Thrive Thursday - June

It's high time to celebrate a little pre-summer and SLP school age programming. What's up this busy month?

May Stuff
Holly over at the new blog Let the Wild Rumpus Begin has a great post up about robotics in her Maker Monday series.

Miss Molly the Librarian loves cosplay so Free Comic Book Day was just about the best day ever.

Jennifer over at In Short I am Busy has two programs to share: Raising Chicks and her highly successful 1-3rd grade book club (a 3-5th grade version will launch in fall).

Brytani at The Neighborhood Librarian did a Fancy Nancy party just before Mother's Day. Oooh-la-la!

Summer Stuff
Jennifer at In Short I am Busy is going a new direction with her summer program and also shares her superhero masks passive program win.

And Jenna, well known for her ALSC advocacy work guest posts on Tiny Tips and reminds us of what is really important in summer.

To learn more about Thrive Thursday, check out the schedule, Pinterest board, and Facebook Group.

It's a Library Camp Out!

This is the third year we have kicked off summer with a library read in-camp out. As luck would have it both Friday the 13th and a full moon made it imperative that the evening feature spooky stories.

 We do this after hours - the doors lock at 6:00 pm on Friday, we have a brief break and re-open for our campers. Everyone is invited to bring blankets or sheets, flashlights and wear PJs. We have a few teen volunteers who take chairs out from tables to create camping sites (whether under the table or using chairs) or help put blankets between shelves anchored by piles of books to create a cozy reading nook.

The room is darkened with just a little light coming in through the windows. The first half hour is spent building tents, signing up for SLP and reading. We gave everyone a few minutes heads-up to undo their tents near the end of the 30 minutes. Then we invited families into the program room, where spooky stories and walking s'mores were ready (2 boxes of honey graham bears + 2 packages of chocolate chips + one bag of mini-marshmallows = one cup of sweet fun) - and our our fake campfire. A display of fine spooky books were ready for kids to check-out.

We had some younger kids than usual so I started by reading Reynolds/Brown's Creepy Carrots. I let kids know that each story would get creepier so they could leave if it got to be too much. I told the "Coffin Story" and "Tailybone" with the lights low - but kept a bit more on the lighter side. Everyone made it (so brave!).

While the stories were happening our volunteers quickly put the room back together. Families had time to check out a few books (thanks to our director who staffed the check-out and did final lock-up).

This is one of the easiest, most pleasant and laid back unprograms one can do for summer - or any time of the year. Kids and families love the magic of an empty library and those that come love the reading and the program.  For more samples of how to do it, drop by earlier posts here and here and Amy did her own fun take on it last year.

Chocolate Fountain of Creativity

As we come to the final posts on the School Age Programming survey Lisa Shaia and I developed, the spotlight turns to YOU. Our respondents generously shared the many ways that they find programming ideas.

The breakdown:

We are wired, baby!

The internet, web, google searches, listservs like pubyac and alsc were mentioned 92 times. Pinterest and library blogs were mentioned 57 and 59 times respectively. It is clear that respondents used the rich content available online to spark ideas and find new content.

But lest you think we are tied to our phones, tablets and PCs, I must disabuse you of this notion based on survey responses!

Another huge source of inspiration was talking, brainstorming, collaborating and chatting with colleagues. 62 respondents found this method of inspiration to be a great idea source. Another 34 found in-person conferences, workshops and meetings to be invaluable in their idea generation for programs. And 34 respondents found their ideas in print sources - journals and magazines, professional resource books and newsletters. SLP manuals were the go-to inspiration for an additional 11 respondents.

Plus a huge source of inspiration (28 mentions) is the media, popular culture and what books and series are hot with kids.

And finally, on a more personal level, many, many people said their inspiration came from talking to kids, teachers, parents and families. They celebrated their own imagination and ideas ("warped mind," "in dreams," "idea fairy," "the recycling bin") as well as dipping into their own experience or files to come up with great content. And many simply stated that ideas for programs are everywhere.

They are indeed.  To see additional survey results, please stop here, here, here, here and here.

Image: 'Chocolate fountain #nomz'  http://www.flickr.com/photos/12700556@N07/6876057805
Found on flickrcc.net

Program Plethora - the Survey Sez

Lisa Shaia at Thrive Thursday and I put together a survey recently to take a snapshot of school age programming. We had 171 responses (yay, yous!). We've looked at how many librarians create how many programs; the role of budget in number of programs; how often programs are offered and the scoop on outreach.

Today let's take a peek at what kinds of programs for school-agers people reported out.

