Originally published 6/10/16 Updated to include link for publisher file of the fortune teller you can download and edit. Howdy
Here is another Pinterest discovery you can use in your teen department. These Book Fortune Tellers were inspired by Literary Hoots's post Fortune Teller Library Display. At Literary Hoots you can find a printable for the poster and four variations of the fortune teller. I ended up using the form to make my own so I can easily change them out or print extras as the original disappear. *update* - My teens may think the fortune tellers are their's to keep. I put this display out Friday afternoon and I've had to print three more. Staff suggested I just leave them the printed sheets and let the teens take the time to fold them up to at least save myself some time.
Howdy I was trolling on Pinterest when I found these SteamPunk Snowflakes by The Little Red Reviewer. I used three colors of construction paper and two patterns of black and white scrap book paper. This didn't take very long at all and I didn't need any special supplies. The only negative now I realize that the other side of the bookcase needs some color as well.
Howdy I had a pin on my Young Adult / Teen Anime Manga Club Pinterest board for Anime Twister. I made my own version for anime club tonight. You can print the base for the spinner at the link below. You will want to print the spinner on one page and then for each of the four characters, you will want to print 6-8 pages to mimic the original Twister game. If you expect a larger group you could print lots more. I made the spinner by taping the printed spinner onto a piece of cardstock. I cut a long triangle or arrow from another piece of card stock. I didn't measure, I just eyeballed something that was long enough to reach the characters' faces. Using scissors I poked a hole through the arrow, the paper, and the cardstock. I made the hole larger than the brad (brass fastener) that I was using to hold it all together. I found the trick was to not bend the brad too tightly. If you fold the brad totally flat to the spinner, the arrow won't move. It was a little flimsy but this way if I want to change the characters it would be easy enough to take the whole thing apart again.
Howdy For me Pinterest is a trove of programing temptation. I have seen some great idea about making giant size board games. The one that caught my eye was a great big battleship game. I decided to have a table top sized battleship tournament with my teens. We played for an hour and a half. If I had let them stay longer I think we could have played for at least two hours. Our program was in the evening so eventually we had to close the library.
Room set up before the program.
Individual battleship set up with cell phone and manga novel to keep the board from rolling up.
The basic set up was 1 table for supplies like the laptop, makers and game boards, 1 table for drinks and snacks and 6 tables for gaming. Each table had a divider to prevent peaking. These are made of sheets of foam board. I cut 2 or 3 long notches in the bottom and added cardboard feet. Each teen got the following - 2 ft square battleship board made from newsprint to track their ships and the opponents guesses, a marker, a mini board to track their own guesses and a fleet of paper ships consisting of a battleship, aircraft carrier, destroyer, submarine and cruiser. I had measured the board so each square is 1 inch so the boats are the corresponding length to cover the correct number of squares, ie the battleship is 5 inches long and an inch wide. The boats are made of black construction paper with staples. I had planned for 7 tables of gaming but the room seemed so crowded that I just set up 6 tables for gaming. It took me a few days to make all 35 boats but only because I made them while at the desk so I had to stop and start a lot. I originally used a bracket in a word document to track the players. My teens insisted we had to have a randomizer to make things fair and merrily found one online. I projected the bracket on the screen so that we could see who to play next. We had an odd number of teens that night so I got to play a few rounds myself.
Teens waiting to yell "You Sunk My Battleship."
I totally underestimated how excited the game play would get and we all got quite loud. At some points we couldn't hear well. I also had a few teens who had never played the game before so I had to break away a few times to explain the rules again. To make the game go faster the traditional way to play is with 7 boats instead of 5. I think I just got tired of making boats so I cut back to 5. I was able to pack up all the game pieces in a box and I'll stow them for a later program. We are going to play large version of chess and checkers next month.
