At the beginning of the year I try to commit to a book challenge or two, but I have a tendency to forget about them come March.  I decided to create my own book challenge for 2018 so I can be held accountable.  I will be posting my picks on Instagram using #SewBookishReads18.  If you decide to join in on the fun, be sure to tag your book pics on Instagram so I can see your book choices!

I love getting the Year in Books e-mail from Goodreads.  There is something gratifying about looking at all of my reading stats for the year.  Out of the 234 books that I read this year, here are 15 of my favorites:

My library put together a really fun magical celebration back in July.  I was lucky to be selected to be part of the planning committee and had the opportunity to head up the children's crafts sub committee.  I did a great deal of research on Pinterest looking for children's crafts that would appeal to tiny and big muggles and wizards.  Inspiration struck when I saw an owl pumpkin decorated like my favorite wizard's companion.  I knew I had to create some sort of paper owl craft for our magical celebration! 

I love that 2017 has been the year of the unicorn.  Throughout the years, unicorns have always been my favorite mythical creature. Needless to say, I am thrilled that there are so many great unicorn picture books out there in the world.  

I had a blast putting together this storytime.  I would love to hear what books, songs, or flannels you have used if you have done your own unicorn storytime! 

This song was a spur of the moment creation that I wrote down and saved for the day that I planned for a unicorn storytime!  This song is great with a unicorn puppet!  

There's a Unicorn on Your Head!
to the tune of: If You're Happy & You Know It

There's a unicorn on your head on your head.
There's a unicorn on your head on your head.
There's a unicorn on your head,
there's a unicorn on your head.
There's a unicorn on your head on your head!

There's a unicorn on your shoe on your shoe.
There's a unicorn on your shoe on your shoe.
Whatcha gonna do?
There's a unicorn on your shoe.
There's a unicorn on your shoe on your shoe!

There's a unicorn on your ear on your ear.
There's a unicorn on your ear on your ear.
It's really hard to head,
when there's a unicorn on your ear.
There's a unicorn on your ear on your ear!

There's a unicorn on your nose on your nose.
There's a unicorn on your nose on your nose.
Oh goodness knows,
there's a unicorn on your nose.
There's a unicorn on your nose on your nose!

There's a unicorn on your hand on your hand.
There's a unicorn on your hand on your hand.
Isn't it real grand,
when there's a unicorn on your hand?
There's a unicorn on your hand on your hand.

These are the songs that we listened or danced to in storytime.  If you are interested in checking out these songs, there are links to Amazon where you can listen to a sample and purchase these great songs!

I started doing a "pre-storytime" activity to incorporate Every Child Ready to Read skills and a little pre-storytime fun. This activity is self-guided and gives caregivers and their kiddos something fun to do while they wait for storytime to begin. For this storytime, I projected a really cute unicorn themed I-Spy page from from And Next Comes L Blog.  Caregivers and kiddos enjoyed looking for the different unicorns!

​The First Rule of Punk by Celia C. Pérez
Review by Nicole Lawton
 
Pérez, Celia C. The First Rule of Punk. Viking Books for Young Readers, August 2017.  336 pages.  Tr. $16.99, ISBN 0425290409.
 
Billie Jean Armstrong once said, “punk is about doing things your own way.”  For 12-year-old María Luisa “Malú” O’Neill-Morales, trying to find her own way can be difficult.  Is she Punk enough?  Is she Mexican enough?  Is she señorita enough?
 
Malú loves her home in Florida, punk music, hanging out with her dad, and making collage artwork called Zines.  Her life is suddenly turned upside-down when her mother accepts a teaching position at a university in Chicago.  As she wades through the challenges of being the new girl at Posada Middle School, Malú finds her voice and learns to thrive in an unfamiliar environment.
 
