Gingerbread Houses: Creativity Fer Dayz!!

Over the month of December, I did quite a few Gingerbread Houses. I get the chance to do building/science programs at several libraries and outreach locations, and for the majority of December that meant Gingerbread, for Elementary, Middle School, and High School, fer dayz!!

I've found out quite a few things while doing these events: (1) graham crackers are a lot easier to work with than gingerbread, (2) royal icing works quite fabulously, but isn't necessary for a spectacular finished project, (3) using mini-milk cartons from a school cafeteria, or some small recycled boxes, gives these assemblies a simple, yet effective support system, (4) staple the top of the milk cartons back together so they are easier to adhere frosting to and finally, (5) whatever you put out during the program will be eaten or used, so pace yourself (or have way more supplies than you need).

Here are a few of specialty supplies (in addition to Chocolate Chips, M&Ms, Skittles, and the usual stuff) that went quite quickly during each program: Fruit by the Foot, Red Vines, Spice Drops, Pretzels, Marshmallows, Ice Cream Cones, and Gummy Bears. 

The last thing to share are some examples from our programs. Have fun!!

Life-Sized Angry Birds: A Video Game Comes to Life!!

Has anyone ever played Angry Birds? Rhetorical question, right? lol. But, have you ever tried Life-Sized Angry Birds?? Its a ton of fun, just like the digital counterpart, and I'd like to thank Morgan and Lucy at the Community Library Network at Post Falls for suggesting it =D

What you'll need:

• Slinghot 
• Plush Angry Birds
• Cardboard Boxes, Oatmeal Containers, etc.
• Optional: Green balloons with painted pig faces

The slingshot that we used was a three-person water balloon launcher. The larger slingshot was perfect for the plush angry birds that we had found.

The library goes through a lot of cardboard boxes as we send and receive books and such, so we just grabbed a few that we had and set them back up. We also found random things like oatmeal containers, and my boss's husband used to work at a Styrofoam plant, and he gave us some of the leftover pieces.

I divided our participants into two teams. One team would build a structure, the other team would knock it down, and then we would switch. Words of the wise; give the team building the structure a set time limit, and possibly have a minute to two-minute game that the other team can play while they wait (or maybe have some questions like, "what have you been reading this summer?").

A big part of the Angry Birds game is obviously the points, but I couldn't figure out a legit way to make that happen in real life. But, if you do, let me know. While we didn't have points, the kids had a great time building things up and knocking them down.

AsapSCIENCE: Show, don't Tell Science

You know that old idiom, "Show, don't tell?" Well it has finally been applied to science lol.

AsapSCIENCE posts a weekly video on an interesting science topic through YouTube, and has daily content posted to Facebook and Twitter. Their idea is instead of telling you about science, they'll just show you.

Their "showing" method is based on a whiteboard where characters and images are drawn. But, it is much more than that. A narrator breaks down pertinent facts while the drawing is going on, and studies and more information is always referenced.

I found several of the topics very interesting; Productivity, Alcohol, Zombie Apocalypse, and the Moon Illusion were just a few of them =D

Glancing through their daily content, they have some fascinating facts and pictures as well. I'm always looking for information and inspiration for my Ka-Boom program, and I think this will be another one to add to the list!

P.S. We're taking a break for the Holidays, so I'll see you again on Tuesday, January 8th, 2013 (weird much?) for a discussion of Slideshare. 

Experiment with Things that Glow under a Black Light

As the title suggests, here is my list of things that glow under a black light. After you've read it, you can keep reading for an explanation of black lights and my program, or you could move on. Either way, thanks for reading:)

Things that Glow Under a Black Light:

Tonic water
Laundry detergent
Area around the dark spots of a banana
Highlighter ink
Security strip on a recent US $20
Irish Springs soap
Petroleum jelly
Canola or vegetable oil
White paper
White LEGO pieces
Glow in the dark paint
Glow sticks (alright the last two already glow in the dark, but they glow even brighter under a black light)
Tooth whitening products
and believe it or not, Monster energy drinks

Every month I get the chance to do science experiments at a local private school. Typically my library program happens before I go to the school, which gives me a chance to see what experiments will work well in a classroom setting. But this time, I got an idea for my library program from the school program.