Howdy When I was unemployed I spent a lot of time wistfully reading library blogs and pinning storytime ideas on Pinterest. I now have a job and the time to create the wonderful things I've been reading about and seeing online. A post I bookmarked ages ago was Early Literacy Storytime: Song Cube from the Blog Mel's Desk. She says "Inspiration for this idea came from Andrea’s (RovingFiddlehead KitLit) Song Spinner and the “Storytime 911 Shuffle Mix” at Storytiming." I have no idea where the original idea for this storytime song and rhyme randomizer came from but some of these posts starting showing up in blogs well over 5 years ago. I think it's about time I got with the program. Ta Da! I made my own Tune Cube or Song Cube or however you like to call this large single dye covered in song and rhyme prompts. Basically you use it in storytime to introduce a new activity in an exciting way that also helps involve the kids even more. You can encourage the children to guess what side the box might land on. You can see if they remember what you did last week. I purposefully labeled my Tune Cube so that each side had a prominent color so we could cram another concept into the play. Storytimes start up again after Labor Day so I will report back on the response I get from the kids and their parents.
My Song Box or Tune Cube feature the following songs:
I'm a Little Teapot (with a clever addition I learned online)
I'm a little teapot short and stout. Here is my handle.
Here is my spout. When I get all steamed up, Hear me shout! Just tip me over And pour me out
I'm a clever teapot, yes it's true. Here's an example of what I can do. I can turn my handle to a spout. Just tip me over and pour me out Itsy Bitsy Spider (repeat with a great big hairy spider and baby spider) The itsy-bitsy spider Climbed up the water spout Down came the rain And washed the spider out Out came the sun And dried up all the rain And the itsy-bitsy spider Climbed up the spout again
Alphabet Song
♫ A, B, C, D, E, F, G H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P Q, R, S, T, U, V W, X, Y, and Z Now I know my ABCs. Next time won't you sing with me? ♫
Soap
I love this song. It earworms me all the time. I did rearrange the lyrics so that they rhyme.
oh soap soap
you gotta wash your hands with soap soap
you gotta wash your face with soap soap
you gotta wash your nose with soap soap soap
oh soap soap
you gotta wash your tummy with soap soap
you gotta wash your knees with soap soap
you gotta wash your toes with soap soap soap
Five Little Peas Five little peas in a pea pod pressed. (hold fists in front of you with your knuckles pressed together) 1 grew, 2 grew and so did all the rest (on one hand pull one finger out of the fist at a time as you count up) They grew and they grew (begin to pull hands apart) And they did not stop (hands are as wide apart as possible now) Until one day, that pod went, Pop! (Clap hands loudly)
This Little Piggy This little piggy went to market, This little piggy stayed home, This little piggy had roast beef, This little piggy had none, And this little piggy went wee wee wee all the way home.
Howdy I don't like to assume things. I will never forget being at a youth services seminar as a freshly minted librarian. I felt desperately out of place. I was trying hard to look and act more knowledgable than I felt. The speaker said "well now we've all read Whirligig," and she moved on to other things. I had to sit there with my squirmy self. I was unable to admit that I hadn't read the book and that I didn't even know the author. I was miserable at my unfamiliarity with the book and my inability to articulate what I needed. I made a note and resolved to find this sacred text I had some how missed in graduate school. I later read Whirligig by Paul Fleischman and also Seedfolks. I am glad to have been led to such good fiction but I wish I didn't have to be shamed into learning. A wise adult told me once that "when you assume, you make an a** out of you and me." While this idea might not be safe for work, it certainly gets the point across. Misinformation is a terrible foundation for communication. I am working on a page of Online Resources. It's all sorts of handy stuff for storytimes, youth programs, employment and management. Its a pretty broad swath so I'll pull out some highlights for you. Ask a Manager - I swear I read this for fun. If you have a question about your boss or employees. If you want to know about salary and timecards and interview etiquette, you should bookmark this website. You will love the facebook page for quick updates. It's like Dear Abby or Ann Landers for the employment world. Not all the scenarios are library related but we work with people and people issues are universal. You will find a common thread here.
Jbrary - I love scarves, egg shakers and bean bags. Guess who else does? Jbrary does! I think they are more excited about my storytimes than I am. They have an awesomely diversified social media presence so you can learn however you like. I can honestly say I use at least one of their ideas in every Preschool storytime I do. I am hoping for more parachute ideas. *pretty please* Be sure to check out their Blogroll with many other online resources for youth services.
