1000 Books Before K Resuscitation

After reading Jenni's recent post at From the Biblio Files on re-launching her library's 1000 Books B4 K program, it got me thinking - what are keys to continuing success in a long-term program? How can we keep it fresh?

From my observations and listening on my consulting travels and in my CE teaching, I have gathered a few clues particularly about 1000 Books programs.

Do Ongoing Promotion 
- Long-term programs need far more continual marketing.
- Work through schools, preschools and child care centers to get the word out at parent nights, through newsletters, at preschool and kindergarten screenings and registration, in pediatric clinics at baby "showers" or preschool fairs and celebrations.
- Present at service organizations to keep the word circulating in the community.
- Meet with your United Way, Literacy and Reading councils, communities of practice and any other professional organization and promote the benefits of parents and kids reading together and library use.
- Do annual press releases and send annual short-reports to your elected officials, board and to your library networks.

Do Specific Active Programs to Support This Passive Program
- Hold annual "graduation" parties for participants.
-Open the library before or after hours for 30 minutes and invite parents and kids to spend time reading together. Consider serving a snack, having a costume character come by or another short activity to get them excited.
-Hold an annual celebration with a performer or concert to celebrate the number of total books read and visits made to the library (every 100 level sheet bookmark equals 100 books and one visit to the library). Before you know it, you have some powerful stats to share!)

Don't Let the Materials Get Tired
Jenni hits the nail on the head with her changes. Restructure your theme; restructure your 100 level sheets to make them easier; restructure your incentives. A good hard look can suggest ways to make the program less cumbersome and more inviting.

Change Your Visuals

Consider updating your wall or door display that charts kids' progress. Make it bright and interactive like Knutson (Coon Valley WI) Memorial Library. They purchased pre-made material and added little kid craft stick people that kids could move up the chart. A little play literacy goes a long way!


Don't stay stuck on your theme. La Crosse Public Library changed from flowers to trucks for their wall progress chart and use zoomed up again!

Change out your poster and handout designs often. When people see the same thing repeatedly, they stop "seeing" it.

What are YOUR go-to methods to keep your long-standing programs fresh?

Note: For more information on 1000 Books programs , research to use, how to set them up, where they started, etc, stop here.

          

Them's the Breaks!

I was so excited to see the issue of breaks in storytime being addressed over at Lisa's blog Libraryland. She and Mel are posting results and discussing implications from a recent survey on storytimes and workload.  I was as surprised as Lisa that almost a third of survey respondents didn't take breaks or weeks off in their annual storytime schedule.

I have often wondered what motivates people to raise storytimes (or let's face it, any program for kids, teens or adults) up to a no-break model. Is it:

• administration requiring 52 week schedules
• tradition - that's how it was when I came
• fear of losing participants
• service-to-the-community-above-and-beyond ethos 
• love those little munchkins and need my weekly fix (the mutual "I can't do without them; they can't do without me" syndrome)
• concern that patrons will complain 
• anxiety that patrons will leave and use another library
• or what?

I have seen alot of trepidation and tradition that keeps people from building in time for re-energizing, CE, conferences, service to other age groups,vacations, introduction of new types of early literacy programs etc. In order to keep up the pace, youth library staff take program preparation work home, only do storytimes as their program focus and often don't have the creative energy to develop their programs or services for other age groups or to serve the many families with preschoolers who cannot attend storytimes.

If storytimes are to entertain, than fear of losing the audience might be real. If storytimes are to model and help provide parents with the early lit support they need to be their child's first teacher, it seems that breaks are easily incorporated since parents have the tools that you provided to keep modeling awesome early lit work with their kids!

Once library staff start to take breaks, most see that their concerns were unfounded. Patrons do return. Time spent away from a routine helps create time to tackle other projects and plans that enhance services.

We are just off a ten week storytime hiatus (wait,  make that 13 weeks, I forgot we stopped mid December!). What happened? All but one storytime filled up when we re-started after the break. We had to add an additional storytime because of the demand. A poorly attended storytime that we morphed into a preschool "maker program (art and STEAM) filled up immediately (we could have added five more sessions based on demand). Staff and families came back refreshed, excited and happy.

