Teen Passive Ideas-Summer Reading

Do you do passives with teens at your library?

We do. In fact, our passive numbers are higher than the number of teens that participate in our programs! Because we don't have a teen room and low attendance at our programs, I'm forever trying to catch the "kids in the stacks". In the past we've had opinion polls, library bingo and trivia. During the summer I try to do a new passive every week.

I'm sharing some of my ideas for this summer. Our theme is Fizz Boom Read. Feel free to borrow anything you might be interested in using at your library!

Post it Note Art Show

We've had varying success with art share walls for teens in the past. On the scale of a wall full of lovely artwork as good to chasing off two punk boys defacing others artwork as horrible. I got so mad at them I swore off teen art walls forever.
I lied. I can't help it. I love art.

Quiz: Guess the Symbol

I have a sheet of symbols of the nine planets and the signs of the zodiac for teens to fill out and drop in out box to earn a prize. I've included the Dewey decimal numbers of books on astronomy and astrology so they can research and find the answers. That's not cheating in my opinion. Begging the librarian to look up the answers for you, is.

Periodic Word Generator

I saw a graphic on the internet were nerdy was spelled out with periodic elements Nerdy. I made colorful slips of paper with 3-4 boxes as well as a mini table of elements. I'm pretty horrible about word games like Boggle and Scrabble so I'm curious to see what the teens come up with.

Binary Code Messages
Similar to the word generator. I'm giving them the option of posting messages on the wall or taking them home. If you have the Collaborative Summer Reading Program manual for "Fizz Boom Read" there is a section in the kids' program that has the binary code and fun activities you can try with it.

Quiz: Robot Roll Call
For this quiz, I printed out pictures of famous robots from big and little screen. Fill out a sheet with your guesses of who's who and bonus points if you can tell were they are from. Using books and the internet is allowed because I threw in some tough ones. There is Robo-cop, EVE, R2-D2. But do you remember these guys?

Crow T. Robot and Tom Servo of MST3K

I'm pairing each passive with a display. Sticking with our science theme, I'll have book displays featuring  the Science Fiction genre:

Time Travel books/Doctor Who, Mad Scientist books, Steampunk and Dystopian.

What I did at work today...

I'm in the process of changing my storytime format for toddler.  I'm trying some new things for summer to get them use to the changes I'm going to spring on them in the fall. (Just realized I used 3 of the four seasons in that last sentence) I'm keeping some of the same themes and books from years past, but working on doing more repetitive songs and activities as well as incorporating more flannel boards and a puppet!

One new thing I'm getting rid of my storytime booklets! When I first started, I was so proud of them. The rest of my department made plain two sided handouts with songs and books which ranged from decent looking to cluttered clip art monstrosities (sadly more of the latter). I decided to make a booklet and came up with a design that I could cut and fold a 8 page booklet. That way the child could always take home a book from storytime that they could color, tear, fold or chew (it mattered not to me!)

It worked out well at first. Now I just see these little booklets being shoved in couch cushions and worst being fought over at storytime. I had one child who would grab all the booklets from the table, than pushily give them to the other kids, only to change her mind and steal them all back. Plus I realized when you have a wiggly toddler, your hands aren't always free to look down and read what song it coming next. Plus paper cuts, and wasting paper and more cons that are outweighing the pros.

So I'm switching to large format song sheets on poster board for the crowd to read from and follow along. Ideally, I would have a storytime area with a projector so I could flash them on the wall. Alas, I do not, but its' one of my request for our new library. Fortunately, we have a ton of old poster board and colored paper in our craft hoard. I'm also narrowing down the number of songs we sing in storytime, so we will repeat the same songs. It also saves me from trying to find 4 new songs that work with out theme and are suitable for toddlers, not always an easy task.

I found my self reliving a bit of nostalgia when making this. When I got my first job at a library almost 7 years ago, one of my first tasks was helping the program specialist make song sheets for her storytime. I was a great excuse to get away from the circulation desk!

Storytime from the Liberry: Fiesta- Flannel Friday

Happy (early) Cinco De Mayo everyone!

For my last storytime of the spring session we focused on everything South of the Border.
Presenting my first Flannel Friday submission ever-a five whatsits song.

Five Tortillas cooking in a pan
One jumped out and ran ran ran!
Four Tortillas brown on each side
One fell out and ran to hide.
Three Tortillas flat and round
One ran away without a sound
Two tortillas, not a lot.
One ran away-it was too hot!
One Tortilla, looking pretty neat
Until it heard the words, "Let's eat"

I do not recall the website I found this on, but I do have the author listed as Jo Ellen Brown, so credit goes to her.

I added faces and numbers to the tortillas so they would look more interesting than just 5 tan circles. Also I was lazy and didn't use the actual flannel board. I did this right after reading our big book, so I stuck them to the big book stand with double sided tape, instead of trying to fumble getting the flannel board out.


