Our book for this month was Fake Mustache by Tom Angleberger.   

My Devious Plan

Escape Room Noob

Research

I highly recommend doing as much research as you can before you start the process of creating an escape room from scratch.  

Here are the websites & blogs that I referenced when I was creating the escape room:
The Logic Escapes Me
Now Escape
Lock Paper Scissors
​Weekend Notes
Instructables
​Fundraising Mums

Recommendations

These are the four major things that I wish I would have done a little bit better when I was planning and executing this escape room.  

• Time: give yourself time to plan your escape room
• Think: consider how you will set-up the room & where the clues will go
• Test: have a group of people test out your escape room so that you can work out the little kinks
• Try: make sure you know how to open the locks (I struggs to open and close that durn rope lock.  Yikes!)

Supplies

Some of the items for the escape room were things that I already owned.  I'm going to be 100% honest with you, I am in grad school, I work part time, and I'm married to a teacher.  We're not swimming in cash so I definitely designed the clues around things that I had lying around my house.  Anything marked with a "*" is something that I either own or was provided by my library. 

The whoopee cushion was my timekeeper  I let 'er rip to let everyone know that they had 15 and 10 minutes left.

Room Set-Up

Book and Cookie Club is hosted in our children's program room.  We have a lot of cabinets where we store our programming supplies.  I decided to utilize two of the cabinets for the escape room.  I also thought it was important to mark off the things that were NOT part of the escape room.  I used orange crepe streamers to block off the areas that weren't part of the escape room to provide a visual reminder in case participants fogot which areas were not part of the game.

​There was also the added challenge of everyone being in the room before we began the escape room.  I covered up the clues for the escape room with blue table cloths and made sure I had a fun icebreaker activity (mazes) for everyone to do at their seats as we waited for everyone to arrive.

The Story & The 1st Clue

Every escape room has to have a story!  I usediFakeText Message and Screen Cast O'Matic to create a text conversation between myself and Fako Mustacho (the evil villain).  The B&C Crew watched the video and began the search for their candy!

The hint is located in the the text messages of the video.

• Find a lock with numbers
• Combination is 4-2-2.

Clue #2: URGENT!

Clue #3: EVIL HAIR!

Clue #4 -- Catch That 'Stache

Clue #5-- Does it Fart?

Clue #6 -- The Tower

I taped a picture of a nose on four of the Lewo blocks.  I hid them inside of the tower.  The kids decided the best strategy was to knock down the tower to find the next clue!

Clue #7 -- It's SNOT funny

Clue #8 -- Picture Perfect

There's nothing funnier than putting mustaches on book characters.  I'm not going to lie, putting mustaches on The Berenstain Bears had me giggling uncontrollably.

The characters pictured here are: Harry Potter, Nancy Drew, Berenstain Bears, and Clifford (HNBC).

The Crew really thought long and hard on this one.  They came up with some ideas that I hadn't thought of (like counting the number of mustaches on the characters).  Ultimately, they figured out that the first letter of each character's name was the first part of the lock combination and then they realized that there were four pictures on the wall, which was the last part of the lock combination.

​So, the lock combination was HNBC4.

THEY DID IT!

The Crew solved the escape room in 22 minutes.  Each of the kids recieved a cello treat bag for their candy stash and sticky hand.  I considered getting mini whoopee cushions, but I decided the sticky hands and sugared up children would be enough of a punishment to the parents in attendance (Sorry! #notsorry #theyhadfun)

Mustache Photo Booth

Kids love a good I-Spy activity and Next Comes L Blog comes up with the BEST I-Spy activities.  They practically have every I-Spy under the sun.  I highly recommend checking them out! 

I introduced the letter of the week by showing everyone the collage on the document camera.  I asked participants "What letter is this?"  We made the two different sounds that the letter C makes and we made the letter C with our bodies.  Then, we talked about the pictures in the collage.  We moo'd together for the cow, meowed together for the cat, pretended to eat cotton candy, and shared our favorite crayon color.

Can I Be Your Dog?  Is a sweet story about a doggo looking for his forever home.  He writes letters to people in the neighborhood asking if they would be willing to adopt him.  

Gaston is about two puppies who don't look like the rest of their family members, and learn that it's more important to be who you want to be.

Will You Help Doug Find His Dog?  Is a fabulous interactive book that invites everyone to help Doug figure out which dog is his.

Bark, George is an old favorite.  George makes the sounds of other animals instead of saying "woof."  This is a great interactive book as you can invite participants to make the different animal sounds with you.

Because everyone could use some photos of Curley the Wonderdog.  

