We focused on winter themes for the bulletin boards this month. Some of the boards from past months have been left up and/or enhanced to give them new life in the new year. I wasn't able to snap pictures of them before since I was on medical leave, so I'm glad they stayed up long enough for me to document them!
"I have a dream" board for MLK's birthday
"Discover a New Land" with various mythical doors. Tardis, Twilight Zone, Monster's Inc, Platform 9-3/4, and a Hobbit home door
A Happy New Year fireworks board
Very cool sci fi moon
YAAS! 2020 advertisement
It wouldn't be our boards without a little punny wordplay
A snowy welcome as patrons enter the Children's Area
Winter friends
These three added snow to our existing mushroom gnome homes from November
Programming librarians rarely have free time on the clock to work on other projects, but we do our best to help each other when it's possible. I'm on a part-time schedule at the moment while recovering from spinal surgery, but I still had enough time (just barely!) to cover my coworker's program while she's on leave. I don't usually post programs that weren't my own idea from beginning to end, but this one is an exception because I used my coworker's plan as a jumping off point to execute my own semi-original program.
The original concept was a semi-structured dramatic play program with a storytime at the beginning. I was nervous about it because my programming style is usually minimalist, plus I've been finding it difficult to move a lot of things around since surgery, and there were about a million items involved in the original plan. Supplies included several kitchen- and baking-related play sets, a sensory bin of tiny pom poms that kids could use to "measure ingredients," chef hats and aprons to dress up in, and a cash register so they could pretend to work in a bakery. Luckily, I have some AMAZING teen volunteers who set up most of the toys the night before, and a couple who showed up on the day of the program to help me out.
Bakery Storytime
Hello: "Hello, Hello"
Warm up motor skills: "Open, Shut Them"
Story: Baby Cakes by Theo Harris
Movement Songs: "Do You Know the Muffin Man" and "Milkshake"
Since there aren't any traditional gestures that I know of for the Muffin Man song, we practiced singing and clapping on the beat. It worked out great as a baking-theme song!
Felt Story: Down Around the Corner
I like to do this story with a hand puppet because he's our friend who buys the donuts. The more you act it out with your puppet, the more involved the audience gets!
Down around the corner at the bakery shop
Were five donuts with sprinkles on top.
Along came a friend with a dollar to pay,
And he took one donut away!
(Have your puppet "eat" a donut and put it away. Ask the group to help you count the remaining donuts. Repeat the rhyme with four donuts, then three, two, and one.)
These aren't my felt donuts, but they look a lot like them!
Final Song: "Follow the Leader" by Ella Jenkins
This song is mellow and chills out a storytime audience as if by magic. I wanted to use it to gently transition from storytime to playtime, and it worked pretty well!
Sugar Plum Bakery Playtime
Gingerbread people foam craft before patrons arrived
If you want to learn about the original conception and mission of this program, read my What is YAAS? post. TL;DR: It's a weekly group for youth age 14+ where we do community service work, library programs, host guest presenters, and make connections with peers in a safe and welcoming environment.
Tonight was another art night, and this one added a community service aspect since we painted a bunch of bookends for our library's teen area! We looked at pictures of similar projects done by other libraries to get ideas, and then used acrylic and Tempra paint to make these gorgeous bookends. After they were dry, I sprayed all of them with a clear sealant before adding the,m to the shelves so the artwork will last as long as possible.
If you want to learn about the original conception and mission of this program, read my What is YAAS? post. TL;DR: It's a weekly group for youth age 14+ where we do community service work, library programs, host guest presenters, and make connections with peers in a safe and welcoming environment.
This week my favorite human Anna came back to group and showed us the basics of using pastels. Why, you may ask?
1. Pastels are cool
2. Art is never a bad thing
3. We had pastels
4. I don't know how to use pastels
That was basically the logic behind this program. I wanted to utilize supplies we already had and I have an artist friend. Yes, intentional and aware programming us usually my jam, but I think it's just as valid to plan for practicality.
After a short lesson on the white board where Anna showed us different types of strokes that pastels are best for, the teens were turned loose!
If you're wondering about the gourds on the table, Anna brought them from her garden in case anyone felt like drawing an autumn still life.
