Materials Needed:

• paper treat bags
• paper list
• pencils

Activity Description:
Before Minli leaves home she places these eleven items in her bag:

1. chopsticks
2. fishnet
3. needle
4. uncooked rice
5. copper coin
6. gourd
7. pot
8. water
9. dried bamboo
10. knife
11. rabbit rice bowl

If you were to leave home to change your family's fotune, what items would you take with you?  On your paper, write down the eleven items you would take with you and place your list inside of your bag.

When I say "fortune" get into (pairs or a group) to compare your lists.

I used the discussion questions from The Educator's Guide by LB School & Library

Materials: 

• Crayola watercolor paint pens
• Strathmore water color paper

Activity Description:
Participants will use the provided materials to create a watercolor dragon

I divided our participants into two groups.  They had to answer questions about the book and answer the question correctly in order to be lead to the next question. The questions were hidden in different places within the Children's Department.  The last question lead them to the children's reference desk where they were given a cryptogram puzzle to solve.  Once they solved the puzzle they could choose a "Top Secret" note pad or pencil as their prize.

Part of being an excellent detective/spy is being able to come up with amazing disguises.  I set-up a mini photo booth, my personal puppet stash, photo booth props from Target, and an iPad for The Crew to snap photos.  These are pictures that the kids took.  

I used crepe paper to create the obstacle course.  The kids had a lot of fun trying to squeeze, bend, and wiggle their way through this "laser" obstacle course.

We used a Padlet to talk about two questions: What is it like when you are the first to do something?  and Why is it important to have a support system?

I found the coolest downloadable resource called "Space STEM Challenges" from Kim Carroll on Teachers Pay Teachers.  It had lots of great activities that I just had to print off.  It was a huge time saver and I am so glad that I will be able to use some of the activities again in our Makerspace.  

​I also bought some badges from Amazon and made NASA badges for the kids to wear.

I created the badges on PicMonkey with graphics from Pixabay and Clipart Library.

I made a word find with all of the items that Minli packed into her bag before she left to find the Old Man of the Moon.  I used this Word Search Maker on The Teacher's Corner to generate the wordsearch.

I found a really neat school themed I-Spy activity on Teachers Pay Teachers.  I-Spy books are very popular at my library so I thought a pre-storytime I-Spy activity would be just the ticket!

I like to use the collage to talk about different objects that begin with the letter of the week.  We sang "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star".  We talked about grilled cheese vs. peanut butter and jellly sandwiches. 

from Let’s Do It Again! by Mary Helen Richards  an ETM Song
To the tune of "Oats, Peas, Beans and Barley Grow"

Come along and hop with me
Come along and hop with me
We’ll hop and hop
and hop and hop
so come along and hop with me

Come along and march with me
come along and march with me
We’ll march and march
and march and march
so come along and march with me

Come along and twirl with me
come along and twirl with me
We’ll twirl and twirl
and twirl and twirl
so come along and twirl with me

​Credit:  Nicole Lawton

Everybody stomp, stomp, stomp
Everybody jump, jump, jump
Everybody slap, slap, slap (slap knees)
Everybody tap, tap, tap (tap head)
Everybody twist, twist, twist
Everybody bend, bend, bend
Everybody clap, clap, clap
Everybody sit, sit, sit

Original version from Laptime Songs
Adapted by:  Nicole Lawton

Tickle the clouds
Tickle your toes
Turn around
And tickle your nose
Tickle your shoulders
Tickle your knees
Let’s read another story
Sit down please

Credit Storytime Katie

Dance your fingers up, dance your fingers down
Dance your fingers to the side, dance them all around
Dance them on your shoulders, dance them on you head
Dance them on your tummy, and put them all to bed

I like to open every meeting with an ice breaker.  I think it is a fun way to get everyone acquainted.  I broke the group up into two separate teams.  Each team received a deck of Book Besties cards. The team that correctly matched the Book Besties the fastest was declared the winner.

I borrowed this game from my boss.  We played it at one of our department meetings this past winter.   It’s pretty low prep and the results are hilarious.

Participants are given a paper plate and a marker.  Have the participants place the paper plate on top of their head.  Remind participants that the plate must stay on their head until the activity is complete.

For an extra challenge, you can have participants use their non-dominant hand to draw!

As participants hold the paper plate on their head, tell them to draw the following:

• A flower in some grass
• To the left of the flower, draw a bunny rabbit
• A sun in the sky
• To the right of the flower, draw a squirrel climbing a tree
• Draw some birds in the sky
• Draw a ladybug on top of the flower
• Give the sun a pair of sunglasses
• Draw some clouds in the sky

Participants can take their plate off from the top of their head and look at their remarkably hilarious art!

All of our station activities honored a character from Upside Down Magic.

​I planned a game of “catch the dragon” where I would place the dragon in the middle of the room.  I would ask a question about the book, and the first person to grab the dragon could answer the question.

However, we never got to the game because everyone had so much fun trying out the different stations.

During the summer I like to make goodie bags for Book and Cookie Club.  The bags have activities and items that are themed around the next month's book.   Next month, we will be reading and discussing Extra Credit by Andrew Clements.  Since it will be August and the 2018-2019 school year is almost upon us, I wanted to have some items that the Crew could use at school!

This is what went in the bags for this month:

• Naperville Public Library Pens 
• Assorted Stickers
• Emoji Post-It Notes 
• Letter writing bundle/snail mail activity:
  
  • envelopes (2/bag),
    
  • blank postcards (2/bag)
    
  • blank index cards (2/bag)
• granola bar recipe 
• pocket poems 
• nature scavenger hunt activity

This is my fourth social justice storytime basket. For lists of my other social justice storytimes, click here.  I received some positive feedback from a couple of caregivers, so I think that it is safe to say that the theme of "Be Yourself" resonated with several of my storytime attendees. 