What if YOU want to take breaks but your administration or co-workers are reluctant? 

1. Share the thinking (like Lisa's post above) going on in the library world about breaks - here and here are two examples.
2. Come to discussions prepared with a concrete plan for one thing you will use break time for (begin development of 1000 Books Before Kindergarten program; attend a conference or Roadtrip CE or have another staffer who covers desk while you are in storytime attend; develop a new type of tour or outreach; develop a program or series for an underserved age group or meet with school/daycare colleagues to start planning service partnership ideas).
3. Honestly discuss what the programming philosophy of the whole library is and look at comparisons between service to other age groups and other staff responsibilities in this area. Sometimes, coworkers or administration don't see the efforts that go into storytime (Storytime Underground's "Literacy is NOT a luxury") - once they come to understand what is happening, they can more easily see why breaks to re-charge, offer other types of programs and etc are necessary.

What if YOU want to take breaks but your patrons are reluctant and push back? 

1. Thank them for their support and love of your programs.
2. Tell them what will happen during break that will help make your library even more uber (I will learn more to serve you better by attending training; other age groups will be served; you will still be coming in often for books and to say hi; we are excited to take the time to write a grant to create an early literacy area, etc)
3. Consider adding a  simple "transition" activity - Book Bundles, Preschool Dance party, coupon book; stealth or DIY activity station; more frequent change-out of flannels or activity boards in early literacy corner - that makes parents want to keep up weekly or bi-weekly visits during the break.
4. Let parents know you have been their stealth personal guru, equipping them with the know-how to be storytime ninjas themselves at home!  Ask them to be mighty and let you know how they do over break.
5. Encourage them to use the break to get an extra level of 1000 Books Before Kindergarten finished.
6. Introduce them to an Early Literacy calendar that has lots of activities for parents and kids to do together.

Breaks work. Storytimes continue strongly (and sometimes stronger!) after a pause. Really, try it, you will definitely like it!

Unprogramming Part 7: Sharing the Goods

Amy Koester of Show Me Librarian and I are tag-teaming at our blogs this week to report out the Chicago ALA Conversation Starter -Unprogramming: Recipes for School Age Success - that we led on Monday July 2 (see below for links to the whole series).  Please join our continuing conversation in the comments or on Twitter by using the hashtag #unprogramming. 

Amy and I were both so excited to have a chance to share the thoughts behind unprogramming at a national conference level. And we were uber pleased to have a SRO crowd of colleagues come to the program.

What's fun about unprogramming is that it really isn't new. Most of you are doing unprogramming already in big and little ways. We are simply pulling the threads together and encouraging everyone to try this more mellow approach and see real benefits. Just starting the conversation, so to speak.

The audience at our program joined the conversation and shared great ideas of how they have used the unprogramming concept in their programs.  Below are a few quick ideas people shared of programs they are doing:

Painting to Music - kids pull up music on YouTube and then paint while listening to it. Disfferent beats elicit different art responses. The art the kids create is then hung in the room.

Stamping - using Ed Emberley's books as inspiration, kids use stampers and stamp pads to create their own nique creations.

Bibliobop - combining books with music and dance

"Training Camps" - train kids to be a cowboy or pirate or logger or astronaut in these free-form programs that allow kids to pick up "skills" they need to become mighty.

Book Club - kids choose individual books to each read and then videotape interviews with each other booktalking their choice.

Guys Read Club - always done with a book component as well as a "smashing" component (water balloons off a roof; TV drop)

Plus Stuffed Animal Sleepovers, Teddy Bear Clinics, Messy Art Club!

Please share ideas for your unprograms in the comments or under the #unprogramming hashtag on twitter.

We storified the twitter feed for more audience reactions and ideas.  Amy will finish our series today with our slide deck.

Thanks for joining us so we could share the fun of this program from ALA in the blogosphere with all of you. And thanks to Amy for being the best presentation partner one could have!

Unprogramming series

Part 1 - Program Motivations and Pitfalls

Part 2 - What the Deuce is It?

