storytime katie

Welcome to the Spring Edition of “In Case You Missed It”! Now that we’re clearly in summer, I thought it was time to do the round-up!

Advocacy
• Guerrilla Storytime round-ups/notes: MLA’s Spring Institute and British Columbia Library Conference.

Early Literacy
• 4.7.14 Lisa at Libraryland has a truly enviable project going on — early literacy kits. I am so excited for her and her patrons — what a great idea! Also see: round two.
• 4.8.14 Brooke at Reading With Red updated part of her library’s section to include an early literacy alphabet station!
• 4.21.14 & 4.22.14 Marge and Brooke tag-teamed and wrote a two-part series on how they updated their early literacy area.
• 4.24.14 Lisa at Libraryland completely revamped her Parent/Teacher collection and I love it!

Recognizing AMAZING Colleagues!
• 3.11.14 Bryce at Bryce Don’t Play has the best, most amazing tribute to moving-and-shaker Cory for her awesome idea of Storytime Underground and Guerrilla Storytime. Guerrilla Storytime is my ABSOLUTE favorite part of conference now!
• 3.27.14 Dana and Lindsey at Jbrary celebrated ONE YEAR. What would we do without you ladies teaching us all the bounces, songs, rhymes, tickles, and more? (I, for one, would cry.)
• 5.13.14 Marge reminds us to nurture ideas and each other.

Preschool Programming
• 3.20.14 Marge at Tiny Tips for Library Fun and the rest of the amazing staff members at La Crosse Public Library celebrated the THIRD BIRTHDAY of “1000 Books Before Kindergarten” — their community has read 257,200 books!!!
• 3.25.14 Meg at Miss Meg’s Storytime hits a slam dunk (in my opinion) with her Pete the Cat party! I’m toying with the idea of doing a book celebration once a month in the fall and you can bet I’ll remember this Pete party.
• 6.10.14 Brooke at Reading With Red writes about the biggest baby shower ever: a community outreach program. I can’t even believe the awesomeness that is going on here.
• 6.11.14 Angie at Fat Girl, Reading knocks everyone’s socks off with her description of her library’s Music and Movement program — aka BABY DANCE.

School-Age Programming
• Thrive Thursday round-ups for March, April, May, & June!
• 3.13.14 Lindsey at Jbrary hosted a spring break Superhero Training program! For everyone planning to do the 2015 CSLP theme, bookmark this now!
• 3.31.14 Angie at Fat Girl, Reading completely revamped her library’s American Girl program and she tells you how in a follow-up post!
• 4.1.14 Marge at Tiny Tips for Library Fun shows us how an Elephant and Piggie party is really done!
• 4.7.14 Anne at So Tomorrow’s Dr. Seuss celebration is absolutely wonderful and creative and I just love it so very much.

STEAM Programming
• 4.7.14 Abby at Abby (the) Librarian has some weather science in her Preschool Lab.
• 4.8.14 Lisa at Libraryland has a way cool and inventive science program — Peep Science.
• 4.22.14 Abby at Abby (the) Librarian is also growing things at Preschool Lab!
• 6.10.14 Abby at Abby (the) Librarian has one more Preschool Lab for us this ICYMI — ocean animals!

Storytime
• Some of my favorite storytime themes to pop up lately: socks and shoes (Meg), jungle (Anne), funny stuff (Lindsey), the 5 senses (Mollie).
• 3.10.14 Abby at Abby (the) Librarian has you covered if you never received formal storytime training. She’s giving you all the information you need to help yourself in one post!
• 3.26.14 Marge at Tiny Tips for Library Fun is again singing the praises of storytime breaks. All I can add is: amen!
• 4.10.14 Lindsey at Jbrary has her favorite 2013 storytime books!
• 4.15.14 Katie at Storytime Secrets wrote a fantastic series on music in storytime: Recorded Music, A Cappella Music, Live Music, Saying Hello, Extension Songs, Stretching and Movement, & Saying Goodbye.
• 4.17.14 Dana at Jbrary has a thoughtful post all about evaluating storytime. This was especially timely for me since I was going through my first round of program evaluations when the post popped up in my Feedly.
• 6.4.14 Kelly at Ms. Kelly at the Library has some awesome tips and tricks for baby storytime!

It’s baaaaack! The hiatus of ICYMI was almost entirely accidental. Summer reading planning hit, my sister got married, my grandfather fell and was diagnosed with Parkinson’s, I decided to job search and then got a new job and now here we are.

I had been saving stuff since NOVEMBER in my Feedly reader. I decided to just do 2014 posts and wipe the slate clean. I’m hoping to make this seasonal since it’s such a time-intensive post to write, but obviously I want to keep sharing the AMAZING things that my INCREDIBLE colleagues are doing in their libraries.

