Library Day in the Life

It seems like last time I did library day in the life, my day was much busier than today. In fact, for being two weeks out from the end of summer reading, today was incredibly quiet and uneventful. I got a lot of little things done. I'll post another day in the life later this week, just to give an idea of how wildly different every day is. But for now!

7:45 am: On Mondays, I always get into work early. It gives me time to pull weekly prize winners for summer reading and to swap out the weekly puzzles and coloring sheets. I also spent this time refilling the empty spots in our new books display for picture books and juvenile fiction. I also updated our statistics for programming last week. I made up a box for people to drop toilet and paper towel tubes into for a program I plan on doing in the fall.

8:30 am: I knock out a ton of emails, including an email to a company that offered a donation for summer reading prizes which we haven't received yet. They wanted the names of all our participants, and I said there was no way I'd be typing out 500 names from our paper records. I then wrote up an email with all our stats and notes from last week's youth programming, along with a preview of what's to come this week and sent it to the entire staff and our dedicated volunteers.

8:45 am: I updated our teen blog with this week's events, and I drafted a post for later this week showcasing new books we just got in. I downloaded photos from our teen death by chocolate party and posted them on our facebook page. While these downloaded (I had 30 great photos!), I filled out a form for one of our summer prize donors to let them know how we used the prize.

9:00 am: I finished uploading the photos, organizing the album, and updated our Facebook status. I then scheduled out the drafted blog posts for the rest of the week. Done!

9:30 am: I talked with my boss about how burned out I am on summer reading club and we talked about hiring someone for a staff member who left not too long ago. We're so understaffed that this comes as a huge relief.

9:45 am: I dissembled last week's Lego Club creations that were on display in our children's room.

10:00 am: I finally get a chance to write out a weekly to-do list, which is much shorter than the last few weeks. I tracked down stamps to put on all of the thank you letters to our prize donors upstairs at the reference desk, and I tackle a quick reference question while up there. When my coworker gets off the phone, I pass the question to her then walk to the post office to mail my thank you letters.

10:15 am: De-newing time! I went through all of the new books on the teen shelf and on the picture book display and took off anything that was new before May (or in the case of picture books, I took off a few seasonally-inappropriate titles). I seem to have forgotten to do the juvenile fiction new books, so it's on the agenda for some time else this week. This makes all of our shelves look tidier, and it helps to make people see the real new stuff when it comes in.

10:30 am: I talked to our Friends Group about whether they had a meeting and needed the meeting room this morning, and I found out I could get it set up for Lego Club as soon as I wanted to. I pulled the tables to the side, laid down our table clothes, and dumped out the Legos. I went back to my office and cut some more name tags for displaying the kids' creations, and my regular adult volunteer came in. I chatted to catch up with her and to talk about the goals for this week.

10:45 am: I reviewed the fall programming plans and made sure all the dates submitted to the park district for their brochure matched what I had down, and they did. I made a note to myself to put holds on the books for teen book club and to update the teen blog with the programs. I'll be posting about my fall programming plans here soon!

11:15 am: It's collection development time. I like to buy a month ahead, meaning I like to buy September releases in August. So I began making a cart of September books, and caught up my cart with notes I'd made to myself from the journals I'd read earlier this month. September looks to be a pretty busy pub month! My intern comes in, too, and we talk about the mobile collection (which she's been in charge of).

11:30 am: My boss needs to help someone in the back, so I hop on desk in children's for a minute. I had a prereader bring back her log, and I was able to give her some prize money and her summer reading shirt, since she met that milestone. My intern helped me shelve some books, then she was off to the high school.

11:45 am - 12:45 pm: Lunch! During my lunch, I did some emailing, reading, and a little bit of writing. I so appreciate being able to come home for lunch, since it lets me take care of personal stuff out of the office and in my own element. Plus, it means fresh food for lunch every day.

12:45 pm: When I get back to work, I run into my intern and she gives me the run down on what was checked out at the school from the mobile collection. Then I got the news our internet was down again (this being about day 10 this summer), but for some reason, my wireless was working.

12:50 pm: Fortunately, I was able to access Baker and Taylor again and did a little more work on collection development stuff. I finished putting together teen books and began working on juvenile fiction and non-fiction.