This realistic fiction novel would be perfect for 4th through 6th Grade readers.  Malú grapples with the strained relationship she shares with her mother and must dance through the daily drama of making friends in middle school.  Mexican American readers will see themselves reflected in Malú while aspiring punk rock musicians will love learning about new artists to add to their repertoire.  Readers who enjoy Dork Diaries or Roller Girl will lose themselves in First Rule of Punk.  The storyline is real, funny, and engaging, the adult and child relationships are thoughtful and realistic, and the author cleverly weaves Malú ’s struggles to tie her Punk and Mexican sides together throughout the book.  Readers will also enjoy poring over Malú’s fun, inspiring, and unique artwork.
 
My verdict: If this book came out in 1998, I would have read it until the spine fell apart.  I can only imagine what it would have been like to finally find a book character that understood exactly what I was going though.  I know that First Rule of Punk would have had a profound impact on me.  I am beyond thrilled that this book exists in the world.  

I have over two years worth of storytimes and programming that I did not have an opportunity to blog about until now. I'm going to try and share those ideas on "Rewind Wednesday" posts.

Last year, I did my first Stuffed Animal Sleepover program. Our Stuffed Animal Sleepover started on Friday evening with the stuffed animal drop-off and ended on Saturday morning with a stuffed animal pick-up and a special storytime. My co-worker and I spent the evening snapping photos to create a slideshow for the Saturday morning storytime. We had a lot of fun thinking of different places and poses for all of the stuffed animals.

At drop off, participants created a name tag for their stuffed animal and shared their stuffed animal's bedtime routine with us. We had a few participants that felt anxious about leaving their favorite stuffed animal at the library, so we had a bin of "Library Stuffies" available for them. They chose a "Library Stuffy", named it, and introduced it to their stuffed animal. We told the participants that the "Library Stuffy" will tell their stuffed animal about their library adventures at storytime Saturday morning. These children were relieved that they could take their favorite stuffed animal home with them and still participate in the program. It was a win-win!

After drop off, my co-worker and I got to work on posing the stuffed animals.  We utilized Google Photos so that the pictures would upload as soon as we took them.  This definitely made creating the slideshow easier!

Book & Cookie Club is a one hour long book discussion for students in 3rd through 5th grade and an adult caregiver.  I have been facilitating this program since December of 2015.  It is one of my favorite programs because I get to come up with new activities, icebreakers, and discussion games every month!

THE BOOK
This month, we read and discussed Rowan of Rin by Emily Rodda.

THE PLAN
I always like to start our meetings with an icebreaker.  Our icebreaker for this meeting was a cryptogram that uses a quote from The Lord of the Rings. 

After the icebreaker, we conquered the obstacle course.  I created five obstacles on one side of our program room.  Participants had to complete the obstacle, then spin the wheel on the Decide Now! iPad app. I programmed the wheel to have the numbers one through three on it.  If a participant spun the number 3, then they had to answer three questions about the book before they could move onto the next obstacle.



Obstacles:  

1. Don’t wake the spiders: participants had to crawl through a tunnel without touching any of the spiders.
2. Ball toss: participants used their non-dominant hand to toss ping pong balls into cereal bowls. This one proved to be a challenge, but the kids got creative in order to make it work!
3. Domino sort: participants made a set of 6 dominoes
4. Find the ball: I hid different colored wiffle balls underneath cones.  Participants picked a color and had to find that color wiffle ball under the cone.
5. Tic-Tac-Toe: participants had the option of playing against their grown-up or against a friend

Once everyone completed the obstacle course, we moved on to the book related activities.  

Activities:

1. Matchstick puzzles:  I used toothpicks for this activity because...matchsticks. I just did a Google search for "matchstick puzzles" and printed off one of the puzzles that I found. 
2. Word puzzles
3. Map making:  I found some neat ideas on Pinterest on fantasy map making so I printed off those ideas and displayed them.  We have this neat brown Kraft paper on a roll that we use to cover our tables and I thought it would be awesome to use for a fantasy map.  I put out black markers and black colored pencils.

I loved seeing the adults and their kids work together to solve the puzzles.  The maps that the kids came up with were amazing.  I could kick myself because I forgot to take pictures of their awesome maps.  Overall, it was a fun evening!

Next month, we will be discussing The Misadventures of the Family Fletcher by Dana Alison Levy!