GreenBeanTeenQueen

Today I'm over at the ALSC Blog talking about some of my new favorite bedtime-themed books!

With LibraryCon 3 only two months away, it's about time I wrote about last year's event! Sheesh! But I'm back with lots of LibraryCon notes! You can read about planning LibraryCon Year 2 here . I thought I would devote an entire post to Geeky Storytime at LibraryCon since it's one of the things I get asked most about.  Toddler GreenBean as Batman I have tried hosting Geeky Storytimes as a special evening storytime before (I wrote about those here , here  and the LibraryCon 1 edition here ) For year 2, we decided to utilize our StoryHour Room as a tabletop gaming room, which meant we needed a new spot for Geeky Storytime to kick off LibraryCon. We opted to host it just outside the children's department, as we have an open area there, we could fit more people, and we hoped we could draw more attendees this way. All of that worked out perfectly and just as we had hoped! I started off the storytime with welcoming everyone to LibraryCon and Geeky Storytim...

Today is The Very Hungry Caterpillar Day! I can't say enough good things about the beloved book by Eric Carle. I loved it as a child, I loved it again as a librarian, and I love it even more as a parent.  The Very Hungry Caterpillar  is such a great storytime book. There are so many ways to use it! Of course, I love reading it and even adding music and singing as the caterpillar munches his way across the pages. But my most favorite way of telling this story is through our Very Hungry Caterpillar sock puppet.  I'm not sure where the sock puppet idea came from originally at my library as it was made before I started there, but you can see an example of one at Busy Crafting Mama who shared one for Flannel Friday a few years ago. The idea of the storytelling puppet is that you wear the caterpillar sock on your arm and add the various foods as you tell the story and move the food up your arm and then end with a beautiful butterfly! It doesn't matter what age...

Flannel Friday is a weekly roundup of posts about storytime and flannelboard ideas. You can visit the website here . Librarian confession time-I am not a crafty librarian. Crafts for me mean fingerprints or play-dough. I wish I could knit cute puppets to use in storytime, but if I'm lucky, I can make an ok paper bag puppet. And my flannels just aren't pretty-so I rarely make them. (I'm more of a print it off from Kizclub and use magnets type of librarian!) But I wanted a way to tell Buddy and the Bunnies by Bob Shea  so that the kids knew who was talking. I'm reading the book, puppets weren't going to work. And since this is one of our state picture book award nominees, I'm planning on reading it a few times. In the past, the kids have had trouble knowing which character was speaking. So I made Buddy and Bunnies. While reading, I'll point to each character and move them on the flannel board to help the kids visualize who's speaking. So her...

Fandom Starts Early Storytime Number 1 Fandom Starts Early Storytime Number 2 I've hosted two Fandom Starts Early Geeky Storytimes for kids and I knew it would be the perfect fit for LibraryCon. My previous Fandom storytimes have been OK, but I held them on Friday evenings, which are always a tough time to draw a crowd. Plus, I didn't get the true geeky families I was hoping for and I knew my audience at LibraryCon would appreciate and love a storytime based on fandoms. I took some things that I've used before and added a few new things for the LibraryCon version. I actually had to adapt and change my plan at the last minute because my crowd ended up being much younger than I anticipated. So here's what we did for Fandom Starts Early LibraryCon! (flying like superheroes) Opening Song: Hedwig's Theme -I opened the doors had the kids walk in to Hedwig's Theme and welcomed everyone to Fandom Starts Early Storytime. I told the parents that it's fun ...

Last year I wrote about the Fandom Starts Early Geeky Storytime I did at my library. I had too much fun that I had to repeat it and hopefully get a crowd of geeky kids and parents to attend. Here's how The Return of Geeky Storytime went. Opening Song : A Tootie Ta-this is a great song to get the kids up and moving Opening Song: The Robot Dance by The Pop Ups (because we have to dance like robots at geeky storytime!) Rhyme : I explained the kids that we would be talking about all sorts of fandoms and being geeky. I told them that geek meant you really loved something and asked what the things they really loved were. They said they loved playing, Batman, and video games. Then I had them recite a rhyme that made up just for our storytime. I'm a geek, yes it's true. I'm a geek, how about you? There are lots of things I love do And no one can tell me they are not cool.  So stand up proud and shout hooray For all the fun things we will do today....

(My set up for digital storytime-iPad connected to a large screen TV and my storytelling stool) This past weekend I did my second Digitots Storytime. I am so glad my library is finally incorporating digital components in storytime and so far the response from patrons has been great. They love that we're highlighting apps for them to try with their kids, giving them a chance to see them and how their child interacts with an app, and it's a great way to model a wonderful use of media and how it can be beneficial.  For this storytime I decided to focus on more stories than game apps and modeled it much like my traditional print storytimes but using the iPad for most of my resources. I loaded my music onto the iPad so everything was all in one place. Since I didn't want the iTunes screen showing my playlist, because that's a bit boring, I used the Smoothie Feltboard app and created a screen that showed "digitots storytime" to put up when we were singing...

So this past weekend, I was proud to finally give my library's fist digital storytime. We've been working towards digital storytimes for awhile so I was thrilled to have the chance to debut them as part of our Summer Reading Program this year. To set up the storytime, I used an HDMI cable to attach the iPad to a large screen TV. This was very easy to do and a great way to project the apps to the group. It also gave me an easy way control the apps without having to worry about running the apps upside down or moving the iPad around the room so everyone could see. It did make me a bit more limited in my mobility, since I was tethered to the TV, but overall I felt that it worked out well. I decided to go with an animal theme for my first digital storytime. I wanted to use a lot of apps that were very interactive since my goal with our digital storytime is to promote the interactive nature of apps and the benefits of interacting with your child and screen time instead of using...

Can you name all of The Hobbit characters? I am a big geek and one of the things that I love about working in the library is that I get to work with people who share my love for geeky pop culture-both staff and patrons. I've been wanting to do a geeky storytime for awhile and finally hosted one a couple of weeks ago. Here's what I did: To help set the mood, I had the kids walk into Hedwig’s Theme Opening Song: Clap Your Hands by They Might Be Giants Book : Star Wars ABC-I had the kids help out and call out the characters they knew when they came across them. They knew most of them and I had quite a few Star Wars fans in the group which made this book fun. Song : Soft Kitty-when I announced this song, I got a big laugh from the parents in the room Soft kitty, Warm kitty, Little ball of fur. Happy kitty, Sleepy kitty, Purr, purr, purr. Book : Robot Zombie Frankenstein by Annette Simon Song : Robot Parade by They Might Be Giants...

I'm doing Caldecott themed storytime for preschool storytime in January-April. Check out all my Caldecott Storytime plans here . So I did two storytimes with this years winner, but silly me forgot to keep my full plan for Week 14. That week I introduced the winners from this year and read Green  by Laura Vaccaro Seeger , Extra Yarn by Mac Barnett , and Creepy Carrots by Aaron Reynolds . My group was a little young, so I abridged some of Extra Yarn . I also wasn't sure if they really liked Creepy Carrots , but we made our own carrots for a craft and after I heard them playing in the department saying "my creepy carrot will get you!" so it must have been a hit! For Week 15, I saved this year's winner for last. It was lots of fun and a great way to end our Caldecott series. Here's what I did: Open : Where Is Thumbkin and Shake My Sillies Out by The Wiggles Read :  Swimmy by Leo Lionni  -A couple of the kids new this one because they had rea...