Book Cart Queens

Baby Play: Squiqz

After each of my baby storytimes, I include a Discovery Time free-play session that encourages parents to talk to one another and to interact with their children. I include a variety of fine motor, gross motor, and sensory activities that appeal to 0-2-year-olds.

In most of my baby play posts, I talk about items that are easy and relatively cheap to replicate, often with items found around the house or at Dollar Tree. I love using play items like cereal boxes and straws and taped toys because they provide parents with ideas that they can easily recreate on their own and remind everyone that baby toys don’t have to be super expensive.

However, if a library has the budget, it can also be nice to provide some items that cost money too. For more affluent parents, you are providing them an opportunity to test out some baby items before making the decision to purchase something. For those families with less funds, you are giving their little ones an opportunity to interact with a type of toy they may not be able to experience at home.

One of my coworkers came across Squiqz when visiting family. These “fun little suckers” (the actual slogan) are essentially flexible, brightly colored building tools with suction cups. A standard collection comes with eight different designs, most of which involve at least two suction cups. They stick to each other and most surfaces, including windows, mirrors, and cookie sheets, never leaving a residue behind.

These tools are a fascinating texture for little hands (and mouths). Made of BPA-free, latex-free silicone, they easily survive the chewing that always takes place during baby play time. The smallest babies just love exploring their shapes with their hands and mouths. Slightly older babies (8-18 months) are developing the fine motor skills to be able to stick these individually to a flat surface and to pull them off afterwards (often more challenging). Older toddlers can start to build structures by sticking them together, as their finger muscles get stronger.

Recommended Purchases

Fat Brain Toys Original Squigz Deluxe 50 Piece Set – Suction Construction Bath Toys for Ages 3 to 8

Price: $50 for 50 piece set (more price and size options available)

Available At: Amazon, Target, Walmart

Items to Extend Play:

Cookie Sheets (Dollar Tree)
Baby-Safe Mirrors

Possible Future Purchases:

Glow in the Dark Squigz (STEM light play)
Jumbo Set with Expansion Pieces

Conversation Starters

Start conversations as babies play with this tool by asking questions like:

What does it feel like?
What color is the Squig?
Can you make it stick to the window?
How many do you have?
What can you do to get the Squigz off the cookie sheet?
What happens if the Squigz get wet?

Stretch Vocabulary

When talking with little ones, use big words and small words. The more new words a child hears, the larger their vocabulary will be when they start to learn to read.

Consider using some of the following vocabulary words when using this activity:

Adhere
Bendy
Build
Flexible
Glue

Peel
Press
Pressure
Pull
Stick

Stretch
Suckers
Suction
Unsteady
Wobbly

It’s Monday! What Are You Reading?

We are joining the blog trend of Monday posts about what we have read during the last week (11/11/19-11/17/19).

Annamarie’s Reading

Annamarie’s top titles include:

Ironheart, Vol. 1: Those With Courage by Eve L. Ewing
The Last Kids on Earth and the Midnight Blade by Max Brallier
The Magic Mirror by Anna Staniszewski
Magnificent Ms. Marvel, Vol. 1: Destined by Saladin Ahmed
Now Museum, Now You Don’t by Andrés Miedoso
Runaways, Vol. 4: But You Can’t Hide by Rainbow Rowell

Note: Annamarie serves as chair of the ALSC Notable Children’s Recordings Committee. Due to her position, she listens to and evaluates many audiobooks for children and teens. Annamarie never includes any of the audiobooks she listens to in her “What Are You Reading?” posts.

Michala’s Reading

Michala’s top titles include:

Once Upon a Goat by Dan Richards illustrated by Eric Barclay
First Day of Groot! by Brendan Deneen illustrated by Cale Atkinson
Ho’onani: Hula Warrior by Heather Gale illustrated by Mika Song
A Time Traveler’s Theory of Relativity by Nicole Valentine
Instructions Not Included: How a Team of Women Coded the Future by Tami Lewis Brown and Debbie Loren Dunn illustrated by Chelsea Beck
10 Blind Dates by Ashley Elston
Be More RBG: Speak Truth and Dissent with Supreme Style by Marilyn Easton
Suggested Reading by Dave Connis

Note: LeVar Burton is indeed proud. I am maintaining a reading streak! On a personal note, I have just secured a new apartment and will begin the crazy fun of moving during the holiday season!

Winnie the Pooh Party

I love hosting popular character parties, and in January 2019 I was able to celebrate one of my favorite characters of all time–Winnie the Pooh.

I planned to begin the program by reading a Winnie the Pooh book, but as I looked through the titles we owned, none were really great for a read aloud for preschoolers. After bouncing like Tiggers and talking about Winnie the Pooh, I sent attendees to complete activities.

We regrouped about 20 minutes into the program to play Winnie the Pooh BINGO.

Activity stations included:

Craft: Pooh and Friends Headbands
Game: Pin the Tail on Eeyore
Scavenger Hunt: Count the Bees
Obstacle Course: Catch the Heffalump

Pooh BINGO

About 20 minutes into the program, we all played Winnie the Pooh BINGO. We play a few rounds until everyone wins.

