Youth Outreach Practicum Experience and Log

As I am nearing the last day of my internship, I can’t help but think about my experiences and how I have grown as future librarian. When I first started reaching out to nearby libraries for practicum opportunities working with youth, I hadn’t even thought of outreach. That said, I am so grateful for the opportunity to have worked in outreach for youth with the Lake Travis Community Library bookmobile as I have become a more well-rounded librarian as a result.  Every position has its challenges, and this internship was no different. Yet, those same challenges while difficult provided me the opportunity to grow and broaden my perspective/knowledge. One of the biggest learning curves was to be ready to change a program or operation at any point in time.  All of this is based upon the current outlook and situation present when arriving at an outreach stop. Often times, despite it possibly being a regular stop it is not a place you are in charge of, and things typically will have ...

  Sweetwater was full of kids, parents, and grandparents again this week! It was exciting we had thirteen youth and about seven or eight adults all present for our monster themed storytime. I started off by speaking to the adults about some reminders such as next week being the last storytime, the library summer programs in August, etc. Then I kicked off storytime by asking the kids about monsters to get them ready for our monster story. I started with the longer book, in which the kids sat and listened really well. During that first story, we had some more families come in. It was cute as one the families had a little toddler who ran right up to me and the book and sat down very excitedly. Once the story was finished, I had all the kids stand up for our monster movement activity. The children all gave me their best monster impressions- some of the favorites being the friendly monster, sweet monster, and tall monster. I followed up with the book Monster Trouble! I had such a swee...

  Today I was traveling back from my out of state trip, and my flight was delayed a bit. As a result, I broke up my preparations and reading rehearsals into two parts- what I could do in flight/at the airport and then everything else at home. I had done a lot of my prep for the week before I left, however I still needed to finish preparing for my interview with my supervisor. Thus, I took time to reflect on my experiences so far and think about what more I wanted to lean about outreach. I also thought about the community we were serving and the different populations groups. From there, I opened my notes app and wrote out six different questions based on these thoughts to dive deeper into the world of outreach with Ms. Karen B. Then I drafted an email to send my supervisor with a reminder about our interview date and the list of questions I would be asking. I did this as Ms. Karen had a lot going the upcoming week and I didn’t want her to feel overwhelmed or caught off guard.  ...

  It was a bittersweet day as it was my last time with all the kids at the Summer Squires program. The morning groups were fairly well behaved with the a few exceptions. The afternoon groups were a little higher energy. However, to help keep the focus with the kids and minimize distractions, last week I asked the children’s librarian along with Ms. Karen B for some more tips to keep the kids in check. I ended up using several of their suggestions. I found that just telling the kids if they kept talking, I would then move them seemed to help keep them in check a bit better. As well as being firmer when I gave directions for games like emphasizing what specific behaviors they needed to display to be called on. Also, my handy dandy the let’s be “quiet so our friends can hear” or “we are going to continue with the story now” reminders helped most of the kids. The combination of all three really minimized the distraction level and rowdiness of the group as a whole.  I really enjoye...

  Today was the last day I was planning for a week with two programs and the last time I was reserving books for the program of the week following. I started out the last big planning session by utilizing the library catalog to reserve books. My computer was taking forever to update, so I accessed the library catalog through my phone. From there, I conducted two different searches for the same fantasy genre. For the last week of internship, I will only be at Sweetwater, so I wanted to do a magic and fantasy theme. However, searching fantasy in the catalog yielded few children’s picture books. Therefore, I searched magic and found a lot more options to peruse. The books I chose all explored magic and fantasy in different ways from magical hats to mythical creatures like mermaids. The two books I read will ultimately be determined based on the children in the crowd at that program. I then retreated to my living room and pulled the monster books I had previously chosen off my shelf. I...

