces were really starting to spread out. Everyone was a good sport about chutes (even the boy who repeatedly said, and I quote: "This is the worst day ever!"*), and ladders were very exciting. That said, it took about 30 minutes of gameplay before the first child finished the course. That child got to choose a book from a prize cart and then start back at the beginning. I also took this half-way point opportunity to do a few things: 1) tell the kids to stay on their squares, then give everyone a roll of Smarties for a Smarties break; 2) talk about how game designers test their games over and over again to make sure it's not too easy and not too hard; and 3) remove a chute and add a few ladders. We kept playing after the Smarties break, and as other children finished the course, I kept removing chutes and adding ladders. These modifications really excited the kids--where would there be a new ladder?!?--and also served to help move the game forward. By the time our hour for the program was up, every child had successfully finished the course and chosen a prize book to take home.

How it went - The Life-Size Chutes and Ladders game went really well. Kids stayed engaged throughout the process, and they didn't grumble about waiting their turns or sliding down a chute. They were all really excited to be able to make it to the end of the course, which kept them all motivated and engaged. Caregivers were into the whole experience, too, because the game was very low-key. There was no single winner, and thus no competition to sour attitudes or fighting to get loud. One caregiver even pointed out how the whole game was a sort of exercise in patience and delayed gratification, all wrapped up in a gameplay bow. Children were genuinely excited to see what their spins would dictate, and they relished choosing their books at the end.

Never underestimate the appeal of books as prizes.

If you want to do this program... I highly recommend it! I would encourage you to think about a balance between number of participants and length of the program; this program worked well for us with around a dozen kids so everyone stayed engaged over the course of the hour. I'd also encourage you to be very flexible with the chutes and ladders you create--having a free hand with adding and removing them during the game can help move things along nicely. Lastly, never underestimate the power of books as prizes. Use those leftovers from the summer reading game, or galleys, or whatever you've got--going home with a book to keep is golden.


*His mom told me he says that about at least three different things each day. When he finished Chutes & Ladders, he appropriately switched to saying it was the "best day ever!"

October Milk & Cookies Story Morning

I took a detour from my usual Milk & Cookies Story Morning for this month. My planning process was starting to feel a bit too formulaic, which was harshing my story time juju. I decided to go ahead and put together a story time with a different set of goals for myself: use picture books of the "new books" shelf at my library and sneak in early literacy messages about all five practices. The challenge was invigorating for me, with fun interactive results for the kiddos.

Opening Song: "Open, Shut Them"

Story: Ghost in the House by Ammi-Joan Paquette, illustrated by Adam Record
     This rhyming counting story is excellent for those looking to add a spooky story to story time without being explicitly Halloween. A ghost starts out in a house all alone, but he hears various eerie noises--a groan, a growl, and shriek--and one by one he's joined by other monster characters. Don't worry, though; the illustrations are cartoonish and not frightening. The kids had lots of fun mimicking the sounds of the monsters, especially the click-clack of a skeleton. This is a great story all on its own, but it would pair really well with Go Away, Big Green Monster to emphasize monsters are nothing to be afraid of.

*Talking Tip: Imitating the creatures we see in books helps children become familiar with the range of sounds that occur in spoken and written language; their familiarity with all sorts of sounds will help them when it comes time to sound out words.

Song: "Monster Boogie" by Laurie Berkner
     We danced around like monsters to this fun, silly song from one of my favorite musicians for story time. RAWR!

Song: "Dancing Scarf Blues" by Carole Peterson (with scarves)
     I handed out scarves to all the kiddos in the room, then we shook those scarves with gusto as suggested by the song. What a great way to get the energy pumping!

*Singing Tip: Singing repetitive songs with children is great because they reinforce new and important vocabulary. Our song included lots of words about directions: around, side, front, back, high, low. We learned all those words while having fun!

