Unprogramming on FYI: The Public Libraries Podcast

Earlier this month, I chatted on the phone with Kathleen Hughes from PLA about the programming strategy developed by Marge Loch-Wouters and myself, unprogramming. That conversation was edited into a podcast. Like the kind you can download and listen to in the car or on the train. Super cool!

Check out my interview on FYI: The Public Libraries Podcast here, and definitely subscribe to the podcast using whatever platform you typically use for podcasts.

And if you're interested in reading more about unprogramming, here are some resources all gathered in one place:

Blog Posts Explaining Unprogramming, from Marge Loch-Wouters and Myself:

• Part 1: Programming Motivations & Pitfalls
• Part 2: What the Deuce Is It?
• Part 3: How to Unprogram & Free Yourself
• Part 4: The Recipe Revealed!
• Part 5: Why It Works!
• Part 6: A Collection of Unprograms & a Testimonial
• Part 7: Sharing the Goods
• Part 8: The End

Write-ups of Some of My Unprograms

• Family Forts After Hours
• Lost in Space!
• Percy Jackson
• Spy Club
• Steampunk
• Superheroes
• The Composer is Dead

The Many Tastes of Salsa

Every winter/early spring at my library is marked by our participation in a community-wide initiative, Coming Together in Skokie and Niles Township*. This year, the initiative is called ¡Viva! and the overall goal is to explore and learn about the diverse Latino cultures and experiences in our community.

Latino culture is not monolithic--there are myriad cultures, traditions, allegiances, and values underneath that larger term. And so in creating a program for youth that could begin to reflect this reality of nuance and multiculturalism, we looked to a concept shared by all: food. Here's the program that resulted.

The Many Tastes of Salsa

Photo by Skokie Public Library, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

I kicked off this program (aimed at elementary-age children and their families) with a bit of introduction. I asked attendees what types of foods they really like, what foods and flavors make them think of home and family. This line of conversation set the stage for the read-aloud for the program: Salsa: A Cooking Poem by Jorge Argueta. The gorgeous text, accompanied by beautiful illustrations by Duncan Tonatiuh, is the story of one child's family traditions around salsa--of making it every weekend, and of dancing to salsa music during the process. The short, lyrical book provides a basic introduction to what salsa is and how it is made, and along the way the reader/listener gets to learn the family and cultural significance of the dish in the child's life.

After the read-aloud, I projected some images onto our big screen to show many of the common elements and ingredients of making salsa. We talked about the common tools--molcajete and tejolote--and most common ingredients--tomatoes, onions, chilies, lime. Then we also explored other ingredients that go into the salsas of folks from different geographic and cultural Latino backgrounds. We talked about difference in spiciness; tomatoes versus tomatillos; additional flavors like garlic, corn, and fruit. We talked, in short, about how different folks have different go-to salsas, and how a single type of recipe can be adapted and embraced by lots of different people.

Photo by Skokie Public Library, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

Then the largest chunk of the program, and the part during which there was most natural social discussion: the salsa tasting. One of the major benefits of living in an area as diverse as Skokie and its surrounding towns and cities is the availability of great foods. For our tasting, we used a range of types of salsas, all made in-house by a local international produce shop. Using Chicago-made tortilla chips, kids tried a mild red salsa; salsa roja, with a bit more heat; a salsa with corn and beans added in; salsa verde made with tomatillos and dried chilies; a mango salsa; and a hot red salsa.

Photo by Skokie Public Library, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

Now, if you've never done programs for kids that involve food tastings, let me tell you two things I've learned: 1) kids who attend are by and large willing to try just about any foods; and 2) breaking bread--or, in this case, scooping salsa--together is the single best way I've found to nurture comfortable, kitchen table-style conversations among kids in the library. This program was no exception. Some kids came knowing a friend or a family member, but once the food was out at the tables, everyone was congenially talking to their tablemates--about favorite foods, family traditions, preference for spiciness, etc. Food can facilitate those social connections by providing us with shared experience and an opening for talking about something we have in common.

So that was the program: an exploration of how different cultural groups within a larger cultural identifier embrace a food and make it their own. Our conversations were rich, and our taste buds satisfied.

~~*~~

*For a bit of quick back story on Coming Together in Skokie and Niles Township: Skokie is extremely diverse (think 70+ languages spoken in our elementary schools), and the community currently includes, and has historically included, high numbers of immigrants. About 25 years ago, members of the community put together an annual initiative called the Festival of Cultures to celebrate this diversity. More recently--in 2010--community leaders wanted to add a large community initiative that would have more of an education component. That is, where the Festival of Cultures celebrates all the community's diversity, Coming Together focuses on an ethnic or cultural group with a major presence in Skokie to allow all community members opportunity to learn more about that group--their neighbors. 2015 was something of an outlier year, where instead of focusing in on a single culture or cultural group, we tackled race.

