Friday, October 4, 2013

New Blog Features Coming Monday, October 7

As many of you have heard here and on Twitter, today was my last day of work as a children's librarian for the foreseeable future. I have resigned from my position in order to be a stay at home mom to my own little one, who is due on or about November 30. Though I will no longer be performing weekly story times, I have every intention of keeping this blog going. In fact, as my work duties have been winding down, I have been very busy writing up and scheduling a whole backlog of posts. Beginning on Monday, October 7, you will see a series of brand-new features here at Story Time Secrets. Here is a sneak preview of what you can expect.

On Mondays, I'll be sharing various posts about my experiences as a children's librarian, in the hopes that some of the lessons I have learned will be useful to others, especially those just starting out in children's services. These posts will fall into a number of categories:
  • Reflections on Library Service
    Each month, I'll provide hints and tips for serving a particular segment of the typical population that visits a public library's children's room.
  • At the Children's Desk
    In these posts, I will share various questions I have heard at the reference desk, sometimes with advice on how I would respond to them.
  • In the Story Room
    These posts will talk about how I approach story time and why and how I do things the way I do them. As summer approaches, these posts will focus on story time starters for the Fizz Boom Read summer reading theme.
  •  Ten Things
    In "Ten Things" posts I will share lists of books, story time activities, and crafts for specific themes, occasions, and/or audiences. 
On the third Monday of each month, instead of posting here, I will be posting at a new collaborative blog, The Library Adventure, where I am a library resources writer. My posts will encompass a variety of topics from crafts, to playing the ukulele, to summer reading printables, and they will be aimed specifically at librarians.

Every Thursday, I will post a review of a picture book. These reviews will include brief summaries, comments on the illustrations, story time suggestions, and reader's advisory information.

As of right now, I have an uninterrupted schedule of posts running from October through early March, so even after the baby comes and I disappear into Mommyland for a bit, you'll still get to hear from me twice a week. I hope you will continue to read, comment, and email me feedback even as the content here changes, and that you'll enjoy all the new posts! Thanks!

Flannel Friday: Knock Knock! Trick or Treat!

Though I am officially no longer employed as a children's librarian as of 5:45 p.m. this afternoon (Friday, 10/4), I still have a flannel board idea to share today. I hope some of you who are doing Halloween story times will be able to use my original rhyme and let me know how the kids enjoy it!

The rhyme goes like this:

Knock knock! Trick or treat!
Behind this door, who will we meet?

Ask the kids to help you choose a door. Behind each door is hidden a Halloween creature. When the creature is revealed, all chant:

A [ghost]! A [ghost]! A spooky spooky [ghost]!

Repeat for as many doors as you'd like. 

Because I have no immediate reason to use this idea, I opted to make it into a Google Drive presentation, rather than a traditional flannel board. The presentation is embedded below. To find out who is hidden behind a given door, click on that door. This will take you to a new slide showing a ghost, witch, mummy, spider, or bat. To return to the doors, click on the individual creature.


Those of you who use iPads or a projector in story time might want to use this presentation as is, but if you'd prefer to adapt it to the traditional flannel format, here are links to the clipart images I used.
 This week's Flannel Friday Halloween Extravaganza is hosted by Kay Leigh at Storytime ABC's.
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