Story: Tea Party Rules by Ame Dyckman, illustrated by K.G. Campbell
     It's no secret that I loved Dyckman's Boy + Bot, and her newest story is another great look at an unlikely friendship. Cub, a young bear, stumbles upon a tea party table with lots of cookies, but the tea party hostess--a young girl--has several rules to which Cub must adhere before he can get to the cookies. The expressive pictures add to the humor of this story. I wrap up the story by asking the kids what they would like to play: tea party or bear.

*Playing Tip: When children play, they get to experience the world and how it works in a safe space. Playing tea party or pretending to be a bear is really a learning exercise; they get to practice table manners, try out having claws, and use all sorts of words that go with special scenarios.

Song: "I'm a Little Teapot"
     After three tosses and a roll of the song cube, we were prompted to sing this classic song which paired perfectly with the preceding story. Serendipity!

Song: "Five Little Ducks"
     Another toss of the song cube led us to sing the fingerplay of "Five Little Ducks." We worked on getting our fingers to show the appropriate number of ducks, and we had plenty of fun quacking loudly as the mamma duck.

Story: I Spy on the Farm by Edward Gibbs
     This companion to I Spy With My Little Eye contains a great variety of farm animals to spy and guess. Kids are prompted to guess the spied animal by its color and the sound it makes, just like in the companion book, with one great addition: the text says the letter the animal begins with. When sharing this story, I like to say (for a duckling, as an example): "This animal starts with 'D.' Can you use your finger to draw a 'D'? The 'D' makes a 'duh' sound." I love the added element of drawing letters.

*Writing Tip: Writing together doesn't have to mean using pencil and paper. Your child can draw in the air, in bubbles in the bathtub, or in a pan of uncooked rice--these are all great ways to get familiar with creating and recognizing letters.

Song: "We're Going to Kentucky"
     What can I say? I just love this song, and so do the kids, and thus I will happily repeat it a second month in a row.

*Reading Tip: Don't forget that there are lots of books on display next to me that you can check out and read at home! Reading together with your child is a great way to have fun together, and it also promotes a love of words and reading in your child. If you show that you enjoy reading together, your child will love it, too!

Milk and Cookies Time!
     Honey Teddy Grahams and 2% milk. Mmm.

Free Play Time
     I set up four free play stations on the play side of our meeting room: vehicles and garages; play food; puzzles and writing; and science, with magnets, scale, and creature building. One mom in attendance told the whole group that our local fire house was having an event that same day: all the fire trucks would be out of the station and kids could tour them and find out more about being firefighters. That tip meant most of the families didn't stay to play for much longer than 20 minutes--they all wanted to head over to the first station. We had a great time while the kiddos were in the room, however, and I engaged in quite a few conversations with the children about what they were doing. I got plenty of insight into how a child works through a puzzle. Fascinating!

July Milk & Cookies Story Morning

For this month's edition of my library's Milk & Cookies Story Morning, a great group of mostly 2- to 4-year-olds gathered in the programming room. It's been hot here in Missouri, so families willing to brave the heat to come to the library enjoy getting to relax in our air-conditioned spaces for a while. I'm happy to give them opportunities for hanging around in a program like this:

Opening Song: "Open, Shut Them"

Story: The Watermelon Seed by Greg Pizzoli
     This bright, simply illustrated picture book hits on a topic that doesn't seem too far-fetched to most youngsters: a crocodile who loves watermelon accidentally swallows a seed, and he's worried he's got a watermelon growing in his belly. This book offers great opportunities for talking about what seeds need to grow, what happens when you swallow something, etc., as well as a perfect invitation for giggles when the crocodile gives a giant burp.

Song: "We're Going to Kentucky"
     I learned this song at Guerrilla Storytime at #ala2013, and I've used it many times since. For this story morning group, I handed out egg shakers to accompany our shaking as per the song's instructions. We sang the song three times due to its popularity, with the final verse sung quickly enough to prompt us all to fall down dizzy at the end.

Story: The Kissing Hand by Audrey Penn, from Oceanhouse Media
     This book app shares the story of Chester as his mother helps him overcome his nervousness about going to school. This story has long been a classic for a reason, and I decided to share it this time because preschools will be starting up again soon. I projected the app in its "Read it Myself" mode, which allowed me to go through the app at a pace that suited the children in attendance. I read the story with the help of my own Chester raccoon puppet, whose paw the kids enjoyed kissing after the story. How's that for transmedia storytelling?

