• Activities

    Storytime Theme: Purple

    This was the first storytime of the fall session and I had far, far too much planned.  Because it was the first one, I had to explain a lot of who I was, how storytime works, and our storytime rules.  This took up so much time that we didn’t even…

  • Lifestyle

    PaLA Annual Conference

    From Sunday to Wednesday, I get the chance to hang out at the Pennsylvania Library Association’s Annual Conference – networking with librarians across the state, learn about programs, resources and getting re-energized about being a librarian. Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely LOVE being a children’s librarian, but its amazing…

  • Lifestyle

    Youth Services or What I Do at Work

    I came across this blog post today and wholeheartedly agree with JustintheLibrarian.  He explains that children’s librarians need to simplify how they create programs and I believe that in doing so, we actually provide even stronger programs.  We’re less stressed, we have the supplies and the resources, and our community…

  • Activities

    Enchanted Library or So It Begins…

    This year marks our sixth year transforming our library into a magical place for families to visit. Each November we close the library early on a Friday night and transform it with twinkle lights and backgrounds and props into a tour filled with characters from children’s books. Each year’s theme…

  • Activities

    Preschool Dance Party

    I only ended up with six kids for this afternoon’s program (19 were registered), but we had a great time!  The kids were super energetic, ready to dance and didn’t stop for over 30 minutes.  We took one reading break and with only six kids we spent a lot of time…

  • Activities

    Toddler Dance Party

    We had a lot of fun at our toddler dance party this morning.  It’s so interesting to see what kids do – some come in ready to dance, others take a while to warm up, but end up dancing in the end.  Our program lasted about 45 minutes with some…

  • Activities

    Fun Friday – Yoga

    The kids were all a little wired for our Fun Friday program.  We ended up with 21 kids for 45 minutes in grades 1 – 4.  It’s only the second week of school, the weather was awesome, and it was Friday, so naturally the kids were bouncing off the walls. …

  • Lifestyle

    Kids & Listening

    I came across this article, Six Ways You’re Unintentionally Telling Kids Not to Listen, from a blog I follow and I think its a great reminder at the beginning of the school year to better teach children in general, but more specifically how to listen which is an essential tool…

  • Lifestyle

    #SaturdayLibrarian

    Let me just say, if you’re a librarian and you’ve ever worked a Saturday, you need to check out #SaturdayLibrarian on Twitter.  Librarians working on Saturdays come together to commiserate, share, and boost each other up as they spend another day hard at work at the library.  I don’t work…

  • Activities

    Summer Theatre

    We had an amazing group of 8th graders that graduated out of our Junior Friends program this spring and offered to direct, produce, and run practices for a summer play.  I love empowering tweens and teens that have the initiative to create new programs for kids.  We’ve had a Chinese New…