Glow in the Dark Experiments was my topic last month, and while I was there, one of the students mentioned that they had been using black lights to identify certain minerals in rocks. He thought it would be cool for us to experiment with other things that glow under black lights. I agreed =D

I'm sure everyone is familiar with black lights, but I wasn't quite sure how they worked. Black lights are emitting two kinds of light; light we can see, and light we can't see. The light we can see is the purplish color, and the light we can't see is called ultraviolet light. This ultraviolet light (UVA) is the harmless cousin to the harmful ultraviolet light (UVB) that gives you a sunburn.

If something glows under a black light, it is because it contains phosphors. Phosphors are a substance that emit visible light when exposed to radiation. So they are absorbing the ultraviolet light from the black light, and converting it to visible light.

Turns out there are quite a few things that glow under a black light, and I figured I'd list them for you here. My time at the private school was mostly spent seeing what would glow and what wouldn't. If you want to do this program, I would suggest grabbing a mixture of things that glow and things that don't, and see what you see. Also be willing to test things that are around the room...

Glow in the Dark Experiments

Who doesn't like stuff that glows, and I figured it was appropriate for Halloween :)

Glow Sticks

An easy way to get glowing is glow sticks. Basically it is a chemical reaction between two compounds that, when mixed, release excess energy as light. If you are interested, it is a process called chemiluminescence.I found that the kids understood the idea of a chemical reaction if you talk about mixing baking soda and vinegar, as most have done that.

Once we understood a little more about chemical reactions, I actually cut open one of the glow sticks. Each glow stick is actually made of two sticks; one plastic one that you feel, and one glass one that is lodged inside. When you crack a glow stick you are actually breaking the inner glass tube that releases one chemical into the other and presto, instant light!

Glow Paint

Let your participants paint a design on a black piece of paper without telling them that it is glow in the dark paint. Once they are finished, turn off the lights and watch their surprise. Once they've seen the affect, you can talk about the science behind it called photoluminescence (the paint absorbs photons and then releases them in the dark is the short answer hehe. Another way of thinking about it is the paint getting excited and then releasing this excitement as light, just like we might release our excitement by dancing).

Finally, we mixed some GAK with glow paint (but glow powder would work just as well). This experiment is fun to do no matter what, and seeing it glow in the dark after you mix it just makes it that much cooler =D

Messy Experiments!

So science experiments are some of our most popular programs, and one of our most popular science experiments programs is Messy Experiments. Why? Because its awesome!

As I've mentioned before, I love Steve Spangler, and these are the ones I stole this time :)

Diet Coke Mentos Geyser

If you drop a handful of Mentos into a full 2-liters of Diet Coke, you get a fabulously sticky and awesome geyser that goes about 20 feet up! Can't stress the fun and awesomeness of this one hehe.

Color Changing Milk 

Drop some food coloring into some milk, and then dip some dish-washing soap (I use Dawn) into the milk. The milk isn't a big fan of the dawn, so the colored milk runs away from the soap. Cool stuff!

Quicksand Goo (or Oblique)

If you add corn starch and water together in the right proportions, it will be hard if you hit it, but soft if you slide through it. Awesome!

Vinegar and Baking Soda...with a twist

If you put a layer of baking soda in a container, and then drop colored vinegar onto it, it smokes and leaves a cool design. Try it! I thought this was a fun twist on the vinegar and baking soda experiments that you normally see. Got this idea from Pinterest :)

Pop Rockets

Last but not least, get some old 35mm film canisters, put some water and alka-selzer into them, and watch what happens. Experiment with changing the level of water, the amount of alka-selzer, and the temperature of the water.

Experiments with Forces and Motion

As many of you know, the Hayden Library isn't open on holidays, so I wasn't able to post a Program Idea this Monday, which happened to be Memorial Day. But, I figured I'd give you one today, and move our Book Blurt to tomorrow.

Our Ka-Boom: Science Experiments program this month was about Forces and Motion, and it was pretty awesome!

When I look for science experiments, Steven Spangler's website is the first place I look, and this month was no exception :)

Do Not Open-Soda Prank

While this would be hillarious to actually try as a prank, it also works as a science experiment. If you poke holes in a soda bottle and then screw the lid back on, the water doesn't come out. Why?