If you are interested in seeing the materials I selected for this week's storytime basket - click here.

For my Saturday Family Storytime outline and plan - click here.

Happy in Our Skin celebrates what makes each and everyone of us unique - from freckles to fingerprints, there is no one that is exactly like you!

Be Brave Little One is a very gentle and loving read.  The sentiments expressed in this book are what every caregiver wishes for the children in their care.

My Heart Fills with Happiness features a young girl and the daily activities that bring her joy.
​
April is National Poetry month so I wanted to include a poem in storytime today.  I read "Beautiful Bird" from My Village: Rhymes from Around the World.  I selected this poem because it is very vibrant and evokes a feeling of spring, which we could certainly use with the continuation of winter weather.

This Little Baby
credit: Storytime Secrets
The first little baby said, "I'm so big!"
The second little baby danced a jig.
The third little baby sat down on the floor.
The fourth little baby crawled to the door.
The fifth little baby learned to run.
All the little babies had so much fun!
​
I found the idea for this flannel on the blog, Storytime Secrets.  I used clipart from Krista Wallden of Creative Clips to create this flannel.  

10 Friends Today
Credit: Fun with Friends at Storytime Blog
​One friend, two friends, three friends, four
In they come right through the door.
Five friends, six friends, seven friends, eight
Nine friends, ten friends make it great!
Ready to listen, ready to play,
Ten little friends are here today!

Hooray!!
​
I found the idea for this flannel on the blog, Fun with Friends at Storytime. I used clipart from Krista Wallden of Creative Clips to create this flannel.

To protect Krista's wonderful work, I cannot share the files for the images that I used for these flannels.  If you like the images, you can purchase them from Krista's Teachers Pay Teachers Store.

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

We'll Wave Hello Together
credit: Verona Storytime

We’ll wave hello together,
We’ll wave hello together,
We’ll wave hello together,
Because it’s fun to do.

We’ll give a hug together,
We’ll give a hug together,
We’ll give a hug together,
Because it’s kind to do.
​
We’ll high five together,
We’ll high five together,
We’ll high five together,
Because it’s fun to do.

Come Along and Walk with Me
credit: The Richards Institute of Education & Research

Come along and walk with me
Come along and walk with me.
We'll walk and walk, 
and walk and walk.
So, come along and walk with me.

Come along and tiptoe with me
Come along and tiptoe with me.
We'll tiptoe and tiptoe,
and tiptoe and tiptoe.
So, come along and tiptoe with me.

Come along and bend with me,
Come along and bend with me.
We'll bend and bend,
and bend and bend.
So, come along and bend with me.
*note for bend: this is a great opportunity to cross the midline and have children invert themselves.

Come along and twirl with me,
Come along and twirl with me
We'll twirl and twirl,
and twirl and twirl.
So, come along and twirl with me.

Come along and sit for me,
Come along and sit for me.
We'll sit and sit,
and sit and sit.
So, come along and sit for me.

I adapted this song for my Baby Lapsit program.  The tune of this song is the same as the Lapsit version except the actions are different.  To hear the tune for this song -- click here.

I like to have a pre-storytime activity for caregivers and children to do while they wait for storytime to get started.  This week's activity asked children and caregivers to share what makes them special.

Each week, we feature a letter of the week.  This week's letter was the letter Yy.  We practiced making the sound of the letter Y then I went through the collage of items that begin with the letter Y.  I like to have participants shout out what they think the items are.  Yak was a bit tricky!

This week’s assignment in my Technology class focused on Digital Storytelling, which is a video created by a library or librarian for marketing or advocacy purposes.  We were placed into groups and tasked with creating a 3-4 minute long video that incorporated images, narration, and music.

My Technology class is a hybrid course, which means we meet in person once a month.  During last night’s April meet-up, we were given time to create our videos. My group members and I traded a few emails over the past week because we wanted to be able to hit the ground running when we met face-to-face.  We also did some brainstorming via Google Docs, specifically about what age groups we work with, programs we have done, and ideas we had for our video. We ultimately decided on a video that promoted diverse books for young children, elementary students, and teens.  Each of us selected two books and wrote a book talk for each book.

When it was time for us to get into our groups, my group retreated to a little techno nook that is the Secret Garden of the School of Information Science (SOIS) program at Dominican University.  I had no idea that this room of technological goodness existed until one of my group members suggested that we go in there to work on our project. One of my group members hooked up her Macbook to the two large monitors in the SOIS computer lab to screencast her computer, which enabled us all to see our project and offer suggestions.  This assignment also provided me with an introduction to iMovie. I liked how iMovie allowed us to record our narration and adjusted the volume of our narrator when we added background music. It was like techno magic!

I really enjoyed putting together this project and felt that my group collaborated well.  We each contributed to the final product: one of my group members is a total whiz at iMovie and made our video look slick, the other group member had great suggestions for edits to the video, and I was able to come up with an introduction and conclusion for our video using some pieces from my Social Justice In the Stacks webpage.  I am pretty proud of what we created.

I think that Digital Storytelling can be a really fantastic marketing tool for libraries.  I am on the planning committees for two of my library’s biggest annual celebrations - Harry Potter Day and Star Wars Day.  I think that highlighting some of the incredible photos taken at last year’s events would be a really great marketing tool for promoting both celebrations this year.  I also think that this could be used to create videos on our library webpage to promote new books, our kid favorites section, and even share some early literacy tips! As a digital consumer, I know that I gravitate toward videos and images and I am certain that the customers my library serves function similarly.  Short videos are a great way to promote library programming and materials.