Almost 70% of respondents offered ongoing program series for kids - multiple week or continuous programs like a Lego Club , Book Club or Pokemon Club. But an almost equal number also offered one shot programs that capitalized on celebrating the publication of a new book, a book character or a special season or holiday. Seasonal reading programs similar to a down-sized SLP were also offered by over half of the respondents.

It is clear that school age programs show a rich variety of approaches by librarians. We didn't ask about individual program names but a dip into any youth services blog, Thrive Thursday monthly round-up blog hop or PUBYAC perusal would reveal a perfect sampling of what is being done with school-agers.

Our next post will look at where our ideas come from!

Does Big Budget = Lotsa Programs? The Survey Says...

Lisa over at Thrive After Three and I did an informal survey recently to look at the state of school-age programming. We had 171 responses to help us get a snapshot of services.

Today we want to look at number of programs that people reported as well as if there is a a correlation between that number and how much budget is devoted to programming.

From the survey results, it is clear that we librarians love to program for school-age kids. On average, respondents presented 42 programs annually.  The high was 200 - at a shop with five librarians. The lower end included 2 programs at another shop with 5 librarians. So you never know!

A pleasant surprise was how many passive programs libraries were reported. Out of that average of 42 yearly programs, almost 10 were passive programs. Over 3/4 of respondents run active and passive programs.

Annual program budgets varied from 0 to $12,000; the average was $1,169. Looking at 42 programs annually, that breaks down to about $27 per program. We know that contracted performances (singers, jugglers, magicians, storytellers, etc) that need $300-$500 to fund can really eat up a program budget fast. So we might speculate that that $27 per program may be on the high side.

We were especially curious to see if a large program budget meant more programs. This is clearly not the case. The programming budgets  of respondents varied widely as did the number of programs. Most interesting, over half the respondents had an annual budget for programs of $500 or less and on average had the same number of programs as libraries with large budgets.  Some spend on average $1-2 per program. This may indicate these libraries are not spending money on contracted performers but more likely running program series with materials on hand, book clubs, etc.

Libraries that have large program budgets and staff are lucky - but programming numbers don't seem to correlate with that large budget. Youth librarians have long used creativity and ingenuity to create programming magic and the survey seems to bear this implication out.

To see more published results of the survey, please stop over at Lisa's blog Thrive After Three here, here, here, here!

Graphic courtesy of Pixabay

School Age Programming - Whatcha Doing?

Lisa Shaia (of Thrive After Three and the founder of Thrive Thursday, a monthly round-up of  programs, services and thoughts on serving school-agers) has created a survey with me to see what is happening in the world of school age programming.

We want to know how you serve this age group, your triumphs , challenges and the nitty gritty. We will be blogging about results soon so don't delay in filling it in!

Please take a few minutes and fill in this easy survey and we will share results at our blogs!
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1XHPupB8RqMhWh6w0ufuOF-FHyatA4V9W2InN7khTNQU/viewform

Thanks!!

Thrive Thursday May Round-Up

I am happy to host the May Day edition of the Thrive Thursday blog hop. It's a chance for us to read about programs, thoughts and initiatives happening for our school-age audience. Enjoy!

ACTIVE PROGRAMS
Who doesn't love Geronimo Stilton - and all his friends! Lisa over at Thrive After Three blog breaks down a great four week series for us.

Carol at Program Palooza did two Earth Day-related programs here and here that combine fiction, non-fiction and a re-cycled craft.

More Earth Day friendly crafts are on tap at Ms. Kelly at the Library's blog.

And Lisa suggests a Lorax Book Vs. Movie program that has a nice Earth Day connection too!

Why not re-purpose a fun craft-it program for Money Smart Week by having the kids "buy" their supplies to bring math into the STEAM picture? Amy of Show Me Librarian shares in a guest post at Library as Incubator blog

Disability awareness becomes part of this program from Carol at Program Palooza.

American Girl Addy is the focus at Ms. Kelly at the Library's program.

Unprogramming might with Elephant and Piggie shows up at my blog Tiny Tips.

Movies...er, I mean book trailers!! Dawn over at Story Time with and Signs and Rhymes shares how 5th graders made book trailers of her book.

Create a Picture Book workshop series...seriously! Story Time with and Signs and Rhymes Dawn takes readers on a step by step process on creating a workshop where kids learn the ins and outs of authorship!

With summer coming up, this ALSC webinar inspired wiki space on STEM programs will inspire you.


STEALTH/PASSIVE PROGRAMS
Need some passive programs for spring break? Sara at S. Bryce Kozla to the rescue!