Egg Drop

While Spangler calls for a pie dish and some eggs, I just use a paper plate and a juggling ball (doesn't make as much of a mess). But either way, this is a fun experiment that teaches kids about the law of inertia.

Hammer Balance

So one problem with remembering experiments instead of where you got them is that you can do the experiment again, but you can't point people to where you got it from. But luckily, this experiment isn't too hard to do. Basically, you put a ruler half on and half off a table, make a loop out of a string, and balance a hammer against the ruler. The top picture is what it looks like.

When you ask the kids if you can balance a hammer with a ruler, they don't think its possible, but they think its pretty cool when you can. They also like trying to see how far they can get the ruler off of the table before everything falls apart.

Magic Pendulum Catch

This may seem super simple, but it is currently my favorite experiment. If you have one hex nut on one side of a string, and fifteen hex nuts on the other, what does is create?

Tornado in a Bottle

Most likely everyone has doen this before. But, that doesn't mean it isn't fun to do it again hehe.

States of Matter Experiments

Another great idea for a science experiments program is talking about states of matter. I found some fun websites to help with these ideas, and another related topic I found was the surface tension of water. I've attached some links and explanations of what we did :)

Anti-Gravity Water

Everyone knows that when you turn a cup full of water upside down, all the aqua spills out. But, with a rag stretched over the surface of the glass, the water will literally defy gravity.

States of Matter Explanation

I've always had a hard time visualizing the different states of matter, so when I found this quick and easy way of thinking about it, I was really excited. Basically, you use different numbers of marbles to represent each state of matter.

Surface Tension

This website had several ideas that would be fun to do. Personally I used Stretch the Surface of Water and Cut and Connect Water Droplets.

Leak-Proof Bag

If you stab a pencil through a zipper lock bag, the water is going to leak out, right? Not if the bag is made out of a special kind of molecules called polymers, which your typical zipper lock bag is :)

Bubbling Lava Lamp

This fun experiment bubbles which is always a plus, and also lets you talk about the interaction between a solid, a gas, and a liquid.

Experiments with Light and Sound

I love doing science experiments with kids! First of all, there is the excitement and wonder in their eyes when you show them something they haven't seen before. But secondly, they start putting the ideas together for themselves, and that's when you know they are learning something from the experience, while having fun.

This month, I focused on experiments with light and sound. In the future, I might split these into two seperate topics because there are a lot of experiments that can be done with both. But, for now, we'll just take them as one.

Light

Stand about five feet away from a window, and face away from the window with a magnifying glass in your hand. Hold a piece of white paper in your other hand, and let the light shining through the magnifying glass hit the piece of paper. An upside down picture of whatever is outside the window will appear on the piece of paper.

This experiment is great for talking about lenses, cameras, and whether something is concave or convex.

Sound

Can you see sound? Of course not! Or can we? Spread some plastic wrap over the entire opening of a bowl, and put some rice on top of that. Grab two 2 liter bottles, and bang them together over the bowl. The rice will start to jump.

This experiment obviously shows sound waves in action, and can be used to introduce the topic, or show some effects of sound.

Other Resources

There are a whole bunch of science experiment books on the shelves at my library. A couple I used were Light: An Investigation by John Gorman, Light by Sally M. Walker, and Experiments with Light and Sound by Trevor Cook.

If you can't get over to your library, I just Googled "sound experiments" and "light experiments" and got more experiments than I knew what to do with. These three sites made my list.

http://homepage.eircom.net/~kogrange/sound_experiments.html

http://tlc.howstuffworks.com/family/science-projects-for-kids-producing-sounds.htm

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q9ESULJwIjY

Anybody Need Program Ideas?

So, every Monday from 4-5pm, we do a program for 3-6 graders. The first Monday we have Play With Your Food, where we bake and cook. The second Monday we do Ka-Boom, where we have fun doing science experiments. On third Mondays we have Couldn't Put It Down, which is a gaming and technology time. Finally, we have Express Yourself on fourth Mondays which is us making crafts.

In addition, we just started a program for Middle Schoolers, 6-8 graders, called Tuesday Works, and we're going to be doing something fun and different each month.

