Noo-Nie,Noonie,New Knee!

Hello Again!
It has been a while since I have posted. Seems my knee was just too worn out and needed to be replaced. My new knee and I are back at work and back in the blogosphere.

I came back just in time to visit some schools with Cynthia and be at the library when the Kindergartners came for their annual visits. This years theme, "One World,Many Stories", was the perfect opportunity for Cynthia to use her storytelling skills to entertain children of all ages with a tale from Africa.

The BIG DECORATING  effort will take place this weekend. We will transform the Children's Room into a visual trip around the world. Stay tuned!

Jun 7, 2011

Series On A Stick

Do you have plenty of space to shelve the books in your library? If you do, consider yourself VERRRRRY lucky...............if you don't, I may have an idea for freeing up some extra space.

We shelve our picture book "series" books at the beginning of our picture book collection. Having books about the same character shelved together helps children and their parents locate the books easily. We were using some outdated plastic dividers that took up 2-3 books worth of shelf space that we really need soooooooooo.......we discovered a nifty solution.

Plastic shelf  marker paddles from Highsmith are now being used to divide the character books in our picture book collection. We printed pictures of the characters and used Modge Podge to adhere them to the paddles.Then, we attached the paddles to books ends with book tape.

Our character series collection looks tidy and pre-readers are able to see clearly where their favorite books are located.

This idea is working so nicely that today my assistant and I are making paddle dividers for the Juvenile Series books to replace the plastic dividers that take up too much space . We printed out the name of the series for each paddle in the Juvenile Series section.

Ahhhhhhhhhhh......shelf space...........sweeter words were never spoken!

Check Out Humans as Well as Books

Always innovative Toronto Public Library lets us check out humans as well as books

LITERACY LINE UP

Last night Santa and his reindeer flew into the library for their yearly visit. He brought Mrs. Claus and a few elves,too. The reindeer stayed outdoors, since I do not enjoy cleaning up after them and they like the cold better, anyway. This is Santa's seventh yearly visit to our library.

We have an outdated library with a very long hallway leading to the Children's Room. Every year the long line to talk to Santa extends down the hallway. There is not enough room in the hallway and here is nothing to do while you wait.

Simple Solution: We created a literacy lineup throughout the Children's Room! Mother Goose rhyme posters, fun facts, riddles, and an I Spy With My Little Eye game made waiting a lot more fun for everyone.

The line moved smoothly and children enjoyed books and puzzles along the way,too.

It took me seven years to think of this?????????????????????