Christmas parade

People lined up at the windows to watch.

I work in the "Christmas Card Town" and the annual parade is a big deal. We have a tradition of starting to talk about whether we should participate around October and then decide by November that we don't have enough time. We had a float once, due to a staff member having access to antique cars, and it was an insane amount of work, plus the weather was pretty miserable. Last year, I came up with the idea to just stay open late - the banks of windows in the children's area face directly onto the main route - and open our back door so people could easily come in and out, using the restrooms etc. A staff member made hot chocolate, we had crafts, and a volunteer made cookies. This is the second year we've done it and I had two volunteers from the Friends handling the cookies and hot chocolate this year. It was a little time-consuming to clean up, because I have a group meeting in the Storyroom on Monday so we had to clean and reset it instead of just closing the door and calling it a day.

We get a lot of regulars but also people who don't normally visit the library stop by and get a look at things

Staff: 1 person at the information desk, 1 circulation assistant, 1 person to staff the craft room, 1 to oversee (me), at least 2 volunteers to make and serve cookies and hot chocolate. I book our community center so the parking lot is free.

It saves a lot of time to set up the Storyroom with the crafts the day before. People are perfectly happy with coloring sheets, but I usually include wire stars, beads, pipe cleaners, yarn, etc.

12:30 Start the hot chocolate, move tables away from windows, open the room for crafts, unlock the Storyroom door and post signs on it inviting people in.

We went through 4 cans of chocolate, 125 cups, and I'm not sure about the cookies - the Friends were in charge of those and the number was just right because there were only a handful left (turns out they used almost 10 dozen, so about 12 dozen next year would be safe). There are some old coffee pots we use, but they are going to borrow some that are easier to use next year. Napkins and marshmallows are nice to have too.

The parade starts at 1:30 and gets to our windows about 1:45. People were pretty much done with the hot chocolate etc. and the Friends closed it down at 2:15. The parade went until nearly 2:45 and then lots of people came back in to warm up, use the restroom, or hang out in the play area. We close at 3 (an hour later than usual) and it took about 30 minutes to clean up the Storyroom. Usually we'd just leave it until Monday. Somewhere between 100 and 150 people came through.

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.

In short, I am busy: Chick Central

 Program Goals

• Introduce kids to the life cycle of a chicken
• Bring in non-library users
• Partner with schools and community

We didn't do this for two years during the pandemic and then again this year. It wasn't very successful this year - we've rearranged things and didn't have a good space, none of our eggs hatched, and we were just too busy to really promote or focus on it. I don't know if we'll repeat it in future - this might have been our last year.

This program doesn't have a way to count attendance, but it does bring us a lot of great publicity. Generally, I provide the incubator, my school partners provide the eggs, and local people from the community provide expert assistance and the materials for caring for the chicks for a week or two after they hatch.

We started this in 2012 and have been pretty diligent about repeating each year. Things we have learned:

• Make sure you know where the chickens are going afterward. They grow really fast.
• Everyone is a chicken expert. Just smile and nod.
• They are stinky and need to be cleaned regularly. Make sure you have got somebody roped in for this job.
• Some chicks will die. It's great if you have a person on staff who comes in before the library opens and removes any unfortunate casualties.
• Staff and patrons are shocked when I say this, but I tell people all the time: This is science, not pets. Animals die. Not all of them are perfect. We take the best care of them we can, but I am not doing therapy for George the Duck's feet (assuming he needs it anyways)
• Also, if you throw in a duckling or two kids will adore it but the mess factor will quadruple.

The whole crew from 2015

These are from the first hatching

School partner, Pattie Woods

Community partner, Virgil Wuttke (the eggspert)