Oh, I almost forgot about our High School programs. We have a Next-Gen Advisory Team that meets to brainstorm cool things for Teens to do at the library, and we also just started a book club called TeenBookWorms.

As I thought about these programs, I thought that someone, somewhere, might be interested in what we did, and how we did it. So, when I get the chance, I'm going to do a quick blog post with resources and a quick breakdown on what we did, how we did it, and how it went. Hope you like the idea =D

Robots are Invading :)

Hey everybody :)
Since last Fall, we've had a Ka-Boom: Science Experiments program going on at the library. For the past two summers, we've invited Greg Braileanu to do a special program on LEGO NXT robots. We just had the last robot program yesterday, so I figured I'd talk a little about cool things to do with these robots.
Greg has a blog that he just started http://www.legomyrobo.com/, and he is planning on filling the blog with resources and cool things to do with robots.
There are a couple schools and clubs that have formed around building these robots, so if you are interested, there are places to get involved.
Obviously, this is a LEGO product, so LEGO has set up a page that has videos, a funzone, and information on the robots at
http://mindstorms.lego.com/en-US/default.aspx?icmp=COFranchiseUSMINDSTORMS
There are also summer camps that the Discovery Institue offers that deal with robots and engineering. You can catch the Discover Technology folks at many of the city days in the area and at the North Idaho Fair & Rodeo. This is a link to a calendar of events. http://discovertechnology.org/calendar.html
Just to let you know, these robots are super cool, so if you haven't played with one, figure out some way to get one :)

Never Hurts to Ask

So I was sitting down to write a blog post, and I was thinking that I didn’t have too much to write about. But, then I took a look at my calendar, and I realized I had done a whole bunch this week.

Ka-Boom was this Monday, and it was encouraging to get a full group again. Last month, we only had 4 kiddos, which kind of scared me. Do they not like the program? Did I not let people know? But, having 10 people again this month told me that last month was a fluke instead of the rule, and I like that.

We also did a slightly different set-up this time. Instead of doing a bunch of experiments, I just had some things set out, and the kids could experiment with them as they wanted to. There were some books to search through, a potato and a hammer to experiment with balance, and a microscope. Kids still seemed to enjoy it, and mixing things up is always fun.

On Wednesday I went to a workshop. The Inland Northwest Council of Libraries does an annual workshop, and this year it was on creating customer experiences. David Lee King, the Digital Branch & Services Manager at the Topeka & Shawnee County Public Library (kind of a mouth full), was the presenter. He had some great ideas on using your website and your building to create a better experience for our customers; you. In addition to his great ideas, David encouraged us to think about the material being covered, so my mind was stewing on how I could take his suggestions and make them work for my library.

Another aspect of my week was promoting our summer reading programs. Last week, I sent out an email to some of my contacts at the schools, and several of them have gotten back to me on ideas to promote summer reading. I guess it never hurts to ask, because you might actually get what you ask for.

One idea was creating video spots for video announcements at the schools. For one school, I’m creating the spot, but for another school, the video production class is going to create the spot. So, to give them the idea, I got to discuss my programs with some middle school video makers on Thursday. It was exciting to be in the schools, and to know that a whole bunch of kids are going to be hearing about the programs through the announcements.

That’s about all for this week, so I’ll catch you later.

Whats in a Year?

How’s it going?

Apart from Ka-Boom on Monday, this week has basically been planning for future events. I had a weather theme for Ka-Boom this month, which meant we talked about rain, clouds, and made it snow in the library using Steve Spangler’s Insta-snow (the stuff it really cool by the way!).

But, the rest of the week was spent figuring out what my summer programs are going to look like. We’re going to be having a monthly teen program, and two weekly programs for Tweens. One will be Ka-Boom, and the other will be Tween summer reading where we will do games and crafts each week. We’ll get more into summer reading as we get closer.

As I think about our upcoming programs, I can’t help but think about the things I’ve been doing over the last year. About this time last April, I was just starting my YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, and Blogger pages. Since then, a lot of things have happened.

On YouTube, I’ve posted 13 videos ranging from a booktrailer on Rash to a Teen Read Week PSA, and 945 people have looked at my uploads! I was super excited when I looked at that number.