Angie at Fat Girl Reading has two more spring break stealth programs that are a cinch to set up.

Need a poetry passive program/display? Mel at Mel's Desk shares her colleague Julie's great work!

Less Screen Time Week is how Wisconsin librarian Sue Abrahamson is rethinking Screen Free Week, May 5-9, as guest poster on Tiny Tips for Library Fun.


PROGRAM THOUGHTS
Over at Kids Library Program Mojo, a blog for librarians taking a youth services programming CE course:  Michelle shared thoughts about the pressures on parents and program attendance; and Erin reflects on how we can meet parents where they are in our programming.

Re-imagining library tours into a truly phenomenal experience takes time and effort that I reflect on here at Tiny Tips.

And to bring us home, Sara at S. Bryce Kolza starts solving for the equation of school family literacy outreach awesomeness using some Brewfest math.


Stay tuned for the June blog hop hosted at Thrive After Three. And if you'd like to host a month, contact Lisa Shaia, our intrepid founder and scheduler to throw your hat in the hosting ring: lisamshaia (at) gmail (dot com). We also have a Pinterest board and a Facebook Group, so join in on the fun!

Less Screen Week

My Wisconsin colleague and wonder woman, Sue Abrahamson, from the Waupaca Public Library is my guest today. Rather than go screen-free, the staff decided to make gentle suggestions on ways to introduce activities that have families working their hands and moving away from screens. Best of all, look at the programs the library scheduled to support the families that week!

In Waupaca, we believe it is practically impossible to go "screen-free" so we are calling it "Less Screen Week" and are challenging families to spend one week setting aside more time for activities that do not involve a screen (TV, gaming, computers, and yes.... smartphones!).  Below is our log sheet for families to mark 15 things from the list to be eligible for a prize for their children at the library..... and, of course, it's a BOOK!  They can choose from our prize book selection.

Thrive Thursday Placeholder

May Day! May Day!

Whatcha been doing with school-agers lately?

It's time, yes, time my friends, to share your blog posts of the wonder and magic you work with kids at your library - services, programs, thoughts, initiatives at our Thrive Thursday round-up.

I'll be publishing our monthly round-up in one short week on Thursday May 1 so now is the time to scroll through your blog goodness and send the goodies to me, your May host (yes, I DO have a basket of flowers, a woven flower crown and a Maypole at the ready).

Deadline to me is Wednesday April 30 at 5pm CST.

Please share your links to school age program magic in the comments below!

On the Road with Unprogramming!

I love the opportunity to get out and share with library colleagues. But as many of you know, it's even more fun to get out of the library world and share with folks outside of libraries.

I'll be presenting tomorrow at the Wisconsin Afterschool Association conference in Lake Geneva. This two day conference is for providers as well as folks working in youth serving organizations like the Y and teen centers who work regularly with afterschool kids.

The fact that I will be at this conference is pure kismet. I was visiting a friend last fall and her dining room table was full of applications for presentations. Turns out she is the chair of this year's WAA conference. In our conversation, it was clear that libraries should not just be part of the association and conferences but also have a place at the table given our work with this demographic.

So "Book It! Creating Fun, Book Based Programs for School Agers" was born. Here's the description: Promote literacy and fun! Learn easy preparation ideas, how to adapt books to parties and tips on “unprogramming” (letting kids guide discovery). Best of all - leave with plans!

I'll be talking unprogramming ways to keep programs managable: collecting great sources from blogs and Pinterest; reasonable prep time; giving kids agency to discover and creating stations of stuff. The book party themes we'll talk about:  dinosaurs, Elephant and Piggie, Dr. Seuss and Diary of a Wimpy Kid programs. The Pinterest board is ready. So am I.

Let's meet new friends and potential partners and share the library good word!

Graphic courtesy of Pixabay

Dynamic Dinosauria!*

Any day or time is a great time for a dinosaur program. While I love doing them for any age, I especially enjoy doing these programs for school agers - the non-fiction elements are just too good to pass up and it's a wonderful STEM opportunity.

Here is how we did our most recent dinosaur program:
Dinosaurs of Waterhouse Hawkins.  Barbary Kerley; Illus by Brian Selznick
This Caldecott honor is great to book talk. Two hundred years ago, people hadn't the slightest idea on what dinosaurs looked like. English artist Hawkins studied the bone fragments and structures and used his own knowledge of animals to build life size models of what dinosaurs looked like. He held a dinner party in a hollowed out dinosaur to create excitiement and eventually created a huge garden to display the behemoths to the public.

