O Christmas Tree

Every year our city's Chamber of Commerce holds a Christmas tree decorating contest among the local businesses. People in the community can vote for their favorite tree by bringing a non-perishable food item to be collected at the business. Here is our library's tree from last year:

We made it entirely out of old reference books, then strung a lighted garland around it. We had a contest for patrons to guess the number of books we used - 235!

This year we created a fireplace, and just put a little tree on top:

Yes there is a stocking for each staff member. :)

Bulletin Board: Hang Out at Your Library

I honestly don't remember where I read the phrase "hang out at ___" with the clothesline idea, but here's a new programming bulletin board I came up with:

It really is a clothesline with clothespins. On each shirt I list the library hours for the day, along with the weekly/monthly things we offer on that day of the week. The last shirt is labeled "Special Events" and is for one-time things, like our teen Halloween party we had this fall. I took small manila envelopes and cut them to make pockets, to put our mini-flyers in for people to take. 

Bulletin Board: Rake in a Good Book

Just in time for fall, here is my most recent bulletin board:

Click here for the original idea.

I crumpled some brown paper to make the tree, and found large construction paper leaves that had been cut by the youth librarian before me. The rake and basket are also construction paper, and the book images were found online and printed in color (I suppose I could have just made color copies, but I wanted them a little smaller than actual size.

Bulletin Board: Star Scientists

In honor of our Summer Reading Program (Fizz, Boom, Read!), I wanted to make my #2 bulletin board something science-y (#1 has info about our summer programs). I wanted it to be interesting and simple to assemble, and something that could stay up all summer long. While searching Pinterest for science-themed bulletin boards, I came across this page from The Teacher Garden. It was perfect!! Mrs. K even had all of her biography sheets available for free download (thank you!!!!). I printed six and matted them on construction paper to put up on my board. I wished I had space to put all 10 scientists up, but I didn't want the board to get too busy.

We have some great display space by our corner fireplace.

Trying to make it personal. :) 

Now I can sit back and not have to do anything with my bulletin boards until fall! Bring on summer reading!

Bulletin Board: Where will reading take you?

Here is a really simple bulletin board I made, good for any time of the year. I saw the idea in a few places on Pinterest (such as here and here). I used butcher paper to make the poles, and printed the place names in Publisher.

Where will reading take you?

Panem

Neverland

The Shire

100 Acre Wood

The Emerald City

Camp Half-Blood

Hogwarts

Narnia

Whoville

Many of the books have been made into movies, and so I could Google search "Hunger Games font" and find a free font to download and use. 

Do you know what book each of these places is from?? :)

Bulletin Board: Summer Reading 2014

Here is the bulletin board I created to advertise our Summer Reading Program events:

The "Summer Reading" heading was taken from a neat website I found called MyFunStudio.com. You can enter any text you want and it will give a PDF or PNG file of the periodic table letters in those words.

The white pages describe each level of summer reading (the adult display is upstairs), with the special events each group will have during the summer.

I used the clipart images from the CSLP cd, printed in color on regular paper, and the two large posters were ordered from CSLP/Upstart.

It's something simple I can keep up all summer long!

Book Display: These are a few of my favorite things

Staff picks is always an easy book display. I typed up a sign that says, "Try some of Carrie's favorites! 'I have a 4-year-old and an almost 2-year-old. These are some of the books they ask to read again and again, and most of the time I don’t mind. :) ' "

I have another dozen or so books written down that I can pull from as these ones go out.

Are any of these your favorites too?

Book Display: When you have no idea what to do...

Sometimes I get stuck in what to display on my hallway shelf. It sits by itself, away from the rest of the books. I've used it before for things like Readbox and Blind Date with a Book, but have been stumped the last few months with what to do with it.

I don't remember where I first saw the idea to display books based on their color, but it came to mind with St. Patrick's Day (and March Madness, with my alma mater making it to the Elite Eight...). I featured the color green for a few weeks, and just recently changed it to yellow -- makes me think of sunshine and spring, which is sure having a rough time arriving in Michigan this year.

Bulletin Board: The Very Hungry Caterpillar

While searching around for a new idea for my "upcoming events" bulletin board, I came across some pins of the very hungry caterpillar. Then I found these awesome images of the caterpillar foods from kidzclub.com (they have tons of other printable book images too), which I printed on cardstock.

The caterpillar circles I made by printing on construction paper. This was a lot more difficult than I expected -- construction paper is 9x12, not 8.5x11, so I had to adjust my Publisher file, adjust the print settings, and adjust the settings on our printer itself. But I wanted the circles to be as big as possible.

The circles each list our library's open hours, plus any on-going programs (like storytime, movie night, and LEGO club). Then I had space to pin up mini-flyers advertising special events.

Bulletin Board: Chica Chica Boom Boom

This is the bulletin board I created at the beginning of the school year, to advertise the ongoing children's events we would be having at the library.

The tree trunk is fabric, and the green leaves are some other fabric-y, crinkle-y, not-really-sure-what-it's-made-of stuff I found from previous bulletin boards.

Our large meeting room is known as our "club room".

Coconuts have the info about our weekly/monthly events, and I printed out some calendars that included our library's open hours and events (for people like me who actually prefer looking at a full calendar!).

Bulletin Board: Winter Olympics

I have loved watching the Olympics since I was a kid. My favorite sports to watch were always gymnastics in the summer and figure skating in the winter. I did an Olympic-themed storytime with my toddler and preschool groups, and was needing something new for one of my bulletin boards.

 

The colorful schedule of events below the dates is a screenshot of this page from the Sochi website (it could very well have changed from what I have by the time you click over to it). I took a piece of posterboard and dangled a pen next to it and asked people to write down their favorite Winter Olympic sport.

