Mel's Desk

I’m sharing the stuff I want to learn this year. See yesterday’s post on Teaching and Tech topics, and check in tomorrow for Children’s Literature!

LITERACY

A major tactic for my library district is to promote the library’s role in building early literacy skills in children and in teaching parents, caregivers, and other adults how critical early learning is to a thriving community. I’ve learned a lot from some incredible mentors, but haven’t studied literacy and reading acquisition formally, so I’m always discovering more that I can learn.

10. How can parents tell a child is ready to move from pre literacy to emergent literacy?
11. What are great advice and resources for families raising kids bilingually?

I have some pat answers for these questions but want to deepen my understanding. When I win the lottery I’ll probably want to get a Master’s in Reading.

12. What are the basics (ha!) of dyslexia?

Yes, I know this topic is huge, but I need to start somewhere! Learning more about how children learn to read successfully has made me interested in what happens when our brains get in the way of that process.

13. Do follow up reading for my ALSC class on reading level formulas.

I took the ALSC online class “Reading Instruction and Children’s Books” last fall and want to finish the recommended reading!

STORYTIME & PROGRAMMING

I love storytime, and I love it when I can get past the detail-oriented planning I need to do each week to think more about the big picture.

14. What are the components of an effective beginning reader storytime?

We want to create more K-1-2 literacy-based programming at my library! I love Hi Miss Julie’s posts on her beginning reader storytimes.

15. Develop a meta-list of basic storytime activities to use as a training/planning tool

There’s lots of storytime resource books that provide grab-and-go resources. I want to step back and think about the components of storytime more broadly so I can help storytime providers can feel more comfortable building their own storytime plans and creating their own storytime activities.

16. Brainstorm training ideas & resources related to storytime competencies

A big project for us last year was creating a list of storytime competencies for our staff. So of course the next step is providing resources for how staff can improve in each of those competency areas.

17. What are developmentally appropriate art projects for preschoolers?
18. What are some handmade/homemade toys/manipulatives we can add to play kits?

We added “Learning through Play” time after storytime at all our branches last year–toys and manipulatives and time for free play. What are some great activities, toys, craft projects we can provide that will get parents excited about how easy and inexpensive it is to provide robust activities/experiences for their kids at home?

19. Can a knowledge of gaming/game design inform how we create great programs at the library for kids?

My husband teaches in digital media and I love our discussions about gaming and learning.

20. Learn more Spanish storytime songs!

I don’t know Spanish but had fun learning Los pollitos dicen last year!

Come back tomorrow for more list! What’s on YOUR Curiosity List?

Happy Still Sort-of New Year!

Last month I wrote about trying to get caught up in monthly reports for 2011, when all I could think about was what I wanted to learn for my job in 2012. I said I’d compile my thoughts for a few weeks and then let you know what areas of interest made it on the list.

I kept a running note and then went back and sorted out the ideas. Not surprisingly, the categories are a pretty good reflection of what my job consists of right now!

I wrote this initially as one post, but it was too monster, so I’m splitting it up over the next few days. Today is Teaching & Training, and Tech. Come back tomorrow for Storytime & Programming, and Literacy, and Thursday for Children’s Literature!

TEACHING & TRAINING

A big part of my job is to help develop and implement youth services and storytime-related training for our staff. This year we’ve been challenged to create as much online & self-directed modules as possible, to lessen the strain that in-person classes can put on the floor schedule. So I’m interested in catching up to the rest of the world by investigating remote learning tools, but also in being more deliberate in researching what makes for a good training session in the first place.

1. How do you write a great lesson plan?
2. Read more about staff training and best practices for adult & continuing education

Everything I know about teaching I’ve learned on the fly from great mentors, including my boss and my husband, and from just jumping in the deep end of the pool and doing it myself. I want to back up a little bit and read more about planning & lesson design.

3. What are the components of effective webinars, for live and recorded viewing
4. What are the components of an effective podcast/vodcast
5. Explore tools beyond PowerPoint and Keynote for creating videos/more dynamic presentations

If I have to create self-paced, online tutorials, I really, really don’t want them to consist of one wordy slideset after another. What are the tools I can use to mix it the presentation a bit? How can I foster interaction with the material when I’m not there in person?

TECH

This category is related to Teaching & Training, since these are the actual tools I want to learn to help me with those goals.

6. Learn a webinar software
7. Learn Pixelmator to create my own clip art

I used to have Photoshop, but no longer! My husband found this program for me instead & it’s time to get to know it. I want to create my own printables that I can share with storytime providers so I don’t have to worry about copyright!

8. Learn how to do the markup to create an ePub document.

Because why not? Maybe it would be cool to provide information about early literacy in this format to our community. I like how it could be more accessible this way, in terms of being able to change the size of the fonts or having the content read aloud by an ereader.

9. Investigate tools for reading, managing, and notetaking with PDFs/online articles/blog posts

I hate bookmarks; I could never convince myself to use Delicious or Google Bookmarks well. And I’m starting to lose track of which great article a particular fact or stat about early literacy was from. HELP!

That’s my start! Come back tomorrow for more list! What’s on YOUR Curiosity List?