Songs: "I'm a Little Teapot" and "The Itsy Bitsy Spider"
     We rolled the song cube to see what song we would sing next as a group. After twice singing "I'm a Little Teapot," the kids asked to roll the song cube again. I of course obliged, and we launched into an enthusiastic rendition of "The Itsy Bitsy Spider."

Story: Little Rabbit Foo Foo by Michael Rosen and Arthur Robins
     For the folk/fairytale portion of our story morning, I decided to share this great version of "Little Bunny Foo Foo," a song it appears many children no longer hear from their caregivers. This small book boasts so many fantastic qualities and early literacy opportunities: it's got great vocabulary ("attitude," "goblins"); it reinforces counting; it's got a repetitive style that draws kids into participating and helps them remember the story; it can be sung; and it's got a bit of silliness mixed in with the moral.

Milk and Cookies Time!
     We enjoyed some cinnamon Teddy Grahams and milk immediately after finishing our storytime portion of the morning. Mmm!

Free Play Time
     As with previous implementations of this program, I set out a variety of my library's educational and open-ended children's toys for the free exploration of the children in attendance. The science station was once again a hit, especially the magnets. Also extremely popular were the library's new alphabet machines, which I decided to purchase after reading a great testimonial about the toys in someone else's library (I can't remember on whose blog I read about it; that bookmark got lost in the transition-from-Google-Reader shuffle. [Update: the original post was on Anna's blog. Thanks to reader Amanda who pointed me to the post!]). I saw kids and caregivers identifying letters, naming images, creating patterns--really, these things are quite versatile.

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How have you been incorporating play for preschoolers at your library this summer?

Early Literacy Play Kits: Adding more play to your library system

Play is an integral component of developing reading readiness. Folks have been touting that belief for a while, and the inclusion of "play" as one of five early literacy practices in the revised Every Child Ready to Read solidified it as fact. Play is fun, sure, but it's also a developmentally appropriate way for children to map concepts onto words. It's one thing to know the word for "train"; play allows children to learn what a train is and what it does. Play is very important.

All 12 kits, ready to go to branches.

If you're like pretty much every library I've ever been to, though--including my own--you don't necessarily have a lot of room to inject many more opportunities for play into your library. And then you have to consider the cost of toys and space for storage, too. These considerations are obstacles, but they are absolutely surmountable. How?

Early Literacy Play Kits.

In my library district, we created twelve distinct Early Literacy Play Kits--enough for one to be at each of our twelve branches every month of the year. These kits are basically boxes of toys: there's a puppet kit with three boxes of puppets, a puzzle kit, a play food kit, a baby activities kit... Our team of children's librarians had some lively discussions about what types of toys we would like to incorporate in our branches if we had funds and space, and we created our list of twelve theme kits from there. We were able to collaborate and select items that we knew would be used by children in our libraries.

We selected kits that cover the whole pre-reader spectrum. We've got baby-safe stations like bead mazes; juggling scarves and wrist ribbons perfect for dancing two- and three-year-olds; blocks for children of every age; and a mailbox to encourage writing among the set who are really into working on their letters. We intentionally tried to incorporate dramatic play, basic math, letter recognition, and diverse vocabulary across the spectrum of all our kits.

The free play station in Picture Book City at my branch.

The beauty of these Early Literacy Play Kits is twofold. 1) A branch only has to find space to store one kit per month, yet it benefits from having twelve different sets of toys in the branch every calendar year. 2) A branch can use its monthly kit however it chooses: in programs, set out in the children's area, by internet computers to keep young ones productively entertained while the caregiver is online... Possibilities are limited only by staff imagination. In October, for example, my branch had one of our food kits, which includes placemats, plastic dishes, and some play food. Throughout the month my staff and I used the play food at the end of some of our programs for free play. We also had a few place settings and a play pizza out in the children's area all month. Boy was that table popular, with kids of all ages serving up slices for their siblings and caregivers.