The medal count page and the Olympic event art pages came from an amazing, 100+ page packet of activities from the Enchanted Homeschooling Mom. I'm tellin ya, if you have kids, whether they're homeschooled or not, K-6th grade, check out this packet! I wish my own kids were older so we could use it!!

So... what is YOUR favorite Olympic sport to watch?? :)

Display: Blind Date with a Book

My director decided for the month of February to create a "Blind Date with a Book" display upstairs in the adult area. All staff are to pick five books and wrap them up, and write the barcode on the outside. I thought it would be fun to do something similar with the kids books downstairs!

I chose 16 books to start, all from my "J" (chapter books) section, and I tried to choose ones that are part of a series or at least have more available by the same author. This will hopefully get kids interested in a new author they might never have tried before. Some of the ones I chose are Frindle by Andrew Clements, Redwall by Brian Jacques, Magyk by Angie Sage, and Clementine by Sara Pennypacker.

Inside each book is a "Rate Your Date" bookmark for kids to fill out and let me know what they thought of it. As an incentive for kids to participate in this, each time they turn in a bookmark their name will be entered into a drawing for a prize on or around March 1.

There was quite a bit of prep work for this display, in choosing the books, looking and typing up read-alikes, wrapping them, setting their status to "display", creating the header. But I really like making displays, and I think this one will be lots of fun!

"Don't judge a book by its cover!"

"Check out a wrapped book, take it home, and unwrap it. Show it your favorite spots to read. Get to know each other. If you hit it off, introduce it to your friends! There won’t be any awkward feelings if you don’t like your date, but you might find the match of your literary dreams!"

"Fill out the “Rate Your Date” card inside the book, and turn it in by March 1 to be entered to win a prize!"

Lots of ideas for this display were found on Pinterest.


Edited to add: Two days after putting up this display, 14 of my 16 books are already gone... Guess I have to find some more!!! 

Book Display: Readbox

I came across this idea on Pinterest a few times and thought it was cute. This is my little shelf in the hallway that I often don't know what to do with... I found a piece of red cloth that drapes over the top and along the inside of the shelf back, behind the books (you can't see that very well in the picture).

In case you want yours to look just mine :) here's how I did it: I took a full size piece of red posterboard and created the letters for "readbox" in MS Publisher -- the font is Comic Sans, font size 467 (2-3 letters per 11x8.5 landscape page), and changed Format-->Font-->Outline. Printed and cut. The arch overtop I cut freehand. The words on the bottom say "SAVE a dollar, READ the book!"

I chose books from the kid's section that have been made into movies:

• Doctor Dolittle
• Peter Pan & Wendy
• Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
• Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader
• The Wizard of Oz
• How to Train Your Dragon
• Charlotte's Web
• Stuart Little
• Mary Poppins
• Beezus & Ramona
• The Tale of Despereaux
• The Invention of Hugo Cabret
• Inkheart
• Bridge to Terabithia
• Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
• The Secret Garden
• Mr. Popper's Penguins

There are obviously tons more out there, and I'll probably fill it in with others as these get checked out!

Book Display: Caldecott Winners

We have a small bookshelf in the hallway between the elevator/bathrooms and the children's area. From what I hear, no one ever seems to know what to fill it with.

Someday I'm hoping to get around to making recommended reading lists (specific age groups, topics, etc.). In the meantime, this little shelf holds a few Caldecott medal winners, with a sign saying "Need a book idea? Try a medal winner!" and a booklet I printed off of the current 2013 honor books and a list of all past winners.

I need to refill it every couple of days, so I know they're getting checked out. Maybe eventually when I get my reading lists together this display will rotate through those recommended books. I've found if kids can see the covers of books, they're much more likely to take one home!

Display Case: Happy 95th Birthday ANBL!

In May our library celebrated the 95th anniversary of when it was dedicated, so I thought it would be appropriate to display some of the old pictures and items from that era in my glass case downstairs.

Sorry they're not the greatest photos -- it's hard to take pictures down into a display case with a phone! :-P

There are a handful of photos from dedication day, two actual programs from the "Dedicatory Exercises", ribbons given to people in attendance, an original inkwell and stamps, an old library card, and a photo of the first head librarian.

I can't wait for five years from now when the Alvah N. Belding Library turns 100!!!

Display Case: Dig into Reading!

To entice kids (and adults too!) to sign up for our Summer Reading Program, I put together this display in my glass display case for the 4 weeks we ran our signups (this is the view from above):

It's an I Spy sort of thing. In the bottom left corner is a tag that asks "Can you dig and spy these items that can be found beneath the surface?"

It was mostly random stuff I gathered from the bottom of my own kids' toy box, and some other little things I found in my library's storage closet.

The big poster in the middle was purchased through CSLP/Upstart, and I printed out little labels to stick on it that described our four programs (Read to Me, 1st-6th grades, 7th-12th grades, and adult).

Easy and fun, and I think the kids liked it!

Bulletin Boards: Dig into Reading!

I have two large bulletin board areas to work with in the children's section of my library. About a month ago, when we opened registration for our Summer Reading Programs, I created this bulletin board (my first one here!):

I wanted to have something I could leave up all summer long, that could easily announce all of the events we have scheduled for our three groups of kids. The white papers give a brief description of each group and lists dates and times of events.

Nothing too fancy, the blueish background is the actual board, so if I don't want it to show I have to cover it with fabric or paper. This board and the other (which I'll show off another time) are each divided into three sections, all with that blue pattern. The brown fabric was already on the middle section above, so I left it for some contrast.

I used the clipart from the CSLP cd, printed in color on regular paper. The two posters in the middle were ordered from CSLP/Upstart.