1:30 pm: Lego Club time! I had 15 kids, mostly boys, building with the huge pile of Legos on the floor. While they did that, I read through School Library Journal, Library Journal, Publisher's Weekly, and Booklist for reviews. I kind of hate them all, to be honest, but it gave me something productive to do during that time.

2:00 pm: It's still Lego Club time, and my adult volunteer comes by to check in and see if I have any other things for her to do (I don't). We talk about cleaning my office storage space this week and make a plan to tackle it after tomorrow, since it's our last big staff intensive event.

2:20 pm: I had gone to the back to drop the journals off in my office, and one of my teens had come by to see me. I gave everyone at Lego Club the 10 minute warning, and I spent the time catching up with one of my most dedicated teens. As the kids bring up their Lego creations, I make up display tags for them.

2:30 pm: All of the kids have left, and my teen helps me clean up all the Legos! It was really kind, and we got to talk some more. We ended up chatting until 3 pm, wherein we touched upon Siobhan Vivian's book Not That Kind of Girl (which she plans on redesigning the cover for), Nova Ren Suma's Imaginary Girls (this week's book club book), our September lock in (which she gave me some great ideas for!), Summer School, Dr. Who, and whether or not there are secret messages embedded in our carpet. It was nice to catch up with her, and it's always fun with her particularly because she's a huge reader -- I send her home with piles and she always reads them.

3:00 pm: Collection development. I knocked out all of it except for media, and tomorrow's plan is to weed through what I've got down to just the things I really want. My method for collection development is to knock everything interesting into a cart, then go back and eliminate things that sound too similar, that don't really sound like they'd be great, etc. It's a long process of doing collection development, but I like how I do it, and I think I do a pretty good job of making a balanced collection this way. I like seeing my options and picking accordingly. I do have to say I'm a little tired of juvenile historical fiction, as it seems everything falls into that category lately, and frankly, it's not a hugely popular genre. Give me more DOAWK* readalikes.

5:00 pm: It took me two hours to get Baker and Taylor under my control, and it's time for me to head home! Like I said, it was a quiet day at work, and I got a ton of little things done. Tomorrow promises to be a little more insane, so if I remember, I'll try to do a day in the life for it, as well.

* You know you're a youth services librarian if you know what that means!

Chocolate Olympics & Death by Chocolate

While last week I talked about programs that didn't cost money, today I'm going to share two programs I did (that were essentially the same thing) that ran me about $90 together. For drawing 60 kids, I think the cost was definitely worth it, but I think this is the kind of program that could probably be modified in many ways to be cheaper.

This is also a staff intensive program, unless you run it in a more competitive way than I did. I chose to do stations, rather than group events, except for the final contest. I had myself, two volunteers, and an additional staff member to help out, but again, I think modifications can easily be made.

I have photos from my tween stations, but I'll talk, too, about the other events I did for the teens.

The Set Up

I brainstormed and researched different ways of running this program until I found the right combination of events for my tiny space. I did plan it with the intention of doing it outside under our big tent, but with the weather throwing us a heat wave (and, um, chocolate not being good under those conditions), I had chosen the right activities to modify it for primarily indoor space.

Supplies
- Dark chocolate bars (I bought 2 of the 10 packs, but you can do more or less)
- 15 different types of candy bars (you can use more or less)
- 2 bags of mini candy bars for prizes
- 12 boxes of chocolate pudding
- Sour gummy worms
- 2 family size bags of plain M&Ms
- 1 family size bag of whoppers
- 2 large containers of chocolate sprinkles
- 2 family size boxes of oreos
- 1 or 2 bags of Hershey kisses
- Plastic cups
- Plastic spoons
- Pie tins (these were the most expensive items I bought)
- Napkins
- Construction or other painting/drawing appropriate paper
- Masking or Duct tape

The Program

Let's go station by station. At the tween event, two of the stations were set up to be unmanned, though we ended up manning one of them out of sanitary sake. In no particular order:

First up: the "Chocolate Puzzle." This was our unmanned station that we used in both programs (reusing the same materials). I purchased 15 kinds of candy bars, ranging from well-known Snickers and Butterfinger, to Kit Kat, and to the hard-to-guess Mars bar. I cut them into pieces -- halves for the smaller bars and quarters for the full size bars -- then put them into bags with a number attached. I then made up a guessing sheet that had 15 blank spots for the kids to guess which which kind of candy bar was in each bag.