On Twitter, I’m following 215 profiles, ranging from libraries to marketing gurus, have tweeted 270 times, and have 103 people following my tweets.

On Facebook, I have 24 people who have liked my Next-Gen Adults of the Community Library Network page, and I have 173 people who have friended my work FB account.

Finally on Blogger, I have 70 posts, which are made up of Book Blurts and Weekly Updates, and 1,163 people have looked at my blog! And not only in this country either. I’ve had people from Russia, Germany, Brazil, Netherlands, Burundi, France, Canada, Malta, and Argentina take a look at what this young adult librarian from Hayden, Idaho babbles about.

If you are reading this, you are one of the numbers above who has been supporting my efforts as I build Next-Gen programming at the Community Library Network at Hayden, and I want to thank you over and over again for taking an interest in what I’m doing.

Well, I’ll be back again next week for more fun, and thank you again for connecting with me!

Have Books, Will Travel

Hello everyone!

Well here we are on a Monday morning, and I am three days late on my weekly update. I apologize.

As I alluded to last week, this week was crazy busy with programs! I work 19 and a half hours a week, and this week I was basically in programs for the full 19 and a half hours. hehe

The week started with the Men and Kids program at Mountain States Early Head Start. We had several dads and their kids join us and had fun frosting our own cookies. For the past few times, we have been trying to read a book with the kids, and this time they really enjoyed the story.

Tuesday involved my first week at Atlas After School Academy. Last year, I did science experiments for this program, and because the kids had such a great time, we decided to start Ka-Boom: Science Experiments at the library. This year, I am teaching the kids how to make movies using the free websites, animoto and jaycut. Got a talented and excited group of guys and we’ll be having fun for the next three weeks. Should be awesome!

Wednesday was Dr. Seuss’s birthday, so I read his stories at Miss Irma’s storytime (I filled in for her because her husband had a procedure being done) and then I bounced around the Kinder Center reading his stories wearing a ‘Cat in the Hat’ hat. Good stuff!

Speaking of the Kinder Center, my monthly outreach always happens on the first Friday, so I was there on Wednesday and Friday this past week. On Friday, we read frog stories (frogs are green, and we always wear green on St. Patrick’s day hehe), and had a great time singing a song that Miss Cassie suggested to me.

On Friday (and Thursday as I think about it) Karen and I went down to help with Skyway’s Geography Club again. We had to take a break because of the bad snow last week, but we again had fun learning about continents, states, and physical geography.

My last event this week was our Red Carpet Event for our Teen Film Festival, which happened on Saturday night. We had five entries in each category, and enjoyed watching the movies and awarding prizes. Our festival has grown since last year, and we’re hoping that it will continue to grow next year. If you want to check out the movies, they are all posted on our Library Film Fest YouTube Channel here. Enjoy!

Well, that was my crazy week and I hope yours was also fantastic!

Augmented Reality

Last week, I mentioned my involvement with SPLAT (Special Project Library Action Team), and there is a really cool technology that SPLAT brought to my attention. It’s called augmented reality. Basically, a web cam and QR codes (a special barcode that is two-dimensional instead of one dimensional) allows a two-dimensional object in real space to become a three dimensional object on a computer monitor. It’s cool to say the least. You can check out a video demonstration here.

Speaking of cool stuff, I once again had the chance to do a Ka-Boom: Science Experiments program this past Monday. We had a great group of kids show up, and we had fun experimenting with magnets, static electricity and attraction (obviously, attraction is the principle behind magnetism and static electricity, but it also seemed so appropriate for Valentine’s day hehe).

I’ve been mentioning the Teens and Technology Course that I’m involved with, and this past week I fulfilled another one of the course requirements. As participants, we are going to create a booktrailer with a group of teens, and this past week I went down to a Canfield Middle School and met with their video production class. The class does a live video announcement broadcast several times a week, and they are considering doing booktrailers as a story. Originally, I thought we’d create a booktrailer at a special event, but having students create booktrailers as part of their school assignments works just as well for me. The teacher was also excited about doing booktrailers with some of her other classes, which is exciting for us. The whole idea of Teens and Technology is to encourage the use of technology and information about technology, so I’m really liking the way this partnership is shaping up.