Part 3 - How to UnProgram and Free Yourself

Part 4 -The Recipe Revealed

Part 5 - Why It Works!

Part 6 - A Collection of Programs & a Testimonial
Part 7 - Sharing the Goods
Part 8 - The End

Unprogramming Part 5: Why It Works!

Amy Koester of Show Me Librarian and I are tag-teaming at our blogs this week to report out the Chicago ALA Conversation Starter -Unprogramming: Recipes for School Age Success - that we led on Monday July 2 (see below for links to the whole series).  Please join our continuing conversation in the comments or on Twitter by using the hashtag #unprogramming.

What is it about unprogramming that we are so high on?

One of the key pieces is that planning is greatly simplified - a matter of tagging ideas you read in blogs or hear from colleagues into a manila folder, Evernote, Pinterest or into whatever “possible ideas” bin you favor. Checking publisher and author sites, books in the collection and google results in possible activities.  This very low-level on-going "aha!" planning lets staff address their other work without being overwhelmed as a program is decided upon and the date of the event approaches.

Keeping the action within the program conversational and letting kids discover on their own contributes to the ease and simplified planning. By allowing kids more agency within the program, staff become free to guide rather than lead. One thing you quickly discover is how much kids enjoy the program when they have responsibility and freedom to direct their activities and make discoveries, talk about a book or author or the process they are going through.

Worried about helping staff transition between over-planned programs and unprogramming? To create staff buy-in, encourage spending less time on preparation by connecting the budgetary dots: too much time spent prepping a stand-alone program isn’t financially worth it for the institution. 

Consider partnering with an over-planner and modeling planning and doing a program together to show how preparation can be kept simple and the program rewarding.  Goal setting with staffers can also be helpful. Challenge staffers to spend no more than 2 hours of prep per school-age program.  Also encourage strategic thinking: if you spend money or time buying or creating a prop, where else can it be used.

The results are more mellow preparation, less emphasis on process and more on relaxed chatting and activities that relate directly to books.

Stop by Amy's blog today to discover our Pinterest page full of programs and a real life example of how unprogramming works! 

Unprogramming series

Part 1 - Program Motivations and Pitfalls

Part 2 - What the Deuce is It?

Part 3 - How to UnProgram and Free Yourself

Part 4 -The Recipe Revealed

Part 5 - Why It Works!

Part 6 - A Collection of Programs & a Testimonial
Part 7 - Sharing the Goods
Part 8 - The End

Unprogramming Part 4: The Recipe Revealed!

Amy Koester of Show Me Librarian and I are tag-teaming at our blogs this week to report out the Chicago ALA Conversation Starter -Unprogramming: Recipes for School Age Success - that we led on Monday July 2.  Please join our continuing conversation in the comments or on Twitter by using the hashtag #unprogramming.

I don't know about you, but when I am looking for something new to cook and browsing through recipes, the ones I pick are often the simplest  - ones with few ingredients, easily accomplished in a busy life and full of flavor. Not for me the ones that list 15 items to put my hands on and too much time in the kitchen.

Doing unprogramming is very similar. There is a kind of recipe to create these programs. But like all the very best recipes, it allows endless innovation to surprise and sparkle the palate.

Unprogramming Recipe

1. Choose a book or subject

What's popular with kids - dinosaurs, Big Nate, space, Legos, Diary of a Wimpy Kid; Star Wars, ninjas, Magic Tree House, Elephant and Piggie, pirates, pets?  Take advantage of built-in interest and tie that into your collection.

2. Gather activity ideas 

Use Pinterest, blogs, publisher websites, pubyac and alsc listserv posts, ideas from professional journals and books that you've been saving to find book trailers; authors talking about their work; cool videos/websites on the subject material (Wimpy Yourself!). Then simply decide which three or four pieces you want to put into the program to appeal to the kids and highlight the books.

3. Mix in materials for kids to explore

If you are like many libraries you have a closet, cupboard, basement or under-the-desk area crammed with unused and left-over material. Browse though it to find materials to re-purpose for your purposes. Claw hand grabbers become robot arms, dinosaur arms, extensions for planet mining. Paper bags become puppets, demonstrate scientific principles, contain survival kits after a planetary crash landing. Paper scraps become gravity-defiers, art, disguise components for superheroes.