I didn't put a sheet out for the kids to see the answers. Instead, I made them hold on to their response sheets until the end of the program. I had them take a seat as I held up each numbered bag and they told me their guess. I had written on the sheets that anyone who got 10 of the 15 correct would win a prize, but seeing I had a ton of prize candy, I let anyone who got 5 or more right win.




The next station I'll talk about is the "Stack and Sort." This table had two events, since they were each shorter ones.

First, the "sort." I went through the bags of M&Ms and sorted them into 30-some bags of 75 M&Ms each, with a variety of colors. I didn't count out colors for equality, just the number of candies in each bag. For this event, kids paired up and competed against another pair to see which group could sort their M&Ms by color fastest. Not as easy as it sounds, since they're working together as teams and need to have a plan. When one team finished, they were winners and got to pick out a prize. Both teams then got to enjoy their bag of M&Ms before diving into the second activity at this table.

The "stack" also relied on team work -- the pairs each took turns adding one Oreo at a time to create a tower. They were racing against another team doing the same thing. Whoever made the tallest tower won a prize. The challenge to this was, of course, the team work and the fact that the team across the table also shook the table, making the tower bases a bit unstable. When the kids finished this task, they didn't get to eat the cookies. . . until everyone had gone. Then they were able to help themselves if they wished.


What we thought would be one of the less exciting stations actually became one of the favorites: the "Whopper Relay." As you can see, we laid a piece of tape across the floor, and we had two kids line up along the wall opposite that line. They were each given one Whopper, had to get on their hands and knees, and roll the Whopper with their nose from one side of the room to that line, then they had to turn around and roll it back. The first kid to make it both ways would win.

This was easily the funniest part of the program, as we learned some kids were pretty darn good at using their nose to roll a Whopper. Even the teens loved this station and found it as funny as we did.

One of our non-pictured events was called "Chocolate Pudding Pie Surprise," and it's one we used for the teens only (due to attendance). In this program, we made up 15 pies made of chocolate pudding and dropped 6 sour gummy worms inside each. Two kids sat across the table from one another, their hands behind their back, and they had to race to retrieve the gummy worms from inside the pie using only their mouths and teeth. They were given a cup beside their pie tin to drop them into, and when they believed they'd fished out all of the worms, they were able to call stop. The person who pulled all six out first won, and they got to get a prize. We also let the kids keep their pudding pies if they wished, and I have to say, I was pretty surprised everyone wanted to keep them...and the worms.

This station wasn't one everyone wanted to do for obvious mess reasons, which is one reason I think setting it up station style was a good way to go. And keeping it for a smaller group, too, helped keep the cost/mess down. We told all of the teens if they dropped their pie from the table, they'd be responsible for licking it up off the ground.

None of the pies ended up on the floor!




Because I still wanted Tweens to play with chocolate pudding, their station was Pudding Finger Painting. This station was one meant to be unmanned, but due to sanitary concerns, we did man it.

For this, we set up a big bowl of chocolate pudding, construction paper, plastic cups, spoons, and napkins out. We told the kids they needed to spoon their "paint" from the bowl and use their cup of pudding to paint. They almost all painted something about loving chocolate, then turned to enjoying the pudding from their cups. I had worries they would lick chocolate from their fingers or spoons and put it back into the big bowl, but no one did.

Another unpictured event we had for the teens was our dark chocolate Pictionary game. Using the same yellow construction paper and two packs of dark chocolate bars, the teens pulled a clue from an envelope (where my volunteer and I had created 40 different clues) and they were to draw the clue with the chocolate bar. This was, by far, one of the favorite events, as the kids loved how the dark chocolate drew just like a brown crayon (and they loved drawing things from Harry Potter to zombies to hotels and mail boxes).

When someone guessed the correct item being drawn, they won a prize and became the drawer. Eventually, though, this program became sort of self-directed, as the kids really just wanted to draw (then eat...) the dark chocolate. Fine with me!



For the tweens, we also did a "Chocolate Shuffleboard." As you can see, I lined up two tables, not precisely flush with the walls, and I had my volunteer put duct tape down as point lines. The kids got to pick their puck from the bucket (which had Baby Ruth, Crunch, and Butterfinger bars -- think different shapes and aerodynamics!). We made four point brackets, then two extra spaces indicated as X's on the tables, and the kids lined up in groups of 2-4 at the end of the table pictured. They had three shots to score points, and whoever in the group earned the highest number of points won.