Librarianship on YouTube: How to Make a Volcano

Right now and through the month of April, we're exploring all things earth science in the BOOMbox. That means rocks, natural disasters, ecosystems... all sorts of exciting natural phenomena that are ripe for exploration. One of the hits of the BOOMbox: Earth rotation thus far has been our weekly Monday afternoon microworkshop on volcanos. Who doesn't love a good eruption?

You can find the basics of the microworkshop on the help site for the BOOMbox (click here). And if you want to make your very own volcano, just like ours? Well, lucky you--here's a video that shows you how to do just that, complete with elephant toothpaste eruption.



Don't forget to click through to this volcano frame template if you want to follow along--or feel free to build a volcano that satisfies your own craftiness!

Tabletop Coding, plus more resources for coding with kids from WisCode Literati

I'm a fan of coding and other computer science activities in libraries--and I hope more and more folks will be inspired in this area, too, what with President Obama requesting $4 billion in the next budget specifically for K-12 computer science (CS) education. I love that coding activities are simultaneously versatile and engaging. Also, there's some indication that those activities kids intentionally spend time on are the ones preparing them for future jobs we have yet to even imagine. That's a strong argument for making sure CS and coding are part of library offerings, if you ask me.

In my relatively short career thus far, I've had the opportunity to work in libraries with both limited and advanced tech materials when it comes to kids' programming. What hardware a library has access to certainly factors into what type of computer science programming they can offer, but hardware doesn't have to be correlated with your intent to program around coding. We can get kids started with fundamental coding concepts in plenty of no- and low-tech ways.

All you need for a simple coding
activity is a grid board, some
tokens, and blank index cards.

With that in mind, I put together a Tabletop Coding activity for elementary ages and older. I've offered it as one of a range of stations on our Afternoon of Code here at Skokie, but it can also be a standalone pop-up activity, a competitive program--you name it. The materials are simple: a gridded game board, like for chess or checkers; a few game pieces or other tokens; and 20+ blank index cards, plus a writing utensil. With these simple materials at your fingertips, you can get kids in the mindset for coding. Full details on running the activity are here.

You see, rather than specifically share this full program activity how-to here on the blog, I wrote it up for a tremendous, free coding resource made by and for librarians: WisCode Literati. Their website hosts a growing number of CS activities, called "kits," that cover the full spectrum from no-tech to high-tech activities. Basically, there's something there for every library to offer, regardless of the tech you have at your disposal. Each activity has a thorough description, most often with helpful pictures, to get library staffers at a point where their comfort level matches their enthusiasm for offering coding activities. You should check out all of the great program and activity ideas, all of which have been vetted by librarians.

What are some of your favorite coding resources?

Librarianship on YouTube: Milk Planets

Today is the third annual Family Science Expo at my library, and I'll be running one of the staff-led activity stations from our craft room. What type of science will we do in there, you ask? We're doing simple chemistry by making milk planets--colorful, milky reactions that end up looking like gas giants!

Watch the video below to find out how to do this simple activity yourself using some basic household materials.

Let's Talk! Babies Need Words Every Day - The Blog Tour

Hello, friends and fellow literacy warriors! I'm pleased as punch to be participating in Day 1 of the Babies Need Words Every Day Blog Tour.

In case you'd like a refresher, Babies Need Words Every Day is an ALSC initiative with the impetus to help libraries help families to reduce the 30 million word gap--that is, the massive gap in the number of words that a typical child from a lower socio-economic status (or SES) household hears as compared to a typical child in a higher SES*. And ALSC, with the hard work of their Early Childhood Programs & Services Committee, created 8 beautiful posters (in both English and Spanish) that cheerily invite parents with young children to engage in talking, reading, singing, and playing that will, as a result, facilitate a greater sharing of words with their children.

It's my pleasure today to talk about one of the posters focused on "Talk." And boy am I happy to do so, because my favorite early literacy messages of all time--in storytimes, in parent engagement programs, and to early childhood educators--are about all of the amazing things we can help children accomplish simply by talking to and with them. When we talk to and with children, they hear and learn new words. They are introduced to new concepts. They become able to piece together facts that they understand separately to form a fuller picture of the world they inhabit. They become able to make analogies to understand both concrete and abstract concepts. And they develop the tools to express themselves. All such major milestones in literacy development.

