Grandparents Day Celebration

Make A Grandparents Day Card 2017

Grandparents Day is the second Sunday in September. I like to celebrate it at the library on the preceding Friday or Saturday. Last year, I made it mostly about making cards. This year I had a volunteer who is a professional card maker and brought two people to help at her card station, but I decided to open up the activities and make it a more inclusive program. I set out a book display with a cozy reading corner for families to read together (all books somehow featuring grandparents, of course), and I also set out some puzzles and activities.

I did experience a roadblock during this program, which I think are important to acknowledge so you can work around them in future programs. I was overzealous in my expectation of how many people would attend. We got about 40, which was far under my estimation of 100. I scheduled three teen volunteers in addition to the one adult volunteer card maker. I didn't realize she would also bring two people to help her. So I had six people, seven including myself, working this program. There's no reason to have a 1:5 ratio between staff members and patrons in a drop-in program. It did turn out okay, though, because the teens had a good time making cards and interacting with the kids and families who attended.

So, I learned the lesson of not counting your chickens (patrons) before they hatch (attend). The positive spin on this is the people who attended had a good time, read some books, did some puzzles, and made some gorgeous cards. I guess this program can be considered intentionally intergenerational, since my aim was for kids and grandparents to spend time together in the same space. I saw some happy faces and creative cards leaving the room, so I'd say it was a successful program even though fewer people attended than expected.

Cozy reading area

Card station in action

Teen volunteers making cards after the program

Valentine's Day Party

I have to start by telling you how many people came to this program, because I still can't quite believe it myself: 111! That's not a typo. There were one hundred and eleven people in the children's area of our library this morning!

I think the high attendance was helped by the fact that we had this party directly after Toddler Time. But, I also think our fun seasonal parties have been talked up, and the news has spread among local parenting circles after our extremely successful Snow Day program (which I did not write up because I didn't really have a hand in planning it... But I probably will next year, so stay tuned until December 2018).

Our Valentine's Day Party had four major components: book display, refreshments, Valentine card making, and games.

For the cards, we set out art supplies and some die-cut hearts and other shapes. The refreshments were those delicious soft grocery store sugar cookies, and juice boxes. Neither of these need much more explanation, and I also forgot to take any pictures (I was too busy counting all ONE HUNDRED AND ELEVEN of our guests!).

We also had two games available to play: Valentine I Spy, and Pin the Kiss on the Frog.

Here are the Valentine I Spy pages procured from Live Laugh Row, printed on 8.5x11 paper and left on tables for kids to play together, alone, or with their grownups:

Pin the Kiss on the Frog was more of a group game, and unfortunately it did not get played. However, Mr. Frog made a great party decoration, and has now found a semi-permanent home on our Spring Into the Library bulletin board display.

The kids had a great time making valentines and eating their treats. I even saw a few books get checked out!

Here is a partial list of the Valentine's books we displayed:

• It’s Valentine’s Day—Prelutsky 
• Groggle’s Monster Valentine—Murray 
• I Love You, Dear Dragon—Hillert 
• Here Comes Valentine Cat—Underwood 
• It’s Valentine’s Day, Chloe Zoe!—Smith 
• Love You Always—Chapman 
• Mr. Goat’s Valentine—Bunting 
• Happy Valentine’s Day, Mouse!—Numeroff 
• A Crankenstein Valentine—Berger 
• Llama Llama I Love You—Dewdney 
• The Yuckiest, Stinkiest, Best Valentine Ever—Ferber 
• Panda’s Valentine’s Day—Morrow 

Toddler Time 2-14-18

Today, for the first time since I started working in Mesa, I used a NEW HELLO SONG in Toddler Time! I got this song from my programming partner Sara. This song is a capella; no background music means the kids and parents have to sing along louder. It's also got built in movements with it, and those movements help you keep the beat while you're singing!

I use totally different lyrics, but this video will give you an idea of the tune:

Here are the lyrics we use here:

This is the way we wave hello,
Wave hello, wave hello.
This is the way we wave hello,
Hello, hello, hello.

Repeat with clap, tap (stomping feet), and then close it out with another chorus of wave.

Another reason I love this song is it lends itself perfectly to a goodbye song as well. At the end of storytime, the kids are already familiar with the goodbye song even if it's their first time!

After out new hello song, we continued with the rest of my regular storytime intro (minus "Hello Friends").

Our first story today was actually a flannel board story: Teddy Wore His Red Shirt. If you are familiar with "Mary Wore Her Red Dress," this is the same song and concept. We repeated the song for Teddy's red dress, blue pants, yellow hat, green socks, black mittens, and then Teddy's whole outfit.