Welcome Song: Wake Up Feet
Credit: Jbrary

We chose to sing these together, but you can use recorded music too!

Ring around the rosy,
Pocket full of posies,
Hush-a, Hush-a,
We all fall down.

Head and shoulders, knees, and toes
Knees and toes
Head and shoulders, knees, and toes
Knees and toes
eyes and ears
And mouth and nose
Head and shoulders, knees, and toes
Knees and toes

The wheels on the bus go round and round
Round and round, round and round
The wheels on the bus go round and round
All through the town.
(Roll hands over each other) 

The wipers on the bus go "Swish, swish, swish,
Swish, swish, swish, swish, swish, swish"
The wipers on the bus go "Swish, swish, swish"
All through the town.
(Swish arms like windshield wipers) 

The door on the bus goes open and shut
Open and shut, open and shut
The door on the bus goes open and shut
All through the town.
(Open and close hands)

The horn on the bus goes "Beep, beep, beep
Beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep"
The horn on the bus goes "Beep, beep, beep"
All through the town.
(Pretend to honk horn) 

The babies on the bus say, "Wah, wah, wah!
Wah, wah, wah, wah, wah, wah!"
The babies on the bus says, "Wah, wah, wah!"
All through the town.
(Fisted hands in front of eyesand rub them like baby crying) 

The grown-ups on the bus say, "Shh, shh, shh,
Shh, shh, shh, shh, shh, shh"
The grown-ups on the bus say, "Shh, shh, shh"
All through the town.
(Put pointer finger to mouth to 'shhh') 

You put your right foot in
You take your right foot out
You put your right foot in
And you shake it all about
You do the hokey pokey
And you turn yourself around
That's what it's all about

You put your left foot in
You take your left foot out
You put your left foot in
And you shake it all about
You do the hokey pokey
And you turn yourself around
That's what it's all about

You put your right hand in
You take your right hand out
You put your right hand in
And you shake it all about
You do the hokey pokey
And you turn yourself around
That's what it's all about

You put your left hand in
You take your left hand out
You put your left hand in
And you shake it all about
You do the hokey pokey 
And you turn yourself around
That's what it's all about

You put your whole self in
You take your whole self out
You put your whole self in
And you shake it all about
You do the hokey pokey
And you turn yourself around
That's what it's all about

Goodbye Song: We Wave Goodbye Like This
​Credit: Jbrary

If You're Happy & You Know It

We took an old classic and adapted it.

If you’re happy and you know it
ring your bells.
If you’re happy and you know it
ring your bells.
If you’re happy and you know it
and you really want to show it
If you’re happy and you know it
ring your bells.

Shake Those Bells

Shake Your Bell In the Air

Shake!

We Shake & Shake & Stop

Going to Kentucky

Shake Your Shakers

I Know A Chicken

I cut out paper flowers using our Ellison machine.  I wrote a word on each flower that could describe a caregiver, mom, aunt, grandmother, etc.  I deliberately did not write words like "beautiful" or "pretty" on the flowers because I wanted the focus to be on traits that often go unnoticed about women - i.e.: brave, artistic, adventurous, entrepreneur, etc..  If you are curious to see the full list, it is on page 8 of my outline.

I hung the flowers in different parts of the meeting room where storytime is held and encouraged participants to look for a word that describes their caregiver or someone very special to them.  I also had some blank flowers that participants could take home, write on, and share.

To introduce the Letter of the Week, I ask participants what they think the letter of the week is.  We practice making the sound of that letter and then we practice "drawing" the letter.  Today, I had caregivers trace the letter M on their child's back and had the children draw the letter M on the carpeting.  #DoubleSensoryInput  #Yas  

After we "drew" the Letter of the Week, we went through the collage and talked about the items on the collage.

Yo Te Amo
​Credit: Jbrary

Skinnamarink
​Credit: Jbrary

I Have a Little Heart
​Credit: Jbrary

Hurry Scurry Little Mouse
​Credit: Pierce County Library

Hurry scurry little mouse,
Starts down at your toes. (touch toes)
Hurry scurry little mouse,
Past your knees he goes. (touch knees)
Hurry scurry little mouse,
Past where your tummy is. (touch  tummy)
Hurry scurry little mouse,
Gives you a mousy kiss. (blow a  kiss)

Let's Go to the Forest
​Credit: Pierce County Library

Let’s go to the forest.
What will we do there?
Find our grown-ups. (point to caregivers.)
What will we do with them?
Kiss them, kiss them, kiss them! (give kisses)

Tall as a Tree
​Credit: Pierce County Library

Tall as a tree, (stretch arms overhead)
Wide as a house, (stretch arms out to sides)
Thin as a pin, (arms tight against sides)
Small as a mouse. (crouch)

We set all of our activities up around the room in stations so caregivers and babies could rotate through each activity.  In addition to our three stations that had art projects, we also put out our bin of baby toys and a book display cart with some of our favorite picture books.  