In another school this week, I was helping out at a Geography club. Skyway Elementary is having a geography bee in late March, and Karen and I are helping to prepare the kids for the event. For the next few weeks, we’ll be playing games, looking at atlases, and asking questions to prepare kids for the local bee. The life of a librarian is a funny thing, because I know very little about Geography (as Karen can attest to) and yet I’m still able to help kids out through the information available to them. Should be a good time!

Last thing, you still have one more week to enter in our Library Teen Film Festival! Get your entry forms to a participating library, and get those videos posted to YouTube.

Thanks for reading, and I’ll see you next week!

What day is it again...

So last night, I was brushing my teeth, and for some reason I thought it was Saturday instead of Thursday. I smacked myself in the head thinking “I didn’t get a Weekly Update out on Friday. Ugh!” Then, I realized that it was Thursday night, and I still had all Friday (which is the day it’s supposed to go out) to get the blog post finished. I sighed with relief and got myself to bed.

If my rattled brain last night was any indication, this week must have been busy. I started on Monday with our monthly Ka-Boom: Science Experiments program. We had a great turnout, and a great time! We started by mixing flour, salt, and warm water to create our own Play-Doh, and then we tried making edible dough. That one didn’t mix so well…but it tasted good!

As I alluded to on Wednesday, I was supposed to be off Tuesday to go skiing with my friends. Well, that didn’t quite happen. Our friend on 49 North called us and said the mountain was all ice, so we thought we’d head over to Lookout, where there was some new powder. Lo and behold, Lookout isn’t open on Tuesdays! So we drove all the way from Rathdrum (we had been driving to 49 North when he called us) to the Idaho/Montana border (where Lookout is located) and we didn’t get to ski! Needless to say, my friends and I will be finding another time to go skiing, and I got some office work done on Tuesday.

Wednesday and Thursday were spent working and meeting on our Teen Film Festival that is coming up in March. Last year, we had a Three Minute Teen Film Festival where the movies could be up to 3 minutes, and there were cash prizes for the winners. This year, we are doing 2 categories: Short Film and Public Service Announcement (PSA), and we are still doing cash prizes for both categories. In addition, the winners of our PSA category are going to be sent to the statewide PSA competition being put on by the Idaho Commission for Libraries. The winners of the statewide competition are going to be used to promote summer reading across the entire nation! If you like making movies, be looking for more information on the film festival coming in January.

Noticing that next Friday is Christmas Eve, I won’t be doing a Weekly Update. But, noticing that you all might want something to read during the Christmas break, I’ll still do a Book Blurt.

Have a great week!

A Long Post on Science, Happiness, and All Staff Training Days

Well, well, well, well there is once again, so much to talk about. Blogs are funny things. I figure that I want each blog post to be between 300-500 words (closer to the 300 so I don’t get too wordy). That doesn’t sound like too many words…if you have something to talk about. There have been weeks where I sit for fifteen minutes staring at a blank screen, wondering what I did that week that would be interesting. But, then there are weeks like this week (where I’m still playing catch up) where that number of words won’t be near enough.

Anyways, let’s talk a little about what I did this week, and if we have enough space, I’ll back track to something I did in the past, but didn’t have time to talk about. This Monday, I had a chance to do my Ka-Boom Science Experiments program again. I just have to say, SCIENCE IS AWESOME! Of course, my kind of science is putting Dawn in some warm water and adding dry ice (just so you know, that particular experiment was awesome!), but science is just way too much fun to do, and talk about. I find that I’m getting a whole new crowd in the library for Ka-Boom, and they are critically thinking about why something happened in the experiment. Some of it they have just heard in school or at home. But some of it is legit curiosity and wonderings, and I’m glad I’m allowed to have this kind of program at my library! (If you think about it, Play-do here, and Dry Ice there tends to add up. But my boss, and my boss’ bosses are supportive of this program, and that also makes me excited. Also, for those keeping track, we didn’t have a special quest last week. Miss Emily, one of my colleagues, wasn’t quite able to join us, even though it would have been great to have her).