Teddy wore his outfit,
Outfit, outfit,
Teddy wore his outfit
All day long.

For our two movement songs today, I went for classics: "Happy and You Know It" and "Hokey Pokey." I think it's adorable that some of my storytime regulars and their parents know my version of "Happy and You Know It" includes tickle bugs.

Click here for my version of the Hokey Pokey

Our book today was The Day it Rained Hearts by Felicia Bond. I chose this one for the day because it's Valentine's Day! It's a cute story about a girl making valentines for all her friends using the hearts that fall from the sky. 

Our last movement songs were "Baby Shark" and "Peek-a-Boo." 

Click here to listen to the version of "Peek-a-Boo" I use

Then, we sang our new a capella goodbye song, followed by bubbles.

This is the way we wave goodbye,

Wave goodbye, wave goodbye.

This is the way we wave goodbye,

Goodbye, goodbye, goodbye.

Repeat with clap, tap (stomping feet), and then close it out with another chorus of wave.

After saying goodbye I invited everyone to our Valentine's Day Party in the children's room of the library. They all joined me for cookies and valentine making!

Kids-Giving Day 2017

This program was the brainchild of my wonderful and talented partner in crime, the other youth services librarian at my branch, Sara. She conceived, named, and planned this whole thing. Hopefully she will have her own librarian blog soon so that I can link to her entry about Kids-Giving Day and give her all the recognition for this incredible event. Until then, here is my take as one of the staff members who helped set up and run it......

Since Thanksgiving is coming up, we thought it would be a good idea to do some sort of large charity event to teach our younger patrons how to give back to the less fortunate or struggling their community. Three organizations that Sara found out are always accepting donations were Child Crisis Arizona, the Phoenix Children's Hospital, and Operation Gratitude.

Child Crisis Arizona requested donations of new containers of baby wipes, so we announced that people could bring their donations to the library in our newsletter, and set up a small area to collect them. We collected 9 packages by the end of the day.

Operation Gratitude is always accepting donations of cards written to active duty troops and veterans, so we also set up a card making station. One of our staff members donated a large stack of blank greeting cards, which were at the station if anyone wanted to write a note in a card. We also set out art supplies for kids to make their own cards. By the end of the program, we had a box full of 114 cards, which we will send to Operation Gratitude to be dispersed to the troops. 

Finally, Phoenix Children's Hospital is collecting activity bags to be given to their patients who need extended hospital stays, and their siblings. Their guidelines were very specific, so we made exactly what they asked for: bags containing a pack of crayons and several coloring sheets. These were very easy to assemble, and the real charm of this particular donation came from the decorations on the bags. We set it up so that the bag decorating station came first; patrons were encouraged to use crayons, markers, and stickers to jazz up plain paper bags as much as they wanted. Then, a volunteer helped them stuff their bags with one pack of crayons and 3-4 coloring sheets that we printed out before the program. Kids and grownups alike had a great time writing inspirational messages and drawing colorful pictures on the bags for the PCH patients. By the end of the day, we had collected 82 bags!

Here are some patrons (photographed with permission) working on their bags.

And here is Sara and me collecting all the wonderful donations while cleaning up!

The total number of participants was counted as 109! We also got lots of positive verbal feedback from parents about the purpose of the event. Apparently our community here in Mesa wants more opportunities to give back, and teach their children about giving back as well. I think we will definitely be doing another community service-based program in the future!

Make a Grandparents Day Card

In preparation for Grandparents Day on Sunday, September 10th, I thought it would be great to give our kids the opportunity to make a card for a grandparent or other loved one. So today being the Friday before, I set out some art supplies and encouraged everyone to make their own card!

I made some examples and displayed them at the entrance, in case any of the kids were stuck on where to begin or needed some inspiration.

Unfortunately I wasn't able to get pictures of anyone's finished product besides mine, but we had some great ones.

I'm excited about the high participant count for this program for several reasons: One, it shows that Friday afternoon is a good time for all-ages children's programs, when this was previously written off as a dead time. Two, it gives kids who might not have the supplies at home an opportunity to make cards for their loved ones. Three, it gives kids who might have the supplies but not as much inclination to be creative a fun environment with ready-made ideas and a group of their peers already making things. Those who might not want to do arts and crafts at home might have figured out that the public library is just the place for it! I'm looking forward to a lot more drop-in crafts on Friday afternoons to come.