Set up simple centers or "stations of stuff" for kids to free-explore/discover as many times as they wish. Be there to chat, inform, elicit impromptu discussion.

4. Digital Camera or Smartphone

Take pictures of all the fun, learning and discovery going on around you (you have plenty of time because the kids are becoming their own leaders as they explore each component).

Now, gather the kids and highlight the book through reading; booktalking; author information; video or discussion of subject, character or author.  Introduce the different activities available to kids and invite them to participate as they’d like. Mix in encouragement, informational tidbits and oversight and kids provide the motivated use at “stations-of-stuff”. Bake for 45 minutes.

Voila!  A tasty mix of interesting content that is not too hot, not too cold, not too spicy, not too sweet - it's just right. And you didn't have to kill yourself for hours in a hot kitchen getting this enticing-to-kids dish prepared! 

Tomorrow Amy and I will both blog with sources for great unprograms and ways unprogramming creates positive change.

Unprogramming series

Part 1 - Program Motivations and Pitfalls

Part 2 - What the Deuce is It?

Part 3 - How to UnProgram and Free Yourself

Part 4 - The Recipe Revealed

Part 5 - Why It Works

Part 6 - A Collection of Programs and a Testimonial
Part 7 - Sharing the Goods
Part 8 - The End

Unprogramming, Part 2: What the Deuce Is It?

Amy Koester of Show Me Librarian and I are tag-teaming at our blogs this week to report out the Chicago ALA Conversation Starter -Unprogramming: Recipes for School Age Success - that we led on Monday July 2. Please read Part 1 here and join our continuing conversation in the comments or on Twitter by using the hashtag #unprogramming.


So now that we've looked at the motivations and pitfalls inherent in doing programs for school age kids, let's explore what we mean by taking an "unprogramming approach" to these events.

Often, when we create school-age programs, we spend alot of time and energy in planning. Three, four, five hours (and sometimes more) are poured into that one forty-five minute event. We search through websites, books and blogs for content; decide on many activities to engage kids (just in case they get restless); buy materials for them; add a food component and plan decorations to make it all perfect.

The effort to plan the event increases stress- what if, after all this planning, only a few kids come or we planned too much and kids couldn’t finish or kids didn’t seem to enjoy themselves or it was so intensive to plan, staff needs to take a long break before doing another program just to recover?

Unprogramming allows us to take a step back, take a deep breath, and put the event into perspective for us as planners and for the kids as well. Focus shifts from a rigorous schedule of planning “things, things and more things” to a more mellow approach.

Unprogramming allows us to balance fun and content without over-planning an event. It celebrates books, characters and subject areas by linking literacy content to activities and crafts to create successful programs.

Unprogramming engages kids in multiple ways. Hearing stories and/or book talks provides auditory enrichment. Seeing demonstrations, videos, or examples from books provides visual enrichment. Hands-on activities provide kinesthetic enrichment. Blending these threads together helps us create a unified whole.

Unprogramming lets us, as staffers, relax and focus on how books (whether information books or fiction in the collection) can be celebrated through booktalks, activities and crafts. 

Interestingly enough, it also allows kids to help lead the way in the programming. Staff become guides to literature and “making” as opposed to the leaders of what goes on in the program. There’s a lot of self-discovery by the kids and self-paced learning. It celebrates literacy much like we do in our storytimes  - great content and a real focus on books.

Tomorrow Amy will share how to unprogram at your library. 

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

Rolling with the Punches

I think that those of us who work with kids can agree that flexibility is key.  The more we roll with the punches and adapt to changes, glitches and disasters big and small, the more fun we and the kids can have.

Although unexpected mini-disasters happen no matter how much we plan, the one that sticks in my mind happened a few years ago.  At a former job, we worked closely with our Parks and Rec Dept to schedule and host a series of performers at one of the park shelters.  On the day that one of these performances coincided with the big city-wide "Kiddie Karnival" parks celebration, a sharp-eyed staffer was double-checking the Parks schedule. To her horror, she noticed the Karnival was actually scheduled for the following week.

