In Short, I am busy: Open Storyroom, Craft-o-Rama, and Lego Challenges

  I conceived the idea of Open Storyroom some years ago. I wanted to continue my work in making the library a community center and getting as much use as possible out of our resources and materials. I also wanted more resources available for our families and caregivers with special needs kids.

A lot of work went into this, from conferences and webinars to research and talking to patrons. Unfortunately, I... didn't really document all that. In the end, thanks to a Walmart grant, money from our school partners, and our own budget, I purchased a number of toys from WePlay, a Taiwan-based company that specializes in tactile and sensory-friendly toys for children at all stages of development, and added these to the materials we already had. With the help of my staff, I reorganized our Storyroom storage closet.

The way it works is that, when we don't have programs and the Storyroom is not in use, the staff open the door of the room and the closet and put up signs saying it's Open Storyroom, listing the rules, and asking folks to sign in. Patrons can then use the room as an extension of the play area, use materials in the closet, and hang out. We don't schedule or announce Open Storyroom, it's just a bonus people are happy to see when they come.

Signage for the doors and easel is in English and Spanish. It reminds people to feel free to use the toys, remember to clean up, and not cross the yellow lines in the closet (for reasons known only to the designers, our storage closet also doubles as a puppet theater, but in addition includes all the light switches and a ladder for roof access.)

Closet contains, among other things:

• WePlay toys (blocks, balancing toys, and other items)
• A collection of toys from various places, including felt toys and puppets
• A variety of blocks
• Slide and lapsit toys
• Basic craft materials
• crayons, scissors, markers, glue sticks, paper scrap boxes
• Chalk for the chalkboard
• Musical instruments

The items I have observed being played with most often are the inter-locking blocks from WePlay, the fabric tunnel and slide, and crayons, scissors, and paper. So far people have been reluctant to take down the boxes of blocks - probably because they are not well-labeled so they don't know what's in them. When I expanded our play area, I moved the cardboard blocks and some of the other toys out into the area where they see regular use. We used to have ballpit balls and pools, but took those away during the pandemic and never got around to bringing them out of the basement. I also moved away from a sign-in sheet and don't really collect statistics on this anymore.

I hope to continue to update and add to this collection, improving storage and labeling as well as updating and adding toys as needed. Attendance in a day can range from 10 to 50, depending on how busy a day it is and whether a home daycare drops by or not!

Craft-o-Rama

I originally designed Craft-o-rama as a scheduled drop-in program, most used in August and on no-school days. It takes 5-20 minutes to set up and, depending on how many people came through, up to an hour or more to clean up. If possible, we'll clean and refill the sink at least once during the day. The posted times are generally 10-5 or 10-7, depending on when I can schedule someone to clean up. I usually open the room earlier, as soon as it's been set up.

Easel with sign-in sheet. This is how I count attendees.

Small door is locked and I set one white table against it. This has the base materials - boxes of scrap paper and magnet pieces.

Craft-o-rama tubs. I dump leftover craft materials and donated pieces of kits etc. in here. Every now and then I'll dump most of it and start over.

Art table. This is all stuff from the Storyroom closet to use. I vary this somewhat, these are the basics.

Big scissors, tape, staplers, glue, markers, stickers, small scissors

Paint cups and brushes

Craft-o-rama tub. This one has some easter grass, ribbon, bits of holiday stuff, and who knows what

Craft-o-rama tub. This one has some bits and pieces from books, left over puppets, glow in the dark spiders, and other stuff

Craft-o-rama tub. More easter grass, leftover tissue scraps, bags of sequins

Some sample creations: paper design

Some sample creations: magnet

Some sample creations: 3-D paper collage

Some sample creations: Glitter flower and painted egg (apparently there was a pack of felt mice in there too)

Some sample creations: Glitter flower

Some sample creations: Glitter dresses

People are generally pretty good about cleaning up after themselves, but if we've had a LOT of people and some unsupervised kids, it can get messy! We'll usually drop in a few times throughout the day to pick up finished projects and tidy things. Ultimately, it's not a large space to clean up though. The clean up involves:
 - pack up and put away items from the closet (all labeled boxes, paint cups have tops that match a shape)
 - collect and put in the craft-o-rama tubs any leftover bits and pieces
 - wipe down tables
 - wipe down and clean sink
 - vacuum (usually need to clean the vacuum after this)

Lego Challenge

After many, many years of running Lego Building Club, I moved away from that in favor of open Lego days. The reasons were many - we got new carpeting in our community room, so I tried to shift as many programs back to the Storyroom as possible. It was taking a lot of staff time to haul all the Legos across the library and supervise, and attendance was dropping as people got involved in other activities. I had initially moved Lego Building Club to the Community room years ago for space issues and now we could move it back! During the early years of the pandemic, I moved a bunch of Legos into circulating bins and then eventually put a big bin out for regular use. I started putting the excess Legos out just as part of Open Storyroom. However, I decided to try a return to a slightly more formalized Lego program in the fall of 2022. 

Our big drop-in program has become Pokemon Club, which runs twice a month, and I wanted to alternate it with Anime Club. However, I also wanted something in place for younger siblings and those who came expecting Pokemon Club and got Anime Club instead, which is a slightly older audience. The plan is to have the Storyroom open and set up for Lego Building from 3-6 most Tuesday afternoons with a sign-in sheet and specific Lego Challenges set up for the kids to follow, if they choose. I will be using things from Brick X Brick and the Lego Librarian to create my challenges.