Is your interest piqued, but you're afraid the process of purchasing, creating, sharing, and maintaining the kits is too burdensome? Let me assure you that the logistics of the kits aren't that difficult.

I love toy deliveries.

• Purchasing: After securing a $3000 grant from our Library Foundation, our selected toys were purchased and delivered to my branch.
• Creation: Volunteers helped label every toy piece with the library's initials, and I separated our toys into plastic containers with locking lids. The final containers contain box inventories, age and cleaning recommendations, and a schedule of the kit rotation--everyone always knows what kit they'll have which month.
• Sharing: Each branch has a kit for a month, at which point the kit travels to its next branch via our delivery crew (they already run materials and supplies deliveries every day, so the addition of a kit or two doesn't add undue strain on the system).
• Maintenance: Staff are responsible for using the kits as they see fit, then cleaning and inventorying the boxes at the end of each month before sending it on its way. Once a year, all kits will return to me to update inventories and order replacement items if necessary.

It's really pretty simple: a variety of toys that promote early literacy while requiring minimal work and space constraints. Give Early Literacy Play Kits a try in your library system. I would bet you'll hear positive things from staff--who have new, fun items to use in programs--as well as kids and caregivers who enjoy the toys in your children's spaces.

Incorporate more play in your library!

Toys and Noise

Choo-choo! The train is coming around the bend!
Choo-choo!

I have learned that toys and noise go hand in hand. And I tell you, friends, that is a good thing.

Let me say from the get-go that I think it is extremely important to have toys available for children to interact with in the library. This philosophy applies to all child-utilized spaces in the library, both in programs and outside of them. As a result, I have toys available 24/7 in the children's area of my library.

As result, the children's area is usually not quiet. That's not to say there is screaming--tantrums are actually rather few and far between, and very few children fight over toys. Instead, my staff and I hear great noises. Kid noises. Learning noises.

Daddy! Look what I drew! A car!

Children develop by interacting with the world around them, and one of my goals is to provide plenty of opportunities for positive interactions in the library. Lots of times these interactions are with books and stories and librarian-mediated activities, but other times the interactions happen when children find things to explore just by looking around them. Noise in the children's area is evidence that learning can and does take place at any moment in the library--early literacy skills are constantly developing and sharpening.

Those happy noises of kids playing and enjoying themselves also betray the development of something else: a lifelong love of the library and the fun that can be had there. And if that's not worth an occasional outburst of the ABCs--sung preschool opera style, of course--then, well, you can shush me.

#ala12: Toys in the Library

Saturday morning I attended an ALSC-sponsored program entitled "You Want Me to Circ WHAT?! or How to Best Utilize Toys as a Literacy Tool in Programs and as a Fun Part of Your Lending Collection."

Mr. Rogers is credited with the phrase "Play is the work of childhood." A grand statement, and one libraries can use to inform programs and collections--especially in light of the revised Every Child Ready to Read, which includes play as one of the five practices to promote early literacy. Toys are a great, child-approved way to integrate play into the library, and this session had quite a few ideas for making that happen:

• No space is too small for incorporating toys into the library. Whether you have a room, a playhouse, a closet, a table, or just a bit of room under some shelves, you can add toys successfully. Wall panels work, too.
• A small selection of toys is just as beneficial as a huge variety. A child engages with one toy at a time, so a box of puzzles is just as satisfying to a child as a roomful of different items.
  
• Have programs that highlight play and give plenty of opportunities for kids to play with the library's toys. Start off with a short book and a song, then spend the rest of the program letting kids and caregivers go to play stations. Ideas include playdoh, blocks, letters, etc., all with brief instructions for interacting with the toys.
• Adapt activities for older children, too; they also benefit cognitively from play, and making play a family affair does more to ensure play will continue outside of the library. Supporting play outside of the library is another great reason to have toys in the library, as families can take home new things they might not get to play with otherwise.

How does your library bring toys and play into the library?