Storybird

Last week at Staff Day I had a chance to introduce a few staff to Storybird, but I love it so much I wanted everyone to know about it!

Storybird is a storytelling Web 2.0 experience accessible to the youngest kids. On Storybird, you can create your own stories using tons of great pictures from amazing artists. You just click and drag images onto your storyboard, and type in your text. You can make them as long or as short as you like, and if you want, you can post them to the site for everyone to see. You can read other people's Storybirds too!

You can make a story without logging in, but if you create an account you can do the coolest thing: send an email invitation to someone else you know, who can then add their own parts to your story! The Storybirds are saved online at the site.

I created a story with my 5 year old nephew in Chicago. I started a story, then emailed the invite to my sister. She got it opened up, showed my nephew how to click and drag and start a new page, and typed in what he dictated. They did a few pages--he did all the clicking and adding--and sent it back to me! We each took a few turns and had a great time.

I think it's an awesome experience, totally age-appropriate to older preschoolers and up. It's very fun, satisfying, and builds language skills like crazy!

It will always be free to make and save a Storybird, but premium, paid features are on the way, including printing your completed stories.

Amie's Storytime Links!

Amie Richter shared the following links at the last Storytime Practicum, and agreed to let me post them here so everyone has access! Thanks Amie for gathering these resources and sharing them with us.

Storytime Theme Ideas

Perry Public Library Storytime Themes
The Association of Children's Librarians of Northern California Storytime Ideas
Pre-K Fun
Susan M. Dailey's Favorite Sites
Wilma Flanagan's It's Storytime
StoryPlace Pre-school Library

Printables and Activities

Making Learning Fun
Harper Collins Children's I Can Read
VRAC Coloriages (character coloring pages)
DLTK's Crafts for Kids Coloring Pages
Kiwi Magazine KiwiKids

Holidays, Songs, Book Sites

Holiday Insights Holidays
Kididdles Songs
Guys Read Good boy books
AR Bookfinder Accelerated Reader List

CLEL News

I apologize for having a slow month for YSIG posts! I have been very busy with projects for Colorado Libraries for Early Literacy, but will get back up to speed in a few days.

Some of those projects:

CLEL has a fresh look for our website! We are trying to gather as many resources for early literacy programs and services as we can. Please visit & tell me what is missing, so we can add what you need!

We've also added a blog. I know, I know: another blog. We're hoping to point towards national early literacy news and reports along with spotlighting early literacy programs and services in Colorado libraries. As we get going there will also be best practices and tips, book reviews, and other bits and pieces.

We've created a Facebook page and started Twittering.

Hope to see you around! :)

New Songs for Storytime!

My friend and colleague on Colorado Libraries for Early Literacy, Mary Kuehner, tipped me off to a Seattle-area musician, Nancy Stewart. Nancy specializes in music for children and posts a free song on her website every month! There are some seriously cute songs (Dinosaurs in Cars, anyone?) as well as some ASL & Spanish songs , movement and games songs...check out all the songs by category! She even has a category she calls "Read N Sing" songs, designed to build early literacy by using printed sheets along with the singing. You can listen to each song online, burn the Free Songs of the Month onto a CD for storytime, get great ideas for new flannels to go with, and lots more.

PS. You should also go check out Mary's fun storytime blog, where she reviews picture books, talks about her storytime techniques, and usually has a great story about something one of her kids has said in storytime. She's an outreach librarian for Jefferson County PL, and probably does more storytimes in a month than I do all year! Well, it seems that way, anyway!

Read Kiddo Read

You may have heard of Jon Scieszka's initiative Guys Read (if not go to the site and see how he is trying to help motivate boys to read and provide book ideas and role models to guys of all ages) but did you know James Patterson has a reading website too?

It's called Read Kiddo Read ("dedicated to making kids readers for life")and he's got interviews, forums, a blog, and lists, lists, lists. Including a "trasitional readers" list for those in-between readers 6 & up!

I found out about this from a full-page ad in Entertainment Weekly with the banner headline, "OMG! My son is reading!"

Database of Award Winning Children's Literature

I just taught my new-and-improved version of Beyond the Newbery, which is a class for staff on all the children's and teen youth literature awards. Next one is in December! Anyway, I was reminded (after the class, of course) about the great online resource The Database of Award Winning Children's Books and thought I'd remind you guys as well.

This site has a searchable database of over 70 award lists. You can look for award winners by setting, historical period, suggested age of the reader, race/ethnicity, all sorts of things. When you get a teacher who wants to read a good book to their class, you can point them here and see what comes up.

CHILES! Ole!

Here's a super site if you are working with Hispanic/Latino kids or Spanish books: Children & Libraries en Espanol! CHILES!

If you are a children's librarian looking for help in better serving your Spanish-speaking patrons, but you don't speak Spanish yourself, have no fear! This site will provide resources to help you communicate, learn more about latino and hispanic cultures, find great children's books in Spanish, and network with other librarians who serve Spanish-speaking children, so that we can all benefit from each other's great ideas!