Bones Bones Dinosaur Bones. Byron Barton
This is a great short picture book on archaeology and fossil hunting.

Activity: Have kids glue dry penne pasta (bones) onto a dinosaur outline. Doing it early in the program gives the glue plenty of time to dry. It also gives us a chance to talk about how hard it was for scientists to figure out exactly how all the fragments theyuncovered fit together. Imagine putting a dinosaur skeleton together without an outline. What bone connects to what bone?!?! Thanks to Sunflower Storytime for this much used idea here at LPL!

How Big Were the Dinosaurs. Bernard Most (very humorous) OR
How Big Were Dinosaurs. Lita Judge (great contrasts)
Read either of these books that examine and compare the size of dinosaurs.

Activitiy: Have a ball of string or yarn 130 feet long (don't tell the kids how long). Tie it at one end of the room and have kids take turns unrolling it as you "measure a dinosaur.  This was the size of a diplodocus. Lots of ooohs and aaahs along the way. Then bring the kids and string back and have them measure how long the string is with yard stick and tape measure. Talk about what else they think might be that long around the community.

Unrolling the string

Activity: As the final ending activity, I cannot resist asking kids to be fossil hunters. We talk about the painstaking careful excavation of fossils and dinosaur bones with small picks, trowels and even brushes to carefully reveal small fragments. Everyone receives a chocolate chip cookie and a toothpick. We ask each child to carefully excavate one chocolate chip from the cookie with the toothpick - and then gobble up the results.

With lots of non fiction books on display ready for check-out this is a sure fire hit and an easy way to do science with fierce fans of dinaosaurs!

* a huge tip of the hat and genuflecting reverence to Sandy Berman who back in the day fought mightily - and often successfully-  to push LC subject headings from the academically bizarre to the practical, useful and reality-reflecting modern day. As a young librarian, there WAS no such thing as a subject heading called "Dinosaurs". No my friends, it was really, really truly "Dinosauria". Here's to Sandy and his amazing leadership that still stands us in good stead.

School Age Power!

So happy to see some action in the blogosphere with school age programming content.  Some recent news:

A brand new blog from Library Village with school age content called Librarian Out Loud. The very first post is a winner breaking down how to be fabulously successful with a rainbow band loom.

Thrive Thursday, a movement to share school age content started by Lisa Shaia, has officially grown  into a monthly blog hop hosted by different bloggers on the first Thursday of each month. Lisa hosted the first monthly version in February and Jennifer at Jean Little blog just posted the second hop last week. Be sure to watch for these gatherings of school ideas. Upcoming hosts and blog hosts include Annie at sotomorrow, Sara at S. Bryce Kozla, Amy at Show Me Librarian and even me at Tiny Tips. Be sure to share your programs!

Drop by and check them out!

School Age Programming -Jump In!

Thanks to the efforts of Lisa Shaia over at Thrive after Three, there is now a place for all of us who do (and love) school age programs to start sharing our program successes, ideas and information.

Lisa has just created a school age "Flannel Friday"-like compendium called Thrive Thursday. Each week on Thursday she shares links to blog posts on school age programs that librarians have submitted or she has found.

Her goal is to have various bloggers host this weekly round-up of school age programs. At the moment, Lisa has been hosting and keeping placeholders up at her blog.  Maybe I'll get brave enough/tech savvy enough to host!

I would love to see more of my library programming pals join the fun and build this sharing into one big happy crowdsourcing family.  It's pretty easy. If you blogged about a school age program (active, passive, outreach, field trip, like that), just drop the link into the placeholder over at Thrive After Three.

She has set up a Facebook group for discussions too. If you have trouble getting to it, search "Thrive Thursday" on Facebook and ask to be added to the group. And pins are up on Pinterest!

I've jumped in, the water is really fine. Come join us!!

Photo courtesy of Pixabay

Thrive Thursday for School Age Programs

Ever wish you had a way as fun and easy as the Flannel Friday round-up to share your school age programs and discover great new ideas?  Well, the wait is over!

Lisa over at Thrive After Three is starting a similar round-up for the school-age programmers called Thrive Thursday.  You can read about it here and share links to your content.

I am soooooooo excited!! Let's all jump in and make this dream a reality!!

Let's Hear it for School-Age Programming

Amy over at Show Me Librarian has a call to action for libraries to not just do fabulous early literacy programming but also make sure that school age programming is as strong a priority. In the post she questions whether the emphasis on early literacy recently has resulted in neglect for our school age clientele.