Though this was one of those last minute adds to the program, the kids enjoyed it a lot and came back more than once to do it.

Finally, we did three "Chocolate Relays" outside under the tent, despite the oppressive heat. The first involved chocolate sprinkles and cups -- the kids lined up in equal teams (we did multiple rounds for the tweens and one round with bigger teams for the teens). The first person to go was given a cup of chocolate sprinkles and a spoon, and on the opposite side of the tent, there was an empty cup. The goal was for the teams to transport the sprinkles by spoon from their side to the empty cup on the other. When the first team emptied the cup they held, the race was over, and we judged which team had gotten the most sprinkles into the other cup. The point of the race, of course, is determining if going fast was better than going slow and steady or whether it was worth doing big scoops or small scoops of sprinkles.

After that relay, we did a second one. The kids stayed in their same teams, but this time, each was given a pair of oven mitts. The first person in each team put them on, then they raced down to the table on the other end of the tent, where a bowl of Hershey Kisses waited. With the mitts on, they had to unwrap the Kiss, eat it, throw out the wrapper, then run back to their team and swap mitts with the next person up. While it sounds easy, opening the Kiss is challenging with the mitts on, ESPECIALLY when the chocolate has begun melting from the heat. Because the adults were laughing so hard at the kids, we were challenged to try it ourselves -- and we did, like the good sports we are. It was challenging, but in a very funny way. The first team to have all their players complete the task won a prize.

The final relay we did only with the teens, and it was one we came up with on the spot. Each player on a team was given a spoon and instructed to put it in their mouth. The first player needed to come down to the table then scoop a Whopper out of a plastic cup with the spoon in their mouth (we held the cups for them). They then raced back to their team, where they had to pass the Whopper from their spoon to the spoon in the next player's mouth. Then that person ran down and deposited the Whopper into the cup again and so forth. It wasn't an easy one for them, either, as we told them if the Whopper fell on the ground, they had to pick it up with the spoon in their mouths. And yes, this happened more than once. As usual, the first team to finish the relay won.

Lessons Learned

I actually had a lot more chocolate left over than I anticipated, so I was very loose with my definition of "winning." I let anyone who wanted prize candy take it, especially in the end, so it would all disappear (and it did).

One of the things I was worried about was not having enough activities and the huge mess that would come at the end. Here's the thing: because it was so staff intensive and we couldn't lead kids around from station to station, it ended up working out perfectly. The kids picked where they wanted to go, and we let them do any activity they wanted to do multiple times. As far as the clean up was concerned, there really was no mess. The messiest activity was the sprinkle race, but because it was outside, we didn't really need to clean up much of anything. All of our indoor activities were done on tables covered in the $1 table cloths that made clean up as easy as wrapping up the mess on the table and tossing it. Simple!

Without doubt, this was fun for both me and the kids, and it's a program I would not only recommend but would do again. I have a ton of other activity ideas to keep it fresh if I did it in the future. It also gives me a lot of hope that my fall "Minute to Win it" program will be as popular as this one was.

Of Note

The thing that probably surprised me the most was that we had more boys than girls in both programs. And I loved how easily transferable the activities were between the age groups, too, and both the tweens and teens had equal amounts of fun doing the silly activities.

I think this is a program that could work for the whole family, too. Pricey, sure, but for an activity that brings this much joy to both the participants and staff (and not to mention the incredible photos we've got!), it's worth doing it.

Summer Reading Club: Week 6

Week 6 has come and gone for summer reading, meaning we only have 2 weeks left of summer reading! Technically, there are three weeks, since we keep the prize store open for an extra week for stragglers, but programming and other events are done the week after next.

We're up to 114 teens signed up for the summer reading club, 78 pre-readers, and 312 youth. That brings our total to 504 signed up, which is officially more than last year.

Programming was exhausting but so much fun this week. We did not have the weather on our side, though, as we enjoyed a week of absolute heat and humidity, and that took a toll on attendance and my programming plans. But I made changes as I went, and things ended up just fine. I have to remind myself all the time that I'm the only one who knows what the plan really was, so no one can be disappointed if not everything happened.