There was much hasty calling our park buddies (oops, they changed the date in spring and forgot to tell us and the shelter stage was booked by another group); recommending affordable performers for them to book for the Karnival next week; arrangements and explanations for the public who were expecting a concert and Karnival; strategizing where to have our singer within the park.  And while all this was happening thunderstorms were predicted for that night.

In the end, the concert went off without a hitch.  Our singer graciously set up outdoors. The rain held off to only a few drops.  The lack of a karnival was taken in stride (after all, it was something to look forward to the following week) and the families easily adapted to no park benches to sit on - hatching lawn chairs and blankets from their vehicles when we explained the glitch.  Everyone laughed, danced, sang and enjoyed a great event.

Because we didn't sweat the small stuff ("Who's to blame for this?", "Oh no, this isn't what we planned!"), the whole process was just another "day in the life" for the Children's staffers...and our public just thought, "Hey, another home run by that library!"

Image: 'Making a snowman'   http://www.flickr.com/photos/45940879@N04/5509506804

It's a Bird! It's a Plane! It's a Field Trip Adventure!

In the past, our tours were ok but lacked punch and direction. Kids were led around from one collection to the next and given pretty much the same spiel no matter what the age. The highlight was a half hour of stories and songs at the end. Content often depended on which staffer hosted the tour and messages and emphasis varied widely. It didn't seem like we were getting any over-arching message across like, "Hey this is a really fun place and cool too!"

So a year ago, we decided to re-imagine the tours into field trips with a concentration on fun and giving kids a glimpse into how libraries really work. But before the fun we had to work on the mechanics. 

The first thing we did was make some decisions on dividing field trips into appropriate content depending on age/comprehension. Then we worked on some messages we felt all kids needed to hear: Books belong to everyone in the community and are shared. A library card allows access to great books and information.  We are like your school library but you have more time to browse for books and we are open when your school library is closed (evenings; weekends; summer). 

Preschool-Gr. 1
We use this scenario to explain how a library works:

Ask who the books belong to (librarian? Nooooo; Library? Nooooo. You?  YES!)?  The books belong to all the kids and people in La Crosse. They live here at the library but they love to visit you.  When you have a visitor, do they stay forever?  Noooo. That’s right, they go back home.  When a book “visits” you, it stays for 3 weeks then you bring it back here to the library- its house.  Then another child checks it out.  We all share. [This can be expanded and played with depending on your crowd.]

For their tour, we do a theme each school year based on a children's book. Last year it was based on Mo Willems' Knuffle Bunny. We placed stuffed book characters at the collection or room points we wanted to highlight. Then we searched for Knuffle Bunny and found all the other characters and told kids about those collections. Knuffle Bunny was found back in the storyroom where we shared another book or two. This year we are using Emma Dodd's Dog's Colorful Day. We'll have a white dog cut-out for each child and they will collect dots at each stop on the room tour.  More great books to use include Eric Carle's The Very Hungry Caterpillar and Where's Spot by Eric Hill.

Gr. 2-4

We can "play" a bit more with this age group. Our new colleague Sara came up with a great way to engage these kids. You can read about it at S. Bryce Kozla.

We also give the teachers options for an activity rather than just stories. So kids can be cataloged, barcoded and shelved; can do origami ; can create spine poetry; can play Book Bingo or get a booktalk. If teachers want a non-fiction concentration we let the kids know that the non-fiction is arranged alot like grocery stores. In stores, all the cereals are together; all the canned veggies are together -they aren't arranged alphabetically and that's how it is in non-fiction. I also like to ask kids if they know words in other languages.  Then I tell them my other language is Dewey Decimal and it helps me know exactly where the books are that they crave!

Finally, no matter what the age, we build in time for the kids to browse and ask questions while they go through the collection. These changes have really refreshed what we do and made our old tours into SUPER fun adventures for kids. What do you do to sparkle up these opportunities for kids at your library?

Image: 'Thor vs. Superman (49/365)'  http://www.flickr.com/photos/83346641@N00/4369073183