So, without further ado…In Case You Missed It!

ALA Elections
• 3.7.14 Kelly is on the ballot for Printz Committee this year. She lays out all the reasons why you should vote for her and I’ll add my own here: I served with Kelly on Outstanding Books for the College Bound and can personally attest to her dedication and incredible value as a committee member. Kelly is someone you want on your team because she truly gives it her all. I know she’ll be an asset to her fellow committee members, her chair, and that she will give careful, serious consideration to all books nominated.

Books & Collection
• 2.6.14 Sharon wrote an unconventional Flannel Friday, all about weeding the storytime collection of flannels. I love the practical tips that are given, as well as the pictures!
• 2.25.14 Anna has a great new idea brewing about finding picture books that have everyday diversity in them. Books that predominantly feature diverse characters and reflect everyday kid life (loose tooth, new baby, bedtime, etc.). Join in by visiting her post & emailing!
• 3.5.14 Lisa wrote a super relevant post about organizing and ordering for a new storytime collection, something that is ringing super relevant to me given the job change!
• 3.7.14 Beth absolutely ROCKS a new Pop Culture Reader’s Advisory tool with recommendations for fans of ABC Family’s “Switched at Birth”. As a huge fan of the show (thank you, Drea!), I can personally second every book that Beth suggests.

Libraries & Librarianship
• 2.12.14 Abby got tips and tricks for reading aloud! A must-read for new and seasoned librarians.
• 2.19.14 Marge encourages and reminds us to share what we know with others. This really resonated with me; I never intended Storytime Katie to be a resource for others but my life is richer because of the online connections that I’ve made because of the blog. I don’t know what I would do with you all!
• 3.5.14 Amy writes at Storytime Underground about how the YS profession needs to start shouting that our work has value and is important and that we need to share it if we’re going to change how people perceive us. So, arguably the single most important post in this round-up.

Outreach & Partnerships
• 1.13.14 Marge partnered with a local yoga instructor (full disclosure: my dear, dear friend Rachel!) to collaborate on a yoga storytime. I love this kind of unconventional partnership and already have this in the works at my new library!
• 1.30.14 Brooke gave us the rundown on her preschool tour, based this year on Dinosaur Vs. the Library!
• 2.18.14 Marge talks about her library’s new program that encourages all staff members to get involve in programming. A circulation staff member reached out to international students from the local university and had a wonderful global countries & cultures program for the kids!
• 3.5.14 Lisa created an AMAZING Kindergarten Literacy Night based around The Pigeon. It was held in the library, but I’m counting it as outreach since it was a partnership/school-requested event. I love the activities that Lisa planned, especially that sweet Pigeon flannelboard!

Preschool Programming
• 1.22.14 Amy rocked out with the parachute play program and managed to make a program work even when the iPod didn’t!
• 2.7.14 Amy gave us a way to get out that winter cooped-up energy with her Preschool/Toddler Obstacle Course! I think I need to start hoarding Baker & Tyler boxes and shelving boxes and all those boxed that the library sees every day.
• 2.10.14 Anne shared her awesome Mother Goose Games program and all I can say is: I know what I’m doing Summer 2016.
• 2.12.14 & 2.13.14 Lisa writes up her latest Play to Learn program, based on Go Away, Big Monster! She also posted about the creation of the color wheels featured in the program in another post. I want to steal this program SO MUCH. What a great literacy program!!
• 2.13.14 Meg isn’t afraid to embrace STEM anymore with her shapes PreSchool Explorers program! I love Meg’s willingness to step out of her comfort zone to do a great program for her kids.
• 3.5.14 Amy did a great hands-on art program: Little Learners. After a special message to the parents to remember their patience, Amy gave the kids scissors to make some Kandinsky inspired pieces. I think Amy’s book choices were spot-on and I’m sure the kids had a great time!

School-Age Programming
• 1.13.14 Amy wrote about her Family Fort After-Hours program. I desperately want to do this at my library now!
• 1.15.14 Erin has the absolute most dedicated teen volunteers EVER at her library’s Life-Sized Candyland. Take note of their truly inspired costumes!
• 2.14.14 Amy took a ton of pictures of idea for a fingerprint maker craft! This is a great tie-in with the Ed Emberley books that Amy mentions and something I’d definitely use with a variety of ages.
• 3.7.14 Sue kicks off Library Village‘s new school-age blog with a great post about making connections with pre-teen/tween patrons via the latest fad: rainbow looms. I’m looking forward to all that the new blog offers!