Also this week, I got a little bit of time to catch up on my email and social media postings which was nice. But, the other big event was the Community Library Network (more about what that means next week) All Staff Training Day. Each Veteran’s Day, my library network gets all of the staff from our seven (now eight) libraries into one building and does a conference. Lunch is provided (which is always nice), and the topics this year were marketing and happiness. The last couple of months, there has been a large marketing grant going on at my library, and the marketing topic was an update for the staff on what has been going on with their research.

The happiness workshop was put on by Anne Abrams from the Idaho Commission for Libraries (ICfL). She discussed research on happiness, and had us do some role playing activities which wound up being quite hilarious. The thing that stuck out to me about the topic of happiness is that your response to the topic of happiness comes down to your outlook on things (how much happiness or lack thereof that you already have). Having someone discuss happiness when you aren’t very happy doesn’t work too well, but discussing happiness with someone that is happy is sort of redundant. But, I think Anne did a good job finding research and some things to laugh at, and it can’t be a bad thing to be reminded of the benefits of having a positive outlook. I think myself and some of my colleauges were also quite ridiculous and tired during the afternoon, so there was plenty to laugh and be happy about.

Anyways, it looks like I’m already over my word limit, so I’ll sign off for today and see you on Wednesday for an uber-epic-awesome book blurt (not like all the rest of them haven’t been uber-epic-awesome, but I felt like closing the blog that way today).

Authors and Reading Groups

For the past couple of weeks, I have been planning programs; sending emails, taking phone calls, making posters, and putting stuff in the courier. All of this planning is basically coming down to the next two weeks. You might ask why this would be the case. There are two reasons. First, I am striving to have one teen event and one tween event every month. This means that a lot of my time is spent planning for said once a month program. The other reason is that October 17-23 is the national Teen Read Week, and we are celebrating it with some programs!

Tonight I’m super excited to hear Alysun Sanders speak. The program is technically for grades 5-9, but anyone is welcome. I had a chance to talk to Alysun on Monday, and she is really looking forward to coming down. If you are interested in writing at all, or if you want to support a local author, then come on down tonight from 6:30-7:30.

Working backwards, I went to Bryan Elementary yesterday. One of the fifth grade teachers and I are starting a Guys Read group at the school. Guys Read is a website that was started by author Jon Scieszka. There are Guys Read groups all over the nation, and we are starting one here in town. Every two weeks we will be meeting to discuss books that other guys will also enjoy.

Back on Monday, I had my monthly Ka-Boom Science Experiments program. This is something I’ll be doing every month on the second Monday from 4-5pm. This month, we did water experiments. Since our Summer Reading theme were water related, I figured that a water experiments were appropriate to start the fall as well. We got a chance to talk about density, the freezing temperature of water, and how boats float.

For the rest of the week, I was working on a promotional video for our Airband Awesomeness competition on October 22 from 7-9pm. Last Friday, Karen, Cassie, Connie, Emily and I got together to do some filming. It took us about two hours, and we were having way too much fun! You can watch the video on Facebook here. Hope you like it, and I hope you’ll join us for Airband Awesomeness on the 22nd.

In November, there is going to be a youth services conference put on by the Idaho Commission for Libraires, and I’ve been asked to present! I’m supposed to talk about teen services and ways to promote it. Now, I’m still working on better ways to get the word out about my programs, and I don’t think that I’m ever going to be an expert on it. But, I’m really honored to be asked to share my ideas with other librarians.

Hope to see you tonight or next week. Take care!

Another Post about Flying Time?

Another fine Friday, wouldn’t you say? I once again find it so amusing to think that another week is already over. What did I do this week? Turns out a whole bunch. Not only at work, but at my church and at my school. If I’m not at work, I’m doing homework, planning some things as the Chairperson of the Student Body Government at Lewis Clark State College-CDA, or helping with a new program at my church. Needless to say, keeping myself this busy makes the weeks pass very quickly.

Not only do I find it amazing that the weeks are passing so quickly, I’m also finding it amazing that the summer has passed so quickly. We are already to the 23rd of July. That’s weird. In about a month I’ll be starting the fall semester of my senior year at LCSC-CDA. How am I already a month away from the end of summer? Even though we’re almost through July, we have some fun things still coming up before we kiss the summer of 2010 goodbye.