KCLS - This is the YouTube channel for The King County Library System of King County, Washington. They are adorable. Not sure you can list that on a resume but hey there are worse traits to have. Can you carry a tune and be instantly engaging? If not these YouTube videos are right up your alley. I get frustrated when I read a rhyme or song and I think "well maybe you think that's to the tune of America the Beautiful but I just cannot make that work." KCLS will help you out. I really appreciate that they will sing, dance to and just plain demonstrate the entire rhyme or song.
Sunflower Storytime - This is a really comprehensive blog. It's well organized and a has a lot fun things to offer from preplanned storytimes on a variety of themes, to hands on crafts and other activities. I actively subscribe to page updates via email and I have a ton of the emails archived for later dates to help me stay ahead on my planning. I am madly in love with the printables, which are super sharp and reproduce nicely. I really appreciate the school age ideas, they always give me a nudge in the right direction. Storytimes to Go and More - This closed Facebook group is a wealth of knowledge. While that might sound corny, it can be a relief to know that the answers are out there. Sometimes I just need to talk to other Youth Libs. Maybe I have a question about behavior in storytime, or how to train my brain to finally remember this week's rhyme. Better minds have walked these trails before so why not benefit from the experience of others when you know there is an easier way. Personally I like to beat my head against a wall at first but once I'm ready to ask for help, this group is always there for me. Storytime Underground - If I were the President of Storytime and I had a cabinet of librarians to inspire me they would be The Storytime Underground. Half the time I'm not even sure what sort of program to do next and before you can say Ram-a Lamb- a ding dong, I have more ideas than my Pinterest boards can accommodate. I find this group to be highly motivated and very encouraging. In moments of stress and weakness, I enjoy the camaraderie of the highly caffeinated Storytime Underground. Enjoy!
Howdy I think this is a common theme with all teen programs, you put out a lovely spread of snacks and your often mild mannered young adult patrons turn into a swarm of locusts. Less then a minute later the food is gone and sometimes so are your program participants. Now who is going to stay and watch Dragon Ball Z with you? I have been encouraging my teens to play with their food. This seems to slow down the gobbling just a bit. I got on Pinterest and looked for any sort of food activity that they could geek and eat.
Dig in.
Last month I made bowls of trail mix that contained cereal (rice chex and fruit loops), marshmallows (it was going to just be the mini mallows but we found some giant campfire sized marshmallows so I added those too), and jelly beans. OK its not your momma's trail mix but my teens liked the combo. The idea was to have three foods that were various skill levels on the chop stick scale; easy - marshmallows, medium - cereal, and hard - jelly beans. So instead of providing plates for them to use while shoveling in the food, I handed everyone a pair of chop sticks and a cup. They had to serve themselves with the chop sticks and then they could eat from the cup. You still have to watch for double dipping but mostly we only had a few near misses. Surprisingly my teens didn't roll their eyes or wait for me to finally hand out plates or just dig in with their hands; they quietly dove in and laughed and dropped food and generally had a good time. And I had leftovers, can you believe it?
But we still get soda, right?
For me the hardest part of this activity was getting the chopsticks. Yes I can steal a pair or two at a time from the sushi guy at the grocery store. I wanted a nice supply since I plan on serving ramen as a summer reading treat. I couldn't seem to find chopsticks at the supermarket in with plastic utensils. At some point I even called GFS (Gordon Food Services) who carry a lot of catering supplies. I was told it was a seasonal item. Because Chinese or Thai food is only eaten in the summer? No idea what that means. My coworkers were nice enough to start bringing in their chopsticks and now I have a nice stock of utensils at my desk. Along with many other incongruous things. We will definitely do this activity again. Now if only I knew what we were doing at Anime this week? um help.