Storytime
• 1.6.14 Kendra revamped her Baby Storytime. And I definitely going to use the Smooth Road bounce considering we’re entering pothole season in Illinois!
• 1.6.14 & 2.3.14 Erin is posting a new series called “A Few of My Favorite Themes.” THEMED STORYTIME PACKETS AVAILABLE FOR DOWNLOAD. January’s theme was snow and February’s was Valentine’s Day!
• 1.24.14 Anna told her how she re-vamped (in mid-program!) an unruly storytime program.
• 2.13.14 Lindsey finished her Toddler Storytime planning series. It is basically the only thing you’d need to read to start up Toddler Storytime in your library. And it has been my biggest how-to source to do the very best toddler storytime I can at my new library.
• 2.19.14 Mollie and Leah answered a reader-submitted question: how do you do storytime on a tight budget? Their recommendations are perfect and easy to implement for any librarian.
• 2.24.14 Amy blew my mind with a ballet storytime featuring a REAL-LIFE BALLERINA. Four-year-old Katie is wishing for time travel to be a real thing already.
• 3.7.14 Melissa and Lisa want to know about the average storytime workload. If you do storytime at your library, would you mind stopping by to take their survey?

For more awesome round-ups, please visit Stacked’s Links of Note, Jbrary’s We’ll Link to That!, and Storytime Underground’s Coolest Thing on the Internet.

(Or as this installment should be known, Katie continues to go through starred posts in Google Reader from the last two months since Google Reader is leaving us, and is absolutely determined to not let this happen again no matter what.)

Books & Collection
• 3.27.13 Amy asks a question about weeding: is it better to have *something* rather than outdated information? Great comments here, too.
• 4.3.13 Abby in her monthly ALSC blog reminds us that summer is super close and NOW is the time to stock up on our popular series so that we’re ready for Summer Reading.

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Libraries & Librarianship
• 3.25.13 Anne shows up how a minor tweak in how she shelves kits at her old library can make a big difference!
• 3.25.13 Sarah talks about feeling out of her depth when visiting a bike shop earlier in the week. (Don’t worry, things worked out for her!) Are our patrons feeling the same way about libraries?

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Kids Programming
• 3.26.13 Mollie did one of my very favorite programs that we do annually in my library, Life-Sized Candyland! At the end, Mollie talks about what she learned and what you absolutely need to run this program yourself.
• 3.27.13 Amy gives you every tool you need to make sure that your next Star Wars party is rocking the library! And I can second her recommendation of contact the 501st Legion; our volunteers at our library were amazing and are STILL talked about three years later. “Miss Katie, remember the STORM TROOPER who used OUR COMPUTERS?”
• 4.9.13 Sara has embraced the word “Makerspaces” and is pressing on with some awesome activities for kids using LEGOS.

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Storytime
• 3.20.13 Kendra breaks down Parachute Play for our youngest patrons — babies and toddlers! A great post to read, with tons of song and rhymes suggestions.
• 3.21.13 Melissa made me want to run out to Target and buy a small rug immediately after she introduced the Blue Carpet No Fly Zone rule in her storytime. If you have had issues with parents knowing when to grab their kid or with little ones standing right in front of you, blocking everyone else’s view — get thee a blue carpet. (Or whatever color you like best!)
• 3.25.13 Kendra responds to several Baby Storytime tours by giving us a tour of her own space! I love the magnetic wall.
• 3.27.13 Melissa responds about singing and using CDs in storytime and really gave me a lot to think about. (Last week, I used recorded music in my storytimes for the FIRST TIME EVER because of her post!) Also, make sure to check out the comments section where the discussion continues.
• 3.30.13 Sarah, in a guest blog for the ALSC blog, wrote up a fabulous post all about her Caldecott storytimes this spring. I love this idea and think that it is a phenomenal way to introduce kids to award-winning books!
• 4.4.13 Anna gives a great overview about using scarves in storytime!

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Flannel Friday
• 3.29.13 Mollie has the round-up available at her blog.
• 4.5.13 Lucy has the first April round-up!
• 4.12.13 Kendra has this past week’s round-up!
  

(Or as this installment should be known, Katie goes through starred posts in Google Reader from the last two months since Google Reader is leaving us, and decides there is way, way, WAY too many posts of awesome that she saved and she now needs to split it up for the next two weeks.)

Librarianship!
• 2.26.13 Amy wrote about how she uses peer-sourcing in the library. How lucky we are to work in a field where sharing and collaboration are happening constantly online and (I hope) in person as well!
• 2.27.13 Sarah wants to know why a storytime librarian and a teen librarian cannot be the same person — why can’t we be interested in both parts of the career?
• 2.28.13 — 3.3.13 Julie began a dialogue about gender and librarianship months ago and continues it with another thought-provoking post, which has been answered by Marge and Kelly and Marge again and many more.