As usual, we had our Monday Lego Club, though the crowd was low, with only 15 attendees.

Tuesday was our Recycled Costume Show, which I blogged about already, and we had about 35 show up for this program. This was a program I think was impacted the most by the heat, since we had to move inside.

On Wednesday, we ran our tween program, and this week we did Chocolate Olympics. I plan to blog about this program, since it's one that was a total blast (though a shade pricey). The kids had a lot of fun, and we even managed to sneak outside for a little bit to do a couple events. I may or may not have been conned into participating in a couple events myself by these kids. We ended up having nearly 40 for this program, which was a wonderful attendance.

Thursday, we took the Chocolate Olympics idea and morphed it a tiny bit for the teens, calling it our Death by Chocolate party. Again, I'll slip in the information about this program in a post next week, but this was another hugely popular program that left a lot of teens very happy (and messy, which was my favorite part!). We had 20 for this program, which is a great turn out, and I loved that it was more boys than girls.

All of the programs were a blast but super exhausting, since they were all staff-intensive programs. We have just two more staff intensive programs next week -- an international festival and a tween art program -- along with teen book club. Then the following week we have our final performer, along with a teen Lego competition. The end is so in sight, and I can't wait to be done and on to seeing what our final completion numbers are, among other things. I'm ready to sit down and really think about what worked well and what can be changed for next year. I'm also super excited to start talking about the new fall programming planned, since I'm trying some new ideas out.

Going Green: A Recycled Costume Show

The theme of the week is no cost programming, and today's program at work was one of the favorites so far this summer: a recycled costume show.

I mentioned before that there are always programs you inherit when you start a new job, and this is one of the traditional summer programs at my library. I think it's a really cool program and one I plan on keeping around. It's easy to organize and cost free, and it lets kids of all ages express their creativity.

Supplies

This is an easy one: anything recycled. But start saving things well in advance of your program, and have your staff help out. I had bubble wrap, packing paper, cardboard, tinsel, toilet paper and paper towel rolls, cereal boxes, soda bottles, and other regularly recyclable materials. My supplies also included most of last year's summer reading club decorations, which meant there were a ton of shark fins, some plastic shovels and goggles, and, perhaps the crowd favorite, the wicker luau fans like these.

I then pulled out glue, scissors, yarn, stick on foam shapes, craft fuzz balls, tape, duct tape, and a handful of other supplies I wanted to deplete.

Set Up

In the past, this program has been held under our big outdoor tent, with a "red carpet" positioned in the middle so that at the end of creation time, the kids could walk the runway to the MC. That was the plan for this year until we had an extreme heat warning issued, and I decided it was best to keep this program inside. The contingency plan involved putting all the non-recyclables on the floor and the craft supplies on one table. We pulled together a punch of tables for the kids to create on, some with chairs and some without (as I've found, the kids are all different about their preference, so I leave it open).

I didn't want to miss out on the kids showing off their creations, so my contingency was a library parade. I told the kids 10 minutes prior to the end of the program, we'd go on a parade throughout the stacks.

Running the Program

Like with the beaded creations program, I made no plans. Instead, I made myself available to the kids for helping with cutting, knot tying, etc. I told the kids as they came to make anything they wanted to, and they did!

As soon as creation time was done, we lined up and took a tour of the library. Some of the kids thought this parade was the best part of the program because they got to have the attention of all the patrons. Everyone got to oooh and ahhh over their costumes. Costumes ranged from an incredible robot (body and helmit with a jet pack in the back!) to a mask with a straw attached (so she could wear a mask and still drink water), as well as crowns, wigs, and bubble wrap skirts. The teens who showed up made themselves an elephant hat (which she plans to wear for Halloween) and a mailbox hat. These kids were wildly creative and imaginative, and I'm eager to go through our photos, since I know I didn't get to see everything they made.

Once our parade was done, I took the kids back to our creation space and told them the program was over, but they should feel free to take any supplies they wanted to to continue their costumes at home. Lucky for me, many of them did, meaning I had fewer things to put back into storage for next year's costume show.

Lessons Learned

What I loved about this program was it really brought in all ages. I had very young kids and I had teenagers making costume pieces. They even helped one another out, which is always one of those end goals.