If you would like to see the post from our first week of Artsy Babies click here.

Last night I went to my last class of the spring semester.  For the past three weeks I have had a magnificent stress-induced eye twitch and a good case of the "I can't brain, I has the dumbs."  I think that I have just enough brain power left to write and reflect on my last project for my #LIS724 Integrating Technology into Programming, Services, and Instruction course. 

I really enjoyed having the opportunity to try different platforms and sharing what I loved, learned, and (sometimes) loathed about them (I'm looking at you, Prezi).  I hope that I can continue to set aside some time to learn and experiment with new technological platforms and integrate them into my programming and reference services at my library.

Our final project tasked my group members and me with developing an inquiry based lesson to teach to our classmates.  After four years of not wearing my "teacher hat", I had to dust it off and put it back on.

Choosing a Topic

At first, I thought that it would be great fun for us to use some of the robotics that my library owns.  I looked at our Ozobots and Makey Makey, but due to special programming my group would not have been able to get enough materials for our classmates to use the robotic equipment effectively.

One of my group members suggested using GeoGuessr.  GeoGuessr is an online platform that utilizes Google Maps Street View.  Users select a region of the world and GeoGuessr places them in an unknown location within that region.   Users must use physical clues (mountains, trees, water, etc.) and human clues (signs, cars, people, clothes, etc.) to figure out where they are.  The user will make a guess about where they are and GeoGuessr will tell them how close or far away they are from their guess.

Designing a Lesson

I had to reach into The Archives (a.k.a my 2009 Toshiba Satellite Laptop that is still alive) to dig out my lesson plan outline.  It has been a while since I have had to wear my "Teacher Hat" but I feel like it is a bit like riding a bicycle - you remember what to do once you start going. 

I wanted to think of an activity that would get everyone interested in what we were about to do so I created the"Where in the United States" activity.  I downloaded pictures from Pixabay of four landmarks in the United States.  I wanted my classmates to guess the function of the landmark and where it is located.  

After the "Where in the United States Activity", my group decided that it would be a good idea to show our classmates how to use GeoGuessr and to try guessing a location together.  We also thought it would be helpful to provide Chicago Guidebooks to our classmates so that they could utilize a paper map and the index to help them pin-point their location.

My group and I met before class to talk through our lesson plan.  We also wanted to figure out how much time we wanted to spend on each component of our lesson. We were allotted twenty minutes to present our inquiry based lesson and we wanted to stick to the time frame.

Presenting our GeoGuessr Adventure

Our lesson was developed for seventh grade students.  I had some classmates that decided to act like they were in seventh grade.  I must admit, that while it was done in jest, I found it to be slightly distracting. 

Do distractions happen in the classroom?  Absolutely.  Distractions happen in library programming too, but when I am presenting a program or lesson to children I am mentally prepared for the possibility of a distraction to occur.  Was I mentally prepared for it in that very moment?  Nope.  

I thought that this was an engaging activity for everyone. It was interesting to see how each group used different strategies to figure out where they were on GeoGuessr.  Some people scrolled until they found a street sign or address, other people used familiar buildings or landmarks, and some used the guidebooks and maps. 

Some of the landmarks for the "Where in the US" activity were a bit difficult.  I would have liked to tie the physical and human factors to the introductory activity, but I was worried about the time and did not include that part.

Overall, I enjoyed putting together this lesson with my group.  I felt that the tools we used for this lesson were effective at making inquiry based learning hands-on and engaging.

Lesson Plan * Presentation Slides *  Where in the US Handout * GeoGuessr Handout

And Now...I Celebrate

Now that I am officially finished with my spring semester, I can celebrate that I have reached the half-way point of attaining my MLIS.  One year from now, I will be an official librarian!

And Now...I Remember Summer Classes Start Monday

About nine months ago, Julie from Tales for The Tiny shared her blog post on the Storytime Underground Facebook page about an art and music themed programming series for babies and their caregivers she had developed. 

I have been wanting to plan and facilitate a similar program at my library so I shared the post with my colleague and we submitted a special program proposal.  We were quite excited when our idea was selected!

Today's focus was on music and movement.  We did some bounces and we used parachutes, scarves, and bubbles.  This was our maiden voyage of "Artsy Babies" and I think that it was something that our attendees really enjoyed.  ​

We listened to some fun kids' music as we played with the bubble wands and had the bubble machine going.