We Are Here Together - based on I Am Here & You Are Here by Peter & Ellen Allard from Sing it! Say it! Stamp it! Sway it! Vol. 3 I am here and you are here and we are here together. I am here and you are here and we’re gonna clap our hands. I am here and you are here and we’re gonna stomp our feet. I am here and you are here and we’re gonna jump up and down. I am here and you are here and we are here together. I am here and you are here and we’re gonna have some fun.
To warm up after our song I had prepared a yellow bag with Free Printable Rhyming Sorting Game (thank you Pinterest) inside. Its a set a of 8 rhymes with 16 cards all together. Its great to have so many pieces because I have a lot of little helpers. Hiding at the bottom of my bog was large resin frog. This way we could talk about which pairs rhyme, which pairs don't and which ones lead us back to our froggy friend.
Books
Frog Thing by Eric Drachman Croaky Pokey by Ethan Long Ribbit by Rodrigo Folgueira Frog in a Bog by Karma Wilson
Songs Spaghetti Legs by Jim Gill - The Sneezing Song and Other Contagious Tunes Can You Leap Like a Frog by Greg and Steve - Kids in Action Wiggle Your Fingers by Peter and Ellen Allard - Sing It! Say It! Stamp It! Sway It! Vol. 2 I decided to use our 12" parachute to act as a lily pad in storytime. I have used parachutes before but not with this group. I loved that the kids wanted to sit on the lily pad instead of wandering around as much. I didn't like that some of my kids got really fixated on the handles. We didn't do any activities that would lift the parachute off the floor but it still took a lot of work to keep them focused on the floor games I had for us to do. I will definitely use the parachute again but I think I will need more ground rules or a better why to regain everyone's attention. I admit I let things get a little wild and wooly. Rhyme Five Green Speckled Frogs – with felt set. I like the Raffi version of this song but sometimes it just goes too fast. We just sang along today and it worked fine.
Five green and speckled frogs Sitting on a speckled log eating the most delicious grub, YUM YUM one jumped into the pool where it was nice and cool now there are 4 green speckled frogs Ribbit ribbit!
Five Green and Speckled Frogs | Mother Goose Club Playhouse Kids Video
Two Little Frogs - borrowed from Frog Storytime - Miss Meg's Storytime , her version is adapted from Two Little Blackbirds. I added two verses at the end because the kids really got into the rhyme after the second verse. Two little froggies sitting in the lake One named Jane, and one named Jake Swim away Jane, swim away Jake Come back Jane, come back Jake! Two little froggies sitting on the bay One named Greg, and one named May Jump away Greg, jump away May Come back Greg, come back May Two little froggies sitting on a cloud One croaked soft and one croaked loud croak aways soft, croak away loud come back soft, come back loud. Two little froggies sitting by the gate one came early and one came late go away early, go away late come back early, come back late This works best when you really ham it up and have the frogs appear but or after they are supposed to as if the frogs are just too silly to the right thing.
One bright scarf waiting for the wind to blow (hold in hand) Wiggle it high (wiggle scarf above head) Wiggle it low (wiggle scarf by knees) Shake it fast (wiggle scarf quickly) Shake it slow (wiggle scarf slowly) Put it behind your back (bring out empty hands) Where did it go?
Jack in the box, sits so still Will he come out, yes he will.
We clap our hands like this We clap our hands like this We clap our hands with all of our friends We clap our hands like this.
We blow a kiss like this We blow a kiss like this We blow a kiss with all of our friends We blow a kiss like this.
We wave goodbye like this. We wave goodbye like this. We wave goodbye with all our friends. We wave goodbye like this.
Craft For our craft a staff member used the printable template for our frog and lily pad to precut the basic shapes. I braided paper for the springs, here after called boingers because I thought that was really funny. While the website suggests some kids can make their own boingers I found my kids excelled at taking the boingers apart and then insisting their boinger broke. Laura
Here is another Pinterest discovery you can use in your teen department. These Book Fortune Tellers were inspired by Literary Hoots's post Fortune Teller Library Display. At Literary Hoots you can find a printable for the poster and four variations of the fortune teller. I ended up using the form to make my own so I can easily change them out or print extras as the original disappear. 