Books:
Is Your Mama a Llama- I used the big book and used a great puppet from Folkmanis. He's one of my favorite, even though he's listed as an Alpaca, I'll let him be a Llama for today:)
Pinata by Rebecca Emberley
Fiesta Babies by Carmen Tafolla
Maria Had a Little Llama / María Tenía Una Llamita by Angela Dominguez

Activites- Mexican Hat Dance- You can't have a Cinco de Mayo party with maracas (and I don't really trust toddlers with a pinata) I passed out shakers and we "danced" around the Mexican hat (and old sombrero from Chi-Chi)
I removed all the pink and purple shakers since I have toddlers in my group who are manic about what color they get. I've had little girls fight over pink and little boys go into melt down mode over not getting green. Even though I always say. "You get what you get" when I pass them out and the parents back me up on this, I can't help but having tears whenever I pass things out.

Programing Woes

The insightful bloggers over at Kids Library Program Mojo brought up a very interesting POINT when it comes to after school programing.

Consider The Parents: Kids Library Program Mojo

We've experienced a drop in our program numbers over the years. About two years ago we had exceptionally low numbers.My co-workers and I grumbled about poor advertising and PR and decided to take charge with our own campaign to advertise.
In the post, the blogger admits as a working mother, she is already exhausted after a day of work to try and have her equally tired and cranky child to an afterschool program at the library.

I agree with her. I think the idea of afterschool programing has become a dreaded two edge sword. We feel the need as librarians to provide these programs to the public. However I think in our community, we are faced with kids already involved in so many other activities (sports, bible studies etc.) Note: Oh if we had a bible class at our library I'm sure that program would be full. But no thanks. I realize that the last place kids want to go to when they finally have some free time. 

The solution? I think we already do a good job about addressing school age kids during the summer. I would say about 80% of our summer programs are geared towards pre k-5th grade. So what we lack for numbers during the school year, we make up during the summer.

Personally, I feel we might try moving kids programs to later in the evening. We already have evening storytimes at 6:30 pm. This time seems to work well for patrons who attend them. I've seen other libraries in the area have programs around 6-7 in the evening. Also this could open up a chance for kids with working parents the ability to attend our programs since it's after 5 o'clock and dinnertime. I'm thinking about bringing this up when we discuss programing which might be blasphemy as we have always had our programs at 4:30 pm! The fear of change!

Weekend programs are also a good option as well as passives. We are trying examples of both this summer, so we can monitor our success and go from there. Every Friday we are putting out a toddler sensory lab for kids 3 and under. We will be doing Family Science Labs on Saturday mornings in an effort to catch families visiting the Farmer's Market down the street from us. Again, working moms and dads would have more motivation to bring their kids to the library for programs on the weekends.

I would like to see more attendance for programs for this age group. However, I will be the first to admit that school age programs are not my forte. I concentrate on Teens and Toddlers so I'm not sure how much say I have when it comes to shaking things up in my department.

Storytime from the Library: Bump in the Night

No storytime repertoire is complete without a bed time theme! I’ve seen several libraries in my area that have a pajama storytime in the evening for families or stuffed animal sleepover. Unfortunately with my schedule this isn’t a possible so I always make sure to have a special pajama storytime and invite the kids and parents to wear their PJ’s. It works great for both of my toddler crowds; morning and evening.

Books: Go to Bed Monster by Natasha Wing

Llama Llama Red Pajama by Ann Dewdney (always a crowd favorite)

The Book of Sleep by Il Sung Na
This is a great book with whimsical illustrations and it’s easy enough to talk about what’s on the cover and what animals we see in the book, even with 2 and 3 year olds.

Goodnight Moon by Margret Wise Brown

Songs:

Rock a Bye Baby- We had teddy bears and puppets as our reading buddies for storytime, so the kids used them to rock their babies. However they were very reluctant to “make them fall”.

Ten in the Bed- I discovered a new way to sing this song by chance. I was singing it to my daughter (who was literally the little one in the bed) and substituted numbers for family members (Mom, dad and the dog) I also added a comical noise (OUCH OOFF GRUNT) at the end of the line when someone fell off the bed.

This made my baby giggle and when I tried it with the toddlers, I got the same result. I passed on this tip to caregivers as a suggestion to make this song more personal.

Other songs

 Wee Willie Winkie- Good for closing and letting the kids “run up and down”

Are you sleeping, are you sleeping,

Brother John, Brother John?

Morning bells are ringing, morning bells are ringing,

Ding dong ding! Ding dong Ding!

Frere Jacques, Frere Jacque

Dormez vous? Dormez vous?

Sonnez les matines, Sonnz les matines

Don din dou, don din dou

Frey Felipe, Frey Felipe

Duermes tu? Duermes Tu?

Toca la campana, toca la campana

Bam bam bam! Bam bam bam!

Frere Jaques- Great for languages if you can get the kids/grownups to sing in English, French and Spanish. Works better for older kids.