Family Fun

Disney puts out a magazine called FamilyFun that's full of neat ideas for parents, but I use it all the time to plan programs here at the library, and have used their printables for crafts or storytime components.

Here's an example of the type of stuff they pull together: check out their Fourth of July activities!

Audiophiles, Meet Audiofile

Summer means lots of road trips and often we get more questions at the desk about recommendations for audiobooks that everyone can listen to. It's a great idea to have a couple of titles you can mention off the top of your head.

Audiofile, the audiobook magazine, has a website you can use as a resource. Their Family Listening page has author interviews, featured narrators, and 3 recommended lists: for young adults, for 8-12 year olds, and for 4-8 year olds.

There's also a link on that page to their Audiobooks on the Go Summer Listening for Kids & Families 2009 list. It's separated into four sections (Other Times & Places, Classics, Fantasy Worlds, and Family & Community) and has recommended listening levels for each book. Most of the titles are for grades 4 and up, but there are some in each category for K-3.

Don't forget about Tales' Treehouse! To search for audiobooks, type in "Listen to This" in Mr. Crow's search box. Many books listed in the Treehouse have "get the CD" links, but the audiobooks that are specifically recommended are tagged "Listen to This."

Blogroll Update

I've been making friends with my Google Reader again after 3 months of being too busy with the After School program at May to read much of anything!

I've added a few blogs to the YSIG blogroll:

ALSC Blog--from the ALA's Association of Library Services to Children

The mission of the ALSC Blog is to provide a venue for coverage of time sensitive news in children’s librarianship, current issues in the field, and programs, conferences, initiatives, resources, and activities of interest to ALSC members and those interested in children’s librarianship.

Cynsations

This is the blog of author Cynthia Leitich Smith. She is insanely well informed and her blog is very active with lots of great information:

A source for interviews, reading recommendations, publishing information, literacy advocacy, writer resources, news in children's and teen literature.

Kidlitosphere News

I've mentioned the Kidlitosphere website before--this is their news roundup.

This page features news in the area of children's literature, events from around the blogging community, and announcements about KidLitosphere happenings. Primarily focused on literary news, special events, useful articles, and interesting posts from other blogs, it does not include reviews, interviews, or opinions.

I also put a link to the Summer Showdown blog under ALD. Find out what our shortlists are for the summer!

Guys Read Display

As we gear up for summer reading, here's a cool display idea from the Downers Grove Public Library in the Chicago suburbs.

They are using stickers downloaded from GuysRead.com, Jon Scieszka's initiative to help keep boys motivated to read. If you haven't been by, check out the site--it has lots of great book recommendations for boys.

I know ALD has been standardizing the use of permanent spine stickers and cutting down on the usage of special collections, but wouldn't it be cool to do something like this temporarily?

At Koelbel there is a special display for Adult Summer Reading, on our New Fiction shelves. It's kind of like a staff picks, in that the books aren't necessarily new, just good reads. But instead of having a Staff Picks bookmark in them or sticky note on their covers, they all have a special sticker on their spines to keep them together, just for the summer.

I'd love to declare a "Guys Read" month at ALD...we could have Father and Son book programs, choose male authors for our regular book clubs, have male writers come and talk, and have special temporary sections in every branch full of books with the Guys Read stickers on their spines.

Sweet!

Reading Levels Rescue

Frequently a parent will approach us and say, "My son is reading at level C, where are the books for him?" Or it's, "Level 10" or "Lexile 400." How do we have any clue where to start?

The first thing is to know that there's no national standard for leveling books. Different publishers and different curricula use different assessment tools, so patrons will come in using a variety of different terms and codes, depending on their school situation. I did however, find this chart, which offers a comparison from system to system and may help you start to get your bearings.

The next thing to know is that we use a completely different kind of assessment on our Easy Readers to select whether they get a green, red, or yellow dot than publishers and educators use on their books and their students, so it's really pretty fruitless for us to try to graph Green, Red, and Yellow onto the chart I just gave you!

If anyone asks, though, you can say that the Easy Reader section as a whole ranges from material that's appropriate for preschoolers through 2nd or 3rd graders, and that the color dots offer a rough guide as to beginning, practicing, and more fluent readers. The Junior Fiction section overall ranges from books written at a 2nd grade reading level through about a 6th grade reading level. Often the most practical thing to do with a parent is to walk with them to the Easy Reader section and try to find together books that look similar to what the student is reading at school.

One site that may offer you some more help is the Scholastic Bookwizard. Lori Romero mentions it in her article, "Making Sense of Beginning Reading Lingo."

On the Bookwizard, you can search for books in a few different ways. A Quick Search lets you enter a title and find out a suggested reading level for it. The BookAlike Search asks you to enter a title, then choose whether you'd like more books like that book that are easier, harder, or just the same reading level.