I had my intern helping me out with this program, but were I doing it again, I'd love more help. While it requires little in terms of set up and in instruction, it sure helps to have people around for clean up and for taking photos and helping kids with some of the harder tasks, such as cutting tape or making holds through cardboard, etc.

I'd also make the parade a bigger deal -- I can't get too down about this, though, since this was a serious last minute improvisation for the fact I decided not to hold the program outside in the heat. But the kids loved it so much, I do plan on doing that part again. The parents got a kick out of taking photos of their kids marching in the parade, and the kids liked to show off everything they'd made (and not all of them made costumes, so not having a runway show let everyone show off what they made, regardless of whether it was wearable or not).

This is a program I highly recommend for all ages, and it's one that can be done any time of the year, and one that could be particularly well done during April's Earth Week. What a way to encourage kids to recycle and to think about the ways the things they use every day can be re-purposed. We don't always have to teach through lecturing; sometimes, it's as simple as letting them create and discover.

Costs

$0.

Really, what do you have to lose?

Beaded Creations: A Tween Program

I ran a no cost and extremely easy program last week that brought in 15 tweens for over an hour of easy fun that encouraged their creativity and imagination. You read the first part right: no cost. I called the program "beaded creations," and it involved nothing more than the craft supplies that took up shelf space in my office.

Supplies

I cleaned my shelves and pulled out two boxes of beads. These included a huge tub of pony beads, as well as a number of smaller beads, fancy beads, alphabet beads, and crystal beads. I pulled out a few rolls of regular yarn, as well as fishing line thin string, some elastic, and some wire string. I still had a ton of safety pins left over from Canada Day and so I pulled those out, too. I also took out a couple tape rolls and a handful of scissors.

Set Up

I put all of the non-bead supplies on one table, save for a few pairs of scissors. That table was at the front of the room so when the kids entered, they went there first.

I grabbed a pile of bowls from our staff lounge and put a few on each of the four tables in our programming room, dumping a mix of beads into each bowl. I'm not a purist by any means, and I know I like the idea of discovery, so I mixed all the different kinds of beads together. Pony beads were hanging out with the Fs and Hs, and the crystal beads mixed with the triangle-style beads.

The Plan

Guess what? I had none. I didn't come up with any patterns, nor did I come up with any sort of jewelry for the kids to make. Instead, this was more of an open studio program, where the kids could make anything their minds could come up with. I find these programs work extremely well for this age group; they're so creative and during the school year, they're so regimented, they don't get the opportunity to just play like they need to. Yes, I said it: they need to play.

This program brought both boys and girls. The boys had just as much fun as the girls. The idea that jewelry is a girl thing isn't really common in this age group, honestly. They just want to have fun, and I'm all about encouraging it.

A couple of our boys made alphabet necklaces using all of the alphabet beads in a nonsensical way, and one of the boys found half beads he popped onto his pinkie fingers and played vikings with (then he made them party vikings by putting a ring on the fingers beneath the 'helmets'). Girls made necklaces, bracelets, and one girl used a ton of the pins to make a birthday necklace (then she gave me one of her creations to keep!).

Lessons Learned

This program was so easy and it was popular. The kids asked me to do it again, so it's one I'll definitely try out again in the spring.

Perhaps one thing I didn't think about was how much knot tying the kids would want me to do. I didn't mind it at all, but when they asked me to tie knots for their little rings, well, it was a test of my own finger dexterity (I have tiny hands, but not that tiny). I think if I do this again, I might splurge and buy actual fasteners for the jewelry so the kids could make longer lasting creations.

These sorts of programs are great for cleaning out your supplies and for encouraging creativity, and they work so well with the 8-12 year old set. You don't have to reinvent the wheel for successful programs, nor do you have to do a lot of planning or prep work. Sometimes keeping it as simple as possible is what you need to do: for the most part, these kids want a safe place to be that's not at home and they want to hang out with people their age, as well as adults who like spending time with them and laughing with them.

Summer Reading Club: Week 5

Week five is out of sight and out of mind. We're on to week six tomorrow, which means we've only got two more weeks of summer reading club.

Maybe what's scary is that I've already finished planning my fall programming and have plans sketched out through next March already. I'm ready for something new!

