Saturday, December 15, 2012

This week at the library; or, Zen Librarian is breathing her way through the last week of programming

Programs
  • Tiny Tots (Pattie)
  • Toddlers 'n' Books, 2 sessions (Pattie)
  • Preschool Interactive
  • Learning Curve, 3 sessions
  • Tibbets Kindergarten
  • Books 'n' Babies (Pattie)
  • Lego Club
  • We Explore Healthy Snacking (Pattie)
  • Santa's Kitchen
Random Commentary
  • This week's extra activities included a summer showcase at another library on Monday afternoon, Scholastic Warehouse sale, and a Youth Services committee meeting.
  • One staff member is recovering from surgery, I had a stiff neck that made it very painful to do storytime and work at the computer, somehow one of my boxes of books got left at the warehouse sale (an HOUR's drive away and could I get in contact with the warehouse? Noooo), and it's just been that kind of week. The middle schoolers can, of course, sense weakness and have produced their most obnoxious behavior, we had 3 police visits by Wednesday evening and...yeah, one of those weeks.
  • Scholastic sent my missing box! I take back all the things I said (except for the ones about Reading Counts). Encountered the WOMBAT SKEPTICS at the daycare, an entire class who refused to believe that such an animal as a wombat really existed. I was telling it as a funny story to a parent at Lego Cub later that afternoon and smart-aleck T (he's about 7) turned around and said "wombats don't exist!" Clearly, I need to booktalk Nic Bishop's Marsupials more.
  • Santa's Kitchen - this year I am keeping track of what I bought! About 50 wire stars from the local bead store to make ornaments (about $30 I think?), about $20 Christmas candy decorations plus holiday tablecloths, plates, and napkins from Walmart, 250 plain sugar cookies in various shapes, red white and green frosting (8 lbs?) a few more decorations, and waxed paper for $122 at Franks, the local grocery store.
  • Of COURSE nothing ever works the way I hope. I got there at 9:45 and it wasn't really enough time to set up. The tablecloths were too short and I hadn't bought enough, but I had some plain ones in the back. I grabbed a grandma who was waiting and used to be one of our volunteers and she helped dish out frosting. It was the right number of cookies, decorations (3 tubs of sprinkles, 3 tubes of sprinkles, 4 bags of M&Ms, 2 boxes of xmas Nerds). We didn't use the wax paper. I couldn't find my bead pliers and we needed LOTS more than just one pair of needlenose pliers for the craft, but the kids had fun with the pipe cleaners. Nobody really came for the cookie swap, but the high schoolers sang well and enjoyed having cookies afterwards. We also had popsicle sticks for spreading frosting, plastic spoons for scooping decorations, beads, lots and lots of paper plates, pipe cleaners. I think we had about 60 people!
Approximate Hours This Week
  • Monday - Showcase all afternoon, 5-8
  • Tuesday - Warehouse sale all afternoon, 5-8
  • Wednesday, 9-5:20
  • Thursday, 9:30-5:45
  • Friday - 10ish to 3:15
  • Saturday, 9:45-1:30

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