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Books!
• 2.28.13 Anne and Amy revealed the results of their Middle Grade series survey! It came as no surprise to me that the top three were Wimpy Kid, Dork Diaries, and Big Nate.
• 3.15.13 Angie shows you how to do a simple but wonderful and effective winter reading program! I’ve never done a winter reading program at my library, but I’m thinking about it for next year for sure!

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Tech!
• 2.18.13 Cen announced that LibrarianAPProved.com — a librarian-curated database full of apps for kids! I cannot wait for this resource to arrive since my library just got an iPad for storytime.
• 3.5.13 Melissa, in a guest post at the ALSC blog, wrote about using Evernote to keep her storytime archive together.
• 3.11.13 Amy shared her favorite apps for presentations! Everyone getting ready for Summer Reading school visits? Take note!

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Training!
• 2.21.13 Melissa gives us a run-down about the ECRR Parent Program that she has done before. I am head-over-heels in love with this idea and have some feelers out to Adult Services about coordinating this type of programming at my own library!
• 3.11.13 And also, Melissa shares how her staff learns to do baby storytime. This sounds like such an amazing gift to staff members, I am just floored.

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Storytime!
• 2.19.13 Beth shows us the Storytime Song Bucket! I use a Song Cube, but the concept is still the same and my patrons love it! I bet yours will too.
• 2.28.13 Sarah is using SHOW AND TELL in her storytimes! I freaked out when I saw this idea and I’m going to find a way to incorporate it into Growing Readers storytime.
• 3.5.13 Julie, Anna and Kendra wrote about singing in storytime! I love singing in storytime, it is one of my favorite things to do, and really the children do not care what you sound like!
• 3.10.13 Mary is singing again with the ukelele! I’m still trying to get motivated to learn and these posts are really helping me out.
• 3.11.13 Amy asks about using beach balls in baby storytime. This post makes me wish with all my might that I had enough interest to do a dedicated baby storytime at my library.
• 3.19.13 Sarah did a round-up of her ABC storytime crafts. Crafts are the hardest part for me to do in storytime, so I’m glad to see round-up like this for future plans!
• 3.20.13 Brooke showed off her Baby Storytime set-up and I immediately wanted to volunteer to do another storytime at my library because of it! I can do Baby Storytime, I can, I can!
• And some storytime themes/plans that I’ve especially liked: Kendra’s Going to the Zoo, Anne’s On the Move, Erin’s Rainy Days, and Anne’s Crayons.

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Flannel Friday!
• 2.23.13 K has the round-up at her blog!
• 2.26.13 Lisa has the “Dig Into Reading” Summer Reading Program Extravaganza!
• 3.6.13 Sharon hosted the incredible “What Flannel Friday Means to Me” round-up, which includes stories and flannels.
• 3.15.13 Melissa has the Flannel Friday birthday round-up. (The second part of the celebrations can be found here, while Amy unveiled the official Flannel Friday map at her blog.) I can’t believe it’s already been TWO YEARS of Flannel Friday joy!
• 3.22.13 Amanda has the last round-up for this In Case You Missed It!

And that’s it for this massive round-up. Stick around for next week when I’m sure it will be just as large and just as awesome!

In Case You Missed It is back for another week! I’m planning on keeping this as a bi-weekly feature since it’s a lot of work to put together and this way, I have a while longer to work on it.

Please feel free to link any posts that I might have missed these past two weeks. There’s so many wonderful blogs out there — I know I must have missed more than a few!!

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On Libraries and Librarianship
• Sara has a post talking about signage in the library! This is a great one to read if you didn’t get a chance to see the Seattle Public Library’s Central branch at Midwinter (or didn’t get a chance to go to Midwinter).
• Anna made over her Children’s Area play/read bench. It looks amazing and I wish I had such a space in my library!
• Brooke shows everyone how to leave your job with style and class. In the library profession, we make personal connections to patrons and families — don’t leave them out in the cold when you need to move on! (Another favorite post on this topic that didn’t appear these past two weeks, but still rocks: Ingrid’s.)

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On Books & Awards
• Melissa gives us a great round-up for board book resources! I just repurchased our entire board book collection within the past year since it so badly needed updating. Wish I had had this post then.
• Anne and Amy have their second round of the Popular Series Survey up! Go and take it!
• Marge tells it like it is when offering her advice on how to get on an ALA Youth Media Awards committee! In light of all of the discussion after this year’s winners were announced, this is an invaluable post to bookmark if you want to be involved in the decision process.
• The CYBILS were announced!