Welcome to a super-special Flannel Friday!

I am celebrating this week because one year ago this weekend, on January 21, 2011, I posted the first-ever Flannel Friday on Mel’s Desk.

So today I have FOUR Flannel Friday posts: this celebration, an invitation, a giveaway, AND I’ve got the round up!

A Little Flannel Friday History

I came up with the idea for Flannel Friday as a way to make sure I posted regularly to my blog during a more-than-usually busy patch last winter. (I was co-teaching a class on Early Childhood Library Services at the University of Denver for the Early Childhood Librarian project, in addition to my regular full-time job. Very fun, but BUSY.)

It worked just as I hoped; I reached into my files and put up a new idea every week from January to March. That pretty much got me to the end of the quarter, so I met my personal goal and I was happy.

But then something really cool happened that made me even happier: On March 18, Anne at So Tomorrow and Mary at Miss Mary Liberry decided to post Flannel Fridays on their blogs, too!

All three of us posted the next week as well, and Anne went into overdrive on Twitter talking it up, and on Tuesday, March 29, I posted to PUBYAC with a general invitation for anyone with a storytime blog to join us, and the first Flannel Friday Round Up went live on April 1.

A big shout-out to Katie, Mollie, Nicole, and Sharon, who dove right in and joined Anne, Mary, and me that day.

What a ride it has been!

Flannel Friday Milestones

We started using the hashtag #flannelfriday, not realizing we were sharing the tag with a fashion trend.

From the beginning, Anne has generously donated her time and management skills to maintain our post archive list and the host schedule, as well as some tips for hosting, at her blog So Tomorrow.

At the end of July, we fell in love with Pinterest and set up a Flannel Friday account to index all our ideas there.

I finally created a blog button for us in September, and I can’t tell you how much fun it is to come across it when I’m surfing blogs for ideas.

Mollie started a Facebook page for Flannel Friday at the end of September!

Sharon announced 6 months of round ups on PUBYAC on October 1!

Now here we are in a new year and Flannel Friday is still going strong!

Flannel Friday By The Numbers

Flannel Friday Round Ups: 40, as of last week

Flannel Friday Round Ups with At Least One New Participant: 19

Total Flannel Friday Ideas (I’ve probably missed some): 533

Average Ideas Per Round Up: 12.9

Number of Flannel Friday Hosts: 14

Total Number of People Included in the Round Ups: 41

Highest Number of Ideas in One Round Up: 22
A TIE between 11-4 and 12-2. Thanks Anne and LQ for hosting those days!

Members of the Facebook page: 174, this morning

Followers on Pinterest: 661, this morning

Total Number of Twitter Retweet Support from Flannel Friday Readers: Uncountable!
Thanks to everyone who promotes Flannel Friday on Twitter!

People Who Have Been Inspired By Flannel Friday: UNMEASURABLE!

Who knows how many people you have reached, and helped, and inspired? You are all rock stars.

Thanks for reading my Flannel Friday Celebration!

Don’t forget to check out my invitation, and my giveaway!

I wanted to celebrate a great first year of Flannel Friday with a giveaway!

What to give, though? Well, I always like checking my blog stats, because I can see what people are looking for and I love it when I know they’ve found it on Mel’s Desk.

Week after week, what’s the pattern that brings the most visitors?

The Popcorn Pattern.

Who knew?

So I’ve made three sets.

I’m going to give them away to three people who comment on this post! Anyone is eligible (yes, coworkers can enter, yes international readers can enter, I will ship overseas)!

I will select winners 10pm Monday night MST, so you have all weekend to enter!

A heartfelt, grateful thank you to each and every one of you who participates in Flannel Friday…as a blogger, as a reader, as a retweeter….thank you to everyone who uses a Flannel Friday idea, tells a colleague where to find us online, or comments on posts and on Facebook.

You are an amazing part of an incredible community! Pat yourself on the back. And, if you want, tell us what Flannel Friday means to you!

And leave a comment on this post for a chance to win a Popcorn Flannelboard Set!

I counted chronologically from earliest comment to latest.

Congratulations to Amy (6:11pm), Brie, and Sarah Hay! I will be in touch about mailing info!

Thank you to everyone for reading, making, sharing, thinking, and (probably at least once) daydreaming Flannel Friday. Can’t wait to see what we make in year two.

You have all provided such an incredible amount of interest, enthusiasm, and support to Flannel Friday this past year. I have loved watching it grow and especially loved seeing how everyone has jumped in and shared ownership of it. What a perfect testament to how we share and support each other in library youth services! Flannel Friday is NOT my baby. It has belonged to all of us, readers, lurkers, and bloggers, from the very beginning, and it means something different to each and every one of us.

If you’re reading this, my invitation is for YOU: whether you’re a veteran with 20 Flannel Friday posts on your blog or a newbie who has just come across us this week. I invite you to tell us—-in a blog post, a PUBYAC message, an email to me—-how Flannel Friday is important to you. Did you start a blog because of Flannel Friday? Did it give you a reason to try Twitter or Pinterest? Have you tried something new in storytime due to a Flannel Friday idea? Have you met a new colleague, online or in person?

