July 9th: Switching it Up and Demo Crafts

 

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 next week- monsters. I perused through the catalog for quite a while reading different summaries looking for books that might appeal to the kids I worked with. I ended up choosing several silly monster books, some lighthearted monster books, and one scary-ish monster book. Depending on what comes in by the next week and each groups' mood will help me narrow the best type of monster book for each. I have learned that some of my groups prefer super silly, while some want a more serious but happy story. There is a group at Summer Squires that is full of rowdy boys so I chose the scary-ish book with them in mind, however time will tell if that is the best for them. Overall, it was a productive planning session and switchng my routine was a great way to help me feel more motivated to tackle my planning goals. 




Popular posts from this blog

July 11th: Animals and Telescopes

Image
  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...
Read more

July 5th: Themeless

Image
  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...
Read more

May 25th: Training on the Bookmobile

Image
  Let's start by talking about how cute the Lake Travis bookmobile is! My hometown library growing up did not have a mobile library or library vehicle, so I relish in the fact that this summer I get to spend the majority of my time on this little book bus. Bookmobiles are such a great way to reach other members of the community especially youth populations as they have no way of accessing a library without the help of others. However, bookmobiles are a lot of work as I discovered today. This morning I spent a good two hours learning the in's and out's of this little bus. My supervisor started by showing me which keys belonged to the bookmobile, then out of those five keys on the chain which key opened which lock. I practiced unlocking the doors and latching them open with a little metal hook that enables the doors to stay open and steady. I was shown where all the various supplies where kept such as the first aid kit, the checkout computers (and back up computer), roll out ...
Read more