This week, our registrations continued to grow. We now have 107 teens signed up, 76 pre-readers signed up, and 307 youth signed up. That brings us to almost 500 total! I am so thrilled with the teen sign ups, in part because it's a huge number for our small town, it's more than double last year's numbers, and it's higher than the numbers I pulled at my previous library system which served a much larger population. I'm thrilled, too, to see such a large pre-reader sign up.

In terms of programming this week, our numbers were down quite a bit. I think there are a number of reasons for this, but I'm not going to be sad to say we still had good numbers.

On Monday, we had our Lego Club and it brought 20 kids out for fun! Their creations are getting more and more complicated and huge. The thing I think I love most about Lego Club, aside from the creativity it breeds and the excellent displays we get in the children's room because of it, is that it really gets kids to collaborate. They work together on making things, and I love seeing that.

On Tuesday, we had our last system-supported performers, and it was a folk band. I was a little nervous at first, but they ended up being excellent. Even I had a blast, since I knew most of the songs. One of the things that we're required to do for these programs is have a sign language interpreter. We used to have a staff member who did it, but after she left, we've hired a local company to do it (we're home to the state deaf school, so this is a population our library serves regularly). However, for these programs, we don't usually have deaf attendees; this week, we did! And the girl who came had a total blast, minus a complication she had when her younger sister began heckling the band and not listening to her. I had to do the gross adult thing and call her mom at the deaf girl's request to say the younger daughter wasn't behaving. I never got an answer from mom, but it was one of those moments where I felt like I had to be a real adult (and reminded me of the responsibility I have to my kids, too). We ended up having over 70 attend this program, which is lower than most Tuesday programs and was a little disappointing for me, especially because the band was fantastic.

Wednesday was our regular tween program, and we did beaded creations. I plan on blogging about this program since it was marvelously simple and fun. We had 15 tweens come out (again a low number), and the kids made all sorts of fun jewelry out of beads. The thing I love about this age group is that the attendance was 50/50 male/female. Boys don't care they're making jewelry at this age, and they have fun doing it.

Thursday was our teen book group, where we discussed Holly Black's White Cat. We also talked about programming ideas for the fall, and they're all stoked about the events. As much as this group is a book club, I use them as my advisory board, too, and it's so helpful to have it all in one, rather than having multiple groups. They enjoy telling me what sounds good and what sounds lame. At the end of this meeting, I pulled out a bag of ARCs and let the kids dive in, then I went up to the teen area with them and did individual reader's advisory with them. I know what kinds of books they like since I see them every other week, and I love sending them home with piles of books to read.

We continued our mobile collection this week, signing up 12 teens so far for the reading program, and lending out about 20 books. I cannot emphasize how thrilled I am this program is in play and working out as it is.

This week is probably the last very staff intensive programming week, but it's one I have been looking forward to all summer. I've amped up the tweens and teens for their separate chocolate parties (where they are going to get messy!) and we have our annual recycled fashion show. Of course, these outside events happen during the most sweltering week of heat we've had so far this summer -- which means they'll be three times as fun.

A Mid-summer Reminder to Keep It Real (& Laugh!)

Of all the age groups I work with, I think I have the most fun with the tween crowd. They're an energetic bunch, fun to talk to, and they are down with doing anything and there's never any shame. I've been doing a program for them each week and consistently have great turn out.

Today's program, which I'll blog about later, was a beaded creations program. It was super laid back, and the kids could do anything they wanted.

You know what they wanted to do and I let them do, between stringing beads and making knots (me making the knots, not them, of course)? They wanted to play with my people clicker.

They had clicker races.
I challenged them to make it to some arbitrary number by the time I finished knotting someone's ring (seriously - they gave me these tiny strings to tie, and even though I have the world's smallest hands, it wasn't easy!)
They showed off how good they were at turning it back to 0.
One girl showed her little sister, who was 2, how to use it.

Then I told them if they were that into my clicker, I could do a whole program of it. And the idea not only excited them, but they suggested we only have one clicker for the program so they could all share.

I suppose this is like when I had a lock in, and the teens were most interested in using our cardboard Edward Cullen as an artistic canvas. His bedazzled jeans and glowing green gem eyes were the highlight of the night.

Sometimes, stepping back to think about the little things that bring your patrons joy is just a reminder that what matters to them is less what you do and more that you're doing something for them. That shows you care. And the more you laugh about the little things that bring the kids joy, the less the imperfections/problems/things that didn't go exactly as you planned matter.