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On Programming Makerspaces
• Amy told everyone about her Valentine’s Day makerspace program and hypothesizes that youth librarians have been making makerspaces since before 3D printers were the next big thing!
• Marge continues the discussion on makerspace programming with her post about everything old being new. What especially resonated with me was giving credit where credit is due.
• Julie again reiterates that recognizing your programming/movement’s roots are important. Also, ask for help!

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On Programming
• Leah has put up TONS of ideas about summer reading, if you’re doing the theme Dig Into Reading. I’m not quite ready to start planning programming yet, but I have definitely bookmarked her post for future reference!
• Beth has a great idea to add a photo booth to programming. I love the idea of kids in the library getting their picture taken, and we’ve had great success in my library of using a photo booth!
• Amy has her plans set for World Read Aloud Day on March 6th! What are your plans?

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On Storytime/Early Literacy
• Katie posted on the ALSC Blog with a wonderful list of resources to get the wiggles out of storytime kids. I really love her first idea of the magic storytime wand!
• Mary is my hero because she is going to teach me (and you!) to play the ukelele in a series of video posts. I don’t know if Mary knows that, but it’s going to be true. Her first song, BINGO, is up!
• Kendra posted another video, this time with three standing rhymes for storytime.

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On Flannel Friday
• Library Quine wrote a great post on using a Silhouette Cameo to make flannelboards. It’s making me want to add a Cameo to our library’s wishlist for next year.
• Courtney hosted last week’s Flannel Friday round-up!
• And I have the round-up for this week here!

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Welcome to the semi-regular installment of “In Case You Missed It!”

This week is a little bit light since Firefox crashed while I was going through my starred posts in Google Reader and I lost half of what I wanted to link! Posts span the last two weeks, since ALA Midwinter got in the way of making this a weekly feature. Since it’s a long couple of weeks, I separated posts out by topic instead of post date. Let me know which way works better!

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On Librarianship
• Melissa writes about touchstones and what little momentos can get you through the day when it’s rough! On my desk, I have a postcard that one of my dear ILOAs e-sent me, my Scaredy Squirrel puppet (the first book I read kids at my library was “Scaredy Squirrel”), a crayon art piece that my teens and I made, and drawings from my storytime kids who interrupted storytime to give me.
• Anne has her follow-up results post about Ethical Problems #2 — the answers are FASCINATING to read! I didn’t get a chance to answer since I was at Midwinter, but a lot of my answers would have needed clarification; ethical questions are so tricky!
• Abby wrote a great post about why joining ALA matters and why she’s renewing her ALA membership. As someone who has really gotten a great return on her own investment into ALA, I absolutely agree with Abby!
• Live bloggers once again invaded the ALSC Blog for Midwinter, offering their insights into tons of programming, events, and meetings!

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On Books
• YOUTH MEDIA AWARDS. Do I need to say anything more?
• Marge breaks down her ten truths about award reactions! This list is GOLD and was picked up in AL Direct!

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On Programming
• Abby talked about STEM programming with her “Mad Science at the Library” program for grades 3rd-6th. Basically, her blog post made me jump up and down with space nerd geekery. I really want to try this for my kids at some point!
• Amy shares the results of her programming style survey! I love learning that I’m not alone in how I plan my programs.
• Marge is still rocking her 1000 Books Before Kindergarten program. Her post has a great round-up of links all about the program’s inception and her library’s specific events and materials.

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On Early Literacy/Childhood
• Mollie wrote a brilliant post about early literacy and speech development! The breadth of knowledge shared blows me away and I can’t wait to start implementing some of what I learned in storytime practices and passing it along to my storytime families!
• Melissa also has another Early Literacy Storytime Idea — Pointing to a Word! If you are struggling for ways to teach your parents in storytime, look no further than Melissa’s tips.
• Beth gave two wonderful lists about Early Childhood blogs *outside* of the library world! I definitely added quite a few to my Google Reader account! Here’s the links to List 1 and List 2.

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On Flannel Friday
• Sarah has the Mushy Gushy Valentine Round-Up from two weeks ago — make sure to get your ideas bookmarked and done before Valentine’s Day!
• Anne has this week’s round-up which includes a survey in preparation for Flannel Friday’s second anniversary!! Please go add your information if you’ve ever participated in Flannel Friday!
• Sharon has a Flannel Friday Announcement, all about preparation for Flannel Friday’s second anniversary!! If you don’t have a blog, I am willing to host guest posts for this special occasion!

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See you next week!