What are you thankful for? What have you learned? What are you excited about?

There’s a lot more than cute felt mice and googly eyes going on here! Let’s make a record of it!

If you accept this invitation, take your time, there’s no rush. Think about it, get your ideas down, and then let me know where I can find your post or message (you can comment on this post or email me at melsdesk [at] comcast [dot] net), and in a few weeks or a month I will gather them together and share the links for us all to read.

I think it would be amazing to hear what everyone has to say.

WHEW!

What a great day! Thanks to everyone for joining in on our Flannel Friday Anniversary Celebration!

How appropriate that we had another knock-out Round Up! I am in the process of adding in RIGHT NOW (8ish MST) so don’t fret yet if you don’t see your link! All right, 20 contributions later, I think I have it! PLEASE help me out and give me a heads-up if I missed you or someone you know!

Update 1/21: I did miss someone! Sorry, Tara!
Chick Flannel
Tara at Storytime with Miss Tara has an original pattern & rhyme for a magic color-changing chick! You could easily do this with lots of other animals, too!

I Made Myself a Snowball
Alison at Miss Alison is Blogging! has a Shel Silverstein rhyme that will guarantee you the storytime giggles! And is there anything cuter than a snowball in pajamas? No? Well, there you go.

Bad Case of Stripes Folder Story
Andrea at Roving Fiddlehead Kidlit is not quite started on a great idea for turning David Shannon’s Bad Case of Stripes into a folder story, but her paper looks super and I can’t wait to see it when it’s done.

Trains
Anna at Valley Storytime takes a pattern I designed for train cars and makes it her own (and better!) with her super cheerful interpretation. Don’t miss the folksong she links to–what a great find.

Yummy Watermelons
Anne at So Tomorrow gives us all a welcome peek at summertime with her juicy watermelon rhyme!

We’re Going on a Bear Hunt
Cate at Storytiming found a great pattern for this familiar tale on Making Learning Fun. The clean design of these images really makes them shine! (And that BEAR FACE! *swoons*)

Little Red Valentine
K at Storytime ABC’s has a WHOLE BUNCH of ideas for what you can do with your storytime kids and a simple set of colored hearts.

Happy Birthday Flannel Friday!
Kari at My Storytime Life has a guessing game that fits PERFECTLY with our anniversary party, with mouse hiding behind a set of wrapped presents! I love her mixed media approach–her flannels are made out of felt and printed paper.

Mouse Paint (In a Box!)
Katie at Recipe for Reading made a really effective version of Mouse Paint–with bright colored foam pieces–that she tells using a story box prop instead of a flannelboard. Go read about the storytime magic that crept into the room when she used this!

Mittens!
Katie at Storytime Katie shows us her take on the matching mittens game. LOOK at all those great color-and-shape combinations! And pinching clothespins is such a great fine-motor activity for little kids.

Snowflakes
Katie at Storytime Secrets shows us her snowflakes and has a few rhyme ideas–including her own original rhyme!–to use them with. They look like they would flutter very satisfactorily down to the ground! Bonus: She shares the free clip art link she used to find the snowflake patterns. (It’s a new site to me, so thanks Katie!)

The Bird and the Trees
Linda at Notes from the Story Room sets up a prop story on her “Amazon Theatre” (go see what it is!). I so appreciate Linda being such an advocate for folktales and told stories.

Not Just for Storytime!
Lisa at Storytime with the Library Lady made her own flannelboard (it looks really sturdy) and created a set of basic felt shapes for families to use for free play when they visit the library…and it got great use the first day she had it out!

I Had a Little Rooster
Lucy at In the Children’s Room brings a little rootsy Pete Seeger into her storytime! Plus the next tree I make is going to look like her Greenberry Tree.

Happy Anniversary Flannel Friday!
Mary at Miss Mary Liberry takes us back to her very first Flannel Friday post last March! Thanks for all your great ideas this year.

Valentine’s Day
Meghan is at Busy Crafting Mommy and has not one, not two, but THREE different ideas for a Valentine storytime: a matching game, a flannel rhyme, and a prop for a book.

Four Red Dragons
Mollie at What Happens in Storytime gets us ready for Chinese New Year with beautiful curvy dragons and a counting rhyme.

5 Little Penguins
Rachel makes her Flannel Friday debut (yay Rachel!) with adorable penguins inspired by Miss Mary and her own original “5 Little” rhyme.

Mailing Letters
Sarah at Read It Again! has a great idea to use with “A Tisket a Tasket.” Kids don’t see as much mail as they used to so this is a great way to talk about stamps, envelopes, addresses, and all that, too. Check out the surprise she adds under the envelopes!

How Many Feet in the Bed?
Sharon at Rain Makes Applesauce has a story with a unique perspective! Those feet look very tickle-able. This would be a fresh addition to a Bedtime or Nighttime theme.

Who’s Behind the Barn Door?
Tracey at 1234 More Storytimes has a simple but effective farm animal guessing game for the younger kids. I love her idea to add in some zoo animals as a surprise!

No Flannel Friday from me today, but go visit and enter my GIVEAWAY because I want to say THANK YOU to all of you. No worries, I’m taking entries till Monday!