Did you know that "talk" doesn't necessarily get a huge amount of play in today's early childhood education landscape? A recent article in The Atlantic talked about the differences between typical preschool programs and the really high-quality ones--and illustrated that high-quality interactions do not have to be synonymous with high-cost programs. Whereas many programs focus on learning words for the sake of learning words, the best embrace the learning that comes from free talking and conversation:

"The real focus in the preschool years should be not just on vocabulary and reading, but on talking and listening. We forget how vital spontaneous, unstructured conversation is to young children’s understanding. By talking with adults, and one another, they pick up information. They learn how things work. They solve puzzles that trouble them." -Erika Christakis

So when I talk to caregivers about the importance of talk, I emphasize talking for the sake of learning--conversation for the sake of concept-building. Parents, especially those with very young, pre-talking children, can feel awkward talking to their little ones. Many think it feels silly to chatter on with and ask questions of their infant, especially anywhere in public. But it's so beneficial! I am always emphasizing the simple, language-building ways that a parent can talk with their child. That's one reason why I love the koala poster you see here: it's got a simple, adaptable rhyme. When a parent receives or sees this poster, they can learn the rhyme: "Way up high in the apple tree / Two little apples smiled at me / I shook that tree as hard as I could / Down came the apples / Mmmmmm--were they good!" That's a fun, simple rhyme to get a conversation started, say, at the grocery store. But it's also a template for more conversations. Substitute apples for your child's favorite food when you say the rhyme. Talk about things that grow on trees and where other foods come from. Talk about why things fall down. TALK!

I encourage you to encourage the caregivers in your library and your community in the same ways. Print off the posters that you think will most appeal to your community (who wouldn't love the gorgeous artwork by Il Sung Na??). Hang them in your library, or hand them out at storytimes. At the very least, challenge yourself to have a conversation with caregivers about each of the practices emphasized by Babies Need Words Every Day.

Families need library workers who know that babies need words every day. Be that library worker! Check out all of the stops on the Babies Need Words Every Day Blog Tour for lots of resources and ideas.

How do you talk about talk in your library?

*Yes, it's true that bridging this gap alone will likely not completely solve all the problems--those 30 million fewer words are likely a correlation to a lower kindergarten readiness and reading achievement, not a causation. But study after study shows that efforts to increase early literacy through talking/vocabulary/background knowledge are, in fact, successful. The way I see it, Babies Need Words Every Day is an awfully impactful, low-effort tool to help us do just that.

Early Elementary STEAM: Vegetable (& Fruit) Prints

We have two-month program cycles at my library, and during each cycle, we aim to have formal, registered STEAM program opportunities for each of the age ranges in my purview as Youth & Family Program Coordinator--that is, preschool, early elementary (K-2nd), and older elementary (3rd-5th). When we can, the other youth programming staff and I like to tie in the themes and concepts in these age-specific programs to align with the theme in the BOOMbox, our STEAM space. The following program activity aligned with our recent Textiles rotation, where folks of all ages explore sewing, weaving, prints, dying, knitting, batik, and more.

Vegetable Prints

Target age: kindergarten through second grade (our room fits about 16 comfortably)

Key concepts: print-making; visual thinking; shapes of fruits and vegetables from different perspectives

Supplies:

• tempera (or other washable--trust me, this gets messy) paint, in an assortment of colors
• vegetables and fruits of different types, sizes, and shapes (for the best result, cut them into halves/pieces at least 6 hours in advance of the program to allow the exposed edges to harden a bit)
• heavy paper (like construction or watercolor paper) and/or fabric squares
• trays to hold the paint
• paintbrushes
• cups with water to rinse brushes
• paper toweling for blotting wet brushes

Once kids were settled into our craft room for the program, I encouraged kids to put on painting smocks in anticipation of the mess. Then I prompted them to look at the materials on the tables. What did they see? Could they identify the different fruits and vegetables? Could they make any guesses at what we'd be doing with the materials in front of them?

After kids were clear that we'd be exploring print-making with paint and natural materials, we talked for a few minutes about what different shapes, patterns, and prints the different fruits and veg would make if painted and applied to the paper/fabric in different ways. I encouraged kids to pick up the veg pieces to look at them from different perspectives, trying to imagine the prints each side would make.

Then it was time to make some prints! We started off with everyone applying paint to their chosen fruits and veg using the paintbrushes, but after a while most kids defaulted to dipping their natural materials straight into the paint. (Told you it would get messy!)

We did this as a 45-minute program, and an integral part of using that full time frame was having multiple surfaces on which the kids could make prints. Everyone started off with a small sheet of paper to get a hang of the technique, then after maybe 10-15 minutes they each got a larger sheet of paper to plan out a larger, more intricate print (if they wanted). We talked about patterns and repetition, color choices, and other factors that print-makers consider at this point. Then, the final 15-20 minutes were spent with kids diligently creating a final print on a piece of muslin fabric. The idea was for the dried fabric to serve as a wall or door hanging, so we attached dowels with string to the top of each child's fabric so that the finished print could be displayed more easily.

It was so interesting to me to see how different kids really connected with different aspects of this activity. Some were totally into color mixing, while others favored a consistent palate. Some wanted to get the full effect of a single veg or two from every angle (a sort of natural cubism), while others wanted to explore every single shape and texture available. By the end, one or two kids even started repurposing the veg as paintbrushes, using them to draw and write on their final prints. Simple activity, so many possibilities!