Just to continue the conversation Amy started, I think it is well worth considering where the emphasis on school-age programming went to.  I think it stretches back further than the past ten years when ECRR woke us up to the possibilities of making our storytimes and work with parents and tots more..uber.

In the late 1980s, the Public Library Association developed a list of roles for public libraries. Libraries and focus groups in a community went through a role selection process to determine the 1-3 roles that best described their service and service goals. The eight roles listed:

• Community Activities Center
• Community Information Center
• Formal Education Center
• Independent Learning Center
• Popular materials Library
• Preschoolers Door to Learning
• Reference Library
• Research Center

could be considered all-ages encompassing. But in reality, only one spoke strongly to youth concerns.  The role that a huge majority of libraries selected was Preschoolers Door to Learning. After all, we are THE library for this age group.

So libraries started strengthening and improving their service to our youngest audience. And I wonder whether this is where some of the school-age programming started to slip. There was no true role for this age group.

The roles have been replaced with newer paradigms as years have gone on but not all libraries got that message. Even here at my library as recently as the last year, a staffer cited the Preschooler Door to Learning as the reason we had to concentrate more staff hours on preschool services.

We have tried hard at the libraries I work at to serve all ages with excellent programs. Because kids are in school doesn't mean we should stop serving them during the school year.  We collaborate with the schools; present programs during school breaks and early release days; and present afterschool workshops and events on weekends. We also make sure to have a healthy dose of stealth programs running nearly year-round to involve busy school-age kids in visits to our library.

This is all much on my mind of late. I am developing a six week online course of programming and great swaths of it will deal with creating programs for school aged kids and developing programs for preschoolers beyond storytime. Much of that territory is still ripe for exploration (think unprogramming and it's impact).

I am so happy to see how strong the early literacy component of storytimes is and how powerful the voices of early literacy advocates have become in libraries around the country. The sharing of great ideas through Flannel Friday and Underground Storytime has put power into the hands of librarians.

But I'll still keep looking for those innovative school age program and service ideas from people like Amy and Abby and Bryce and ALSC and others who are pushing the service envelope to school-agers. Hope you share your great school age ideas too!

Image: 'Turn On The Bright Lights'  http://www.flickr.com/photos/49722723@N00/261265808 Found on flickrcc.net

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 

Get a Fresh Start - Unprogramming Webinar

I'm doing a webinar along with three of my favorite BFF-brarians on Wednesday March 6, sponsored by our state library agency. My part is on unprogramming - freeing yourself to play with content, literacy and kids as leaders in programs. What's about the rest? Read on:

Your youth services might be a well-oiled machine of systematic displays and story times, but how often do you look at WHY you do what you do? Sometimes you need to reinvent the wheel and break the mold. Hear from three youth services experts in the state on ways think of yourself as an educator (versus entertainer), literacy enthusiast (versus craft expert), and life changer (versus summer library soldier).

Mark your March calendar for:

Fresh Practices for Youth Services Librarians

3:00-4:00pm CST Wednesday, March 6, 2013

Hosts: Tessa Michaelson Schmidt, DPI Library Consultant; Shawn Brommer, South Central Library System Youth Services and Outreach Coordinator; Sharon Grover, Hedberg Public Library (Janesville) Head of Youth Services; Marge Loch-Wouters, La Crosse Public Library Head of Youth Services

No need to register—just click the link on the scheduled meeting day and time. Sign in with your first name or library/school name. Webinars will be recorded and archived for later viewing. 

Here are some links referenced on the webinar to leave you an easy trail (I've scribbled links at webinars - all incorrectly so I want to give attendees a break):

Barbara Scott's Children's Programming blog - not too active recently except for Lego programs, but go back and find detailed plans for book parties. She is the inspiration for the way our programs have become unprogrammed!

Pubyac is the mother of all youth listservs. While stumpers can dominate, the programs shared are dynamite.

teachingbooks.net is rich with content focusing on youth book creators: trailers, author interviews, discussion questions and more.

S. Bryce Kozla- yes, Sara works with me. Her blog is truly a trip into a young librarian's journey to awesome - from programs described to the ways of thinking why she does what she does. In this post she explains how to stay au courant with kids' passions and obsessions.

Pinterest. It's how I program now; I can say nothing more.

Hope you join us for an interactive good time!

P. S. The webinar is over. It was fun!  And this is where to find the archive under "Professional Development"


Image: 'Eggs-tra Special for You, Happy Easter!'  http://www.flickr.com/photos/66606673@N00/450373034 Found on flickrcc.net