This week is the end of most of our Tween programs. I had my last Open Game Friday this morning, and our last Ka-Boom Science Experiments is this Monday. While these two programs are ending, we still have two more weeks of Tween Summer Reading. This week, we are doing Art Cards. You’re probably thinking that Art Cards could mean a lot of things. For our purposes, Art Cards are small collages that we will be making using stamps, markers, magazine clippings, and anything else we can find. A week after Art Cards, we are going to be ending our Tween Summer Reading program with a Beach Party. That means having some cooky games and some hot dogs and having a great time.

A week from today we are having our Free Concert with the CDA Rock School. If you enjoy listening to rock music in the slightest, you should be at the Hayden Library from 7pm to 9pm next Friday. Karen and I attended a CDA Rock School concert just before school ended, and it was amazing. There are some very talented young people playing classic rock tunes. Makes for a great time!

Just a couple weeks after the CDA Rock School, Whilce Portacio is coming up. I still think it is crazy that a major Marvel Comics illustrator is coming to the Hayden Library, but it is happening. Whilce will be doing a Q & A session, as well as offering some tips on getting into the comics business. You can also bring in your comic books and graphic novels for Whilce to autograph.

For the last couple of weeks, we have had a few teens come in having read 25 hours. This summer, we have been giving away prizes for reading. I knew what my prizes were for 5, 10, and 15 hours, but I have just figured out our prize for 25 hours this week. So basically this is how it works. If you read 25 hours, you get another free book, some prizes from our prize stash, and 1 ticket for our Borders Gift Card drawing.

For every five hours read over 25 hours you will get another ticket for our gift card drawing. So another ticket at 30 hours, another ticket at 35 hours, and so on. The more hours you read, the more chances you have to win. There is no limit to how many hours you can read, or how many tickets you can have in the gift card drawing.

So, there you have it. Summer might be 2/3 over, but there is still plenty of fun to have at the Hayden Library.

Learning from Mistakes

How are we doing today? As far as North Idaho goes, I think summer has finally arrived. It has actually been ninety degrees twice in the last week. Consequently, I’m going to the beach after work today.

Karen and I have been learning a whole lot about doing tween/teen programs over this first month and a half of programs. As we have never done programs for this age group before, we only have the things we’ve read and the assumptions that we have from younger programming. We are finding that serving this audience is entirely different, and we are trying to adapt our own ideas to meet your needs. New things are definitely a learning experience, and we have made some mistakes. But, we are learning from these mistakes, and are working for better library programs in the future.

This week has been filled with our usual band of suspects. Monday opened with three programs at the same time, which is what we have been doing all summer. Miss Cassie has an Every Child Ready to Read workshop, for the 3-5 age group. We also have an open craft set up where families can come anytime between 10 and 2 and make some crafts. The third program is mine, and is Ka-Boom Science Experiments. We had the chance to do a Mentos Diet Coke rocket, and we also got to make Gak. If you ever get a chance, I would highly advice doing both of those experiments. If you go to Steven Spangler’s website, he has all of the steps you will need.

Tuesday means Tween Summer Reading for me. This last week we made denim summer beach bags. We had sequence, petals, glitter glue, and buttons galore, and the bags turned out amazingly. We also had a really good turnout which is always cool.

Wednesday is our younger summer reading program, and this week we played READO, which is BINGO by any other name. Instead of numbers and letters, we did letters and different items such as bicycles, shoes, and dinosaurs. Then of course we gave away some of our summer reading prizes.

Thursday means that I get to go to Finucane Park. This was actually the first story time that I got involved in when I started working in the children’s area, and I’ve been doing it ever since. We read some frog stories and played with our parachute which is always fun.

Which brings us to today, and today we have our Open Game Friday and I’m working on getting our Ka-Boom program set up for Monday. Ka-Boom is going to be electricity experiments next week.

This past week I’ve also been busy doing some advertising. Karen made me up some new flyers, and I’ve been busy posting them at different businesses and stores (don’t worry, I asked before I put any up). I was really encouraged by how many places were willing to post information about library programs.

Well join us for Ka-Boom on Monday, Tween Summer Reading on Tuesday, which is going to be a battleship tournament, and you can also come on down for our Open Game Friday. Hope your week is filled with amazing times with friends, family, productivity, and plenty of sunshine.