Elephant and Piggie Wow the Crowd

We have long been offering continuing education opportunities on a monthly basis for our day care providers. Because we are registered instructors, providers who take our free hour-long classes are able to gain credits for continued certification in our state's certification program. Libraries place such importance on early literacy that it makes sense to give providers the knowledge and encouragement to do just that through these workshops!

We recently did a workshop demonstrating how to create story extension activities using a book and one's own imagination. Activities that extend a story help children play with characters, plots and situations in the just-read book and more firmly embrace and enjoy the story and the concepts inside it. These extensions can be craft-based; sensory-based; pretend-play exploratory; art-based and more. The point is finding the kernel(s) of the book and extend them into the activity. Since we wanted to explore this in a simple fun way, what better books than Mo Willems' Elephant and Piggie (aka E&P in this post!) series to do the job?

Here's how it went down:

I read There's a Bird on My Head and demonstrated a fun nest hat the children could make. This was followed with I Will Surprise My Friend and a demonstration on how paper bag E&P puppets could help kids understand the situation of the rock hiding the characters (you can find the extensions used in this post).

Providers then picked a Willems' E&P book, and were given 10-12 minutes to read it and either working as a team or alone, come up with an idea for an extension idea or two that might work. The crowd was enthusiastic and came up with some great ideas. Here's a few they shared when we re-gathered and book-talked their selection and made their suggestions. Look what great stuff they came up with in just a few minutes:

Watch Me Throw the Ball - have the kids toss a ball and comment on all the different ways they throw (best throw to the left; highest; softest; kindest to the ball; best ball that went to the left; etc. Important to focus not on far the ball is thrown but how fun throwing the ball, no matter the result is!)

I Broke My Trunk - using paper towel rolls, let kids hold them to their noses. Talk about what might break their nose. Let the kids wrap their broken noses in toilet paper as a bandage.

Elephants Cannot Dance - have kids practice the dance moves Elephant does. Then ask them to try a new dance move (depending on the group, they may come up with plenty of their own). Add music and have a dance party!

Let's Go For a Drive - let kids pack and unpack a suitcase with clothes. Show them maps. Make a map of a walk around the block and walk with the kids showing them how a map works. Let the kids draw a map. Ask kids what they want to pack for a trip to the store; to the woods; to the beach; to a very cold place with snow.

My New Friend is So Fun! - Have kids draw a picture of their favorite friend.

I'm a Frog - have kids pretend to be frogs and cows. Ask them what other animals they would like to pretend to be. Use pictures of real animals to extend the idea.

Many of the providers had never heard of these books and realized that an early reader could work great with the kids in their care. It also stimulated alot of conversation of other books they love to use with the kids and how they could use the story extension concept to enhance the kids' enjoyment. Mission accomplished!

It's Not a Box! No, Really!!

We offer monthly meetings for day care providers during the school year to boost their early literacy might, introduce them to great books and methods to share books and to highlight our collections and services. We have been certified as registered CE instructors to help our daycare teachers keep up their learning and credentials in our state-level Registry.

In April, our training was all based on Antoinette Portis' multi-dimensional book Not a Box. We asked attendees to each bring a box of whatever size. Just in case anyone forgot, I gathered empty book boxes for a week or so prior to the training. Why did I worry?  Everyone brought one!!!

I put out a selection of our finest stuff: scrapbook paper, tissue paper, stampers, markers, foamies, felt pieces, feathers, glue sticks, eyeballs, yarn and any other doo-dad I could lay my hands on.  Tables to stand and work at were put out.

When everyone arrived, I read the Portis' book and talked about the importance of imagination, play and creativity. I gave a few examples of stories that you could extend with a cardboard box to accompany them (a car box for Sutherland's Dad's Car Wash; a train car box for Crews' Freight Train). 

Then the challenge. Create something out of their box using materials at hand and then work with me to find a picture book in the collection to match their box design. Read the book quickly. At the conclusion of the workshop, each provider then shares the box and booktalks the book with rest of the attendees. If someone had a particular book in mind that was checked out, they could, in addition to talking about a book on their box's theme, tell about the other book they use that works great.

The results were amazing. People took special care with their boxes, with their reading, with their booktalking and with their additional recommendations. As a children's literature expert, I also added title ideas as well depending on what each person made.

It was a perfect blend of creativity and matching books to object! Below please see their wonderful creations!


Rabbit, horse, robot



Space, VH Caterpillar, penguin, birthday cake

Garden, car wash, ladybug, monster, suitcase

Surprise box, box to leave your shouts in, garden

fun box, garden, playhouse, ?, ocean

Welcoming Summer Groups

There was a question on the pubyac listserv in the last week asking librarians how they deal with large groups of children in care situations who come to the library during the summer. This is often a tough seasonal situation for libraries who struggle with increased family usage; administering a summer library program and handling increased crowds at programs in too-small meeting rooms.  It's tough because so many of us want to serve kids no matter what but physical limitations in our buildings and staffing make it a challenge when a large group of kids come in.

We have tried a couple of things that have helped us over the years serve both individuals and groups: 

Group Summer Reading Program
We offer daycares; summer school groups and other organizations who work with groups of kids this option. This has eliminated long lines of kids waiting to pick up prizes when the whole group comes in and gives us more time to help the kids find materials and more time for kids to find quiet times to read.

This do-it-yourself-at-the-Center program is contained in a simple folder. The folder contains a large poster with spaces beneath the headings "Read"; "Write" and "Do a Creative Project; 200-300 tiny stickers; a sign-up poster for participating children's names and an instruction sheet.  We ask that each time a child in the group does one of the three activities, the child puts a sticker on the poster.  We also provide a prize for each child that the group leader can give out whenever they decide they are at the culminating point or end of their program. We reassure kids that if they also are in our individual program with their families, they can indeed do both programs (prizes are different in each).

Program Attendance Registration/Special Programs for Groups
When we have had certain care groups come to programs and had to turn away people because our room was at capacity, we have approached solutions in two ways.  We have sent notes out in May asking care groups to pre-register for programs and letting them know that we can only accomodate a limited number of groups per program.  This helped tremendously and we were able to shift groups among programs to balance out the numbers over the summer.

We also have created special group events just for our care groups that offered fabulous programs and could accomodate many groups. This worked out very well. And we are always willing to stop by a center and do a special program once during the summer if we can.

Scheduling Visits
We ask groups interested in weekly visits to let us know when they want to come in order to help us provide great service.  Although we don't always get advance notice, we work with the leader who comes in unexpectedly to explain how we can help them more with adequate staff and resources when we know when they are coming. The next summer, we usually get advance notice and can make sure we have good staffing.

Communication with Leaders
Probably most important in all of this, though, has been honest communication with the group leaders and teachers who use our services during the summer.  We work with these folks to talk about what we can do for them; how they can help us; behavior guidelines and our expectation of their supervision of the kids; how we can assist them to create quiet reading times or provide extra materials for their classroom or center; the importance of scheduling visits so they can get maximum staff interactions; and ways to make their visits win-win for kids, library staff and care giving staff. 

If we run into a prickly leader, we continue the communication into the school year and make sure we meet with their supervisor before the next summer to discuss mutual expectations and limitations.  This has made all the difference in our success. We each walk in each other's shoes; we learn their challenges and they learn ours and we achieve (mostly) successful outcomes.

These strategies have helped us create a welcoming atmosphere for kids and providers.  It is their library too and we want kids that may never come in with parents in the summer to know that we are just as glad to see them in this situation!

Image: 'Crowds'   http://www.flickr.com/photos/59468038@N00/240903973