Since most of our audience was younger (ages 2-4), these boards only require four in a row to earn a BINGO. BINGO boards can be downloaded above.

BINGO winners received a Winnie the Pooh Activity book, downloadable below. These were printed on 8.5″ x 11″ paper to create a foldable booklet.

Honey Pot Bags

At many of my party programs, kids create or earn a variety of small trinkets. I learned early on that this turns into parents having a variety of items to carry around and kids leaving items they made all over the place (possibly resulting in tears or arguments later). To help with this, I provide a bag for each child.

These bags, while adorable, were way too much work to make. The dripping honey was cut by hand out of yellow cardstock, and the letters were printed on yellow vinyl by our Cricut. The other side of the bag included a white label with space for kids (or parents) to write their name.

Pooh & Friends Headbands

Kids could make a headband to wear based on their preferred character–Pooh, Piglet, or Tigger. Attendees practiced scissor skills and built finger muscles cutting out ears, and parents and teen volunteers assisted with stapling headbands together.

Pin the Tail on Eeyore

Just like it sounds–kids played Pin the Tail on Eeyore. Eeyore and tails were printed on our library banner printer by our marketing department. After winning, they received a Winnie the Pooh sticker (bought off Amazon).

Count the Bees Scavenger Hunt

Thirty-two bumblebees were hidden around our meeting rooms. Kids went on a hunt to find as many bees as they could. If they counted a number 25 or higher, they received a Winnie the Pooh bookmark.

Download scavenger hunt sheet below:

Download prize bookmarks below:

Catch the Heffalump Obstacle Course

Participants could complete an age-appropriate “Catch the Heffalump” obstacle course. Kids crossed Pooh Stick’s bridge, crawled into Rabbit’s House (tunnel), dug through Eeyore’s Gloomy Place to find his tail, bounced with Tigger, and completed exercises with Pooh.

Pooh Books & Materials

As always at programs, I included a variety of appropriate library materials. Kids and parents sat and read Winnie the Pooh books. During the event (except during BINGO), the Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh played on the large screen. Many families took Pooh materials home.

Teen Passive: Coloring

Kids have always been afforded coloring sheets, and then adults realized that “hey this is really relaxing” and the adult coloring book craze began…but somehow teens were, for the most part, left out in the coloring cold. When I inherited my teen department it actually came with a a few coloring books for use in house, but they were not really utilized by our teens.

Our current selection of coloring books in the Teen Room

I could tell there was a want, as many times the books would be looked at, but I think they were tired of the books we had and wanted things that were less intricate to color in. So came my quest for some new fun coloring books!

I started trolling Amazon looking for simple pictures, pop culture references, and random odd things. (This can sometimes be harder than it sounds as when the pictures get simplified they can begin to look very juvenile.) However, once you fall down the rabbit hole you can find an amazing plethora of coloring books such as:

Every other week I do wind up going through the coloring books looking for any inappropriate additions to the books, or as I call “my sweep for Ds and Fs”. Any swear words, social media handles, or genitalia drawn in gets pulled from the books. I also will pull any overly scribbled on pages because when there is a lot of scibblage no one will continue to color on that page. I don’t pull all additions from the book though and sometimes you wind up with some greatness.

Occasionally, I will also have a large coloring sheet printed out and I will tape it to a coffee table that I have in the teen room for some “allowed vandalism”. It stays on the table until it is either colored in, has lost the battle to swear words, penises, and “follow me @s”, or my favorite death, having every square inch covered in Old Town Road lyrics and a rainbow of a million “YEETS”. (Does that make it Yeeted to death? Yoted?)

And sometimes you wind up with some gorgeous, collaborative art.

Baby Play: Pool Noodle Abacus

The pool noodle abacus helps the littlest children practice fine motor skills and older toddlers and preschool practice basic math. While a true abacus requires more than two strings, this creates a similar effect for young learners, while also providing a cool activity to experiment with how the pool noodle pieces move back and forth and how much pressure the yarn can withstand.

I tied the string between two chairs, though I would suggest something more sturdy if you have that available. Many children moved the chairs or manged to remove one end of the string (the top piece was taped on instead of tied on). Also consider whether you want the string closer to a wall or further away–having the lower string further from the wall encouraged climbing between the strings. This can be a great way to practice gross motor skills, or it can also be seen as a tripping hazard.

How to Make

Materials: yarn, pool noodles, knife, scissors

Steps:

Use the knife to cut 1-2 pool noodles into roughly 1-3″ pieces.
Tie one end of a piece of thick yarn to a sturdy surface, like a chair.
String about 20 pool noodle pieces onto the string (or whatever amount fits in the space you have).
Cut the other end of the string, leaving at least 1-2 feet of empty string so pieces can be moved easily.
Securely tie the other end of the string to another sturdy surface.
Repeat for however many rows of strings you would like to create.

Cost: $0-5

2 Pool Noodles (Dollar Tree)
Yarn

Time to Make: 10 minutes

Pro-Tip: To expand this activity, try cutting a vertical slit in one side of a pool noodle piece so the pool noodle piece can also be removed from the string. Little ones can explore how to add or remove pool noodle pieces from the abacus.