  We had fourteen kids today of varying ages at the storytime- the most we have had in attendance yet! There were quite a few new faces, so I reintroduced myself and the bookmobile to the community before starting with the first story. I began with a story about a lending animal zoo geared toward older kids. Then everyone got up with me to go on a safari game I made up called “What do you see?” In the game, I would have all the kids march in place until I said stop. Next, I would point to one child ask them “what do you see?” They would tell me an animal, and everyone would act out that animal before we would repeat the process all over again. The kids all really got into their animal impersonations and the parents seemed to enjoy watching their kids play as well. After, the game we read another book, before we went into our craft time. I decided to switch up the craft for the Sweetwater program. We made long binoculars out of paper towels rolls that were donated. The steps to deco...

  Animals are a hit with kids. When I told each group today, we would be talking about animals in our story and game they all got really excited. I noticed this helped the kids focus more on each of the stories I read. For the younger groups I read a counting animal safari book that I had them actively participate in. So, on each page they held up the number of fingers for the number of animals present then as a group we would say the type of animal present. The kids seemed to love this and would usually progress to enthusiastically shouting out the animal. The level of engagement with the animal themed stories was impressive especially for the younger kids. Additionally, I loved seeing that excitement on their faces because they were invested in the theme/topic. So, I made a mental note to start creating list of topics that interest kids to reference throughout my career.  After the story we moved onto our telescope craft. I introduced the craft by asking the children what ki...

  I started the evening off a little different than my typical Sunday planning sessions. I was having a bit of trouble motivating myself, so I decided to switch up my usually routine. The craft for this upcoming week was a little more complex than prior weeks. Therefore, I created a demo telescope modifying the written instructions to see if I could simplify it. I set a timer to see how long the craft might take then tore pieces of newspaper, then using a glue stick to adhere them to a toilet paper role. The craft in total took about ten minutes without decorating and was much easier with my modifications. After, the craft I read through my safari books aloud to my sister's dog. I had a lot of good choices but set aside two favorites for the older kids and then two favorites for the younger kids.  Following my rehearsal, I pulled out my laptop and opened a tab with the Lake Travis Community Library catalog. I also referenced the summer craft document to find the theme for the ...

  The realm of libraries is more complex than most realize. The field is made up of many sub fields that all work together to fulfill the library mission and meet the needs of the community. A library sub field that plays a key role in this mission is outreach and the staff/librarians who work in outreach. Library outreach is all about as one outreach librarian described “going where people are and meeting them at their need level.” Outreach is meant to not only provide people with resources and inform them of resources that a library offers, but to just going out to people and checking on them as well. It is a part of the library that is all about compassion, information, and service. I had the opportunity to interview the Outreach Librarian at Lake Travis Community Library and my supervisor Ms. Karen Ballinger. This interview provided me the opportunity to discover some of the challenges to outreach from an inside perspective as well as some of the joys too. I asked Ms. Karen B a...

  This was the first program I have run up to this point that I was themeless. Two weeks ago, I had picked out a few more books that were what I thought to be just fun- the only correlation really between them. Terrific is just a fun book I hope to make the kids laugh. Ninja Camp is all about doing silly movements and moves for the kids to have fun being a more active participant in the story. The whole group was a little on the smaller side we had about seven kids participating and three moms. There were also two toddlers that the moms were amusing behind the chairs as not interrupt the storytime- they were very high energy and playing with toy cars. The group overall was super sweet and eager to help in the stories- from doing speedy ninjas to stealthy ninjas to shouting terrific. I was a little more tired this storytime- still recovering from hours of flying and time changes from being out of town- as I felt like my story voice was a little less prominent and quieter than norm...

  It was a creative and high energy internship day this evening. To start, I interned in the evening, and I was not leading kids in a program. Instead, I, Ms. Karen B, the library director, and teen volunteers decorated the exterior of the bookmobile for the local July 4th parade. The bus theme was a patriotic celebration of Lakeway’s 60 years as a city. So, colored boats and fish- the kids at different outreach programs and ones submitted through the library- were adhered to the side of the bus along with all the American patriotic decorations. It took us about two hours in total as a group to completely dec out the entire bus- sides, front, and back.  My main task was to create the letter boats to spell out the phrases “Happy 60th Lkwy!” and “Happy 60th Anniversary.” I used markers and did the lettering in the city colors. Then with some help from the teens I cut out each boat. A very tall male teen volunteer graciously put up the letters on the bus under my supervision and ...