Finally, the Leveled Search is a more advanced search that lets you put in separate information for reading level and interest level, as well as type of book, genre, or topic. So you can look for books for that 2nd grader reading at a 6th grade level by entering 6th grade for reading level and 2nd grade for interest level.

What is potentially very helpful for parents is that you can select one of four reading level systems to frame your search in: Grade Level Equivalent (a decimal such as 2.4 or 5.1--publishers sometimes give this as a reading level on the back covers of paperbacks--2.4 means 2nd grade, 4th month), Lexile (often given as a range of 3 digit numbers, like 400-500), DRA (even numbers 2-80), or Guided Reading (a letter of the alphabet).

Two other tools you might be able to use are:
Accelerated Reader BookFinder (AR uses both a reading level and an interest level)
The Lexile Framework Book Search

Science Fair Frenzy

Are we all back from vacation and our holidays? Rested?

Ready for the Science Fair Season?

Many schools have their Science Fairs in the winter or spring, and children and their families come in to the library with a variety of information needs.

• Choosing the right type of project.
  Lots of kids have no idea what they'd like to work on. A great place to start is to ask if their teacher is asking them to do a project, an experiment, or an invention. What's the difference?
  
  A project is a demonstration of a concept: the classic exploding volcano, for instance, or how seeds grow.
  
  An experiment starts with a question, then uses the scientific method to investigate the answer. Instead of just using charts and photos to show how a bean seed grows (project), an experiment might ask: "Which brand of fertilizer helps bean seeds grow fastest?"
  
  An invention, on the other hand, designs a solution to a particular problem. There are some sample invention ideas here, at Science Fair Central.



• Developing ideas.
  With the type of project in mind, then you can help them figure out what idea they'd like to develop for the Science Fair. They may know exactly what their topic is and what their project will be; they may know their topic but not have a research question yet; they may have no clue about anything.
  
  Spend a few minutes now in your science section, at 507.8! There are lots of resources there! Look for books that run you through the whole process--types of projects, choosing ideas, presenting results--and books that just provide lots of experiments and projects to reproduce. Don't forget to browse your whole 500 section, as experiment books are also listed by discipline: 520.78 for astronomy, and 550.78 for earth science, for example. The more you are familiar with that section now, the easier it will be when you catch that question later, on the floor.
  
  After you've looked at the shelves, take a look at the Science Fair Projects page on Tales' Treehouse. There are great experiment idea sites here, plus general sites as well.



• Background research.
  Kids often will need to add additional information about their topic to their presentations or reports. Ask if they need to get their information from a book, or if we can use encyclopedias or databases.
  
  Don't forget to check science encyclopedias or even the World Book for articles. Look through the kids databases, and if you can't find anything in kids, try the Science Reference Center database on the adult site.

What tips or resources help you out with Science Fair questions?

Colorado Libraries

Another good blog to keep an eye on--no matter what Interest Group you're in!--is the Colorado Libraries blog from the Colorado State Library and CLiC.

As you might expect, the blog covers a lot of ground, from academic libraries to public libraries, from the Front Range to the Western Slope. If you read it all, you'll get a good idea of what's going on and what people are talking about all over the state. You can subscribe via RSS or have new posts sent to your email.

Or you can just choose a category, such as Children's Services, and just get those updates sent to your reader.

(Don't use a reader? Check out Andrew's recent post on the Professional Development blog about tips for using Google Reader. Don't know what RSS or a reader is? I'm happy to help you set up your own reader.)

Places to Go, Things to Do

This time of year, families often start looking for special things to do with their kids, either to celebrate the holidays or to enjoy time together while school's out. In addition to pointing them to our online calendar and the Dewey, and reminding them that storytimes are on hiatus Thanksgiving week and at the end of December, here's a couple other resources we can use to help them find out what's going on.

Kids Pages has a nice list of holiday events. It says "for November" at the top, but many of the listings include December dates.

Colorado Parent has a December calendar, as well.

Families (and you, too) can also use YourHub.com to find out about local happenings. Go to YourHub.com, and select your state, community (Denver Metro), and Neighborhood (Aurora, Centennial, Littleton, Glendale, Sheridan, etc.); click "Go to Your Hub." From there, you can click on Events on the left menu.

You'll get a weekly calendar with all events, but you can limit in a number of ways, including by "Children." Also, once they get this far, families can sign up to get an RSS feed of local events.

What other resources do you use to help families find things to do?

Tweet Tweet

I decided it was time for me to explore Twitter, the free "microblog" application. If you're not familiar with it already, it's kind of like a blog and kind of like IM. You post quick updates on what you're doing. "Quick" is the operative word here: you're limited to 140 characters. Some people post a couple times a week. Other people post multiple times an hour.

School Library Journal and Wired have a couple of articles to look at if you're interested.

I wanted to try it out to see how we might use it with kids (who probably aren't Twitter-ers yet) and their families (who could be). I'll let you know in a few weeks what occurs to me!

Right now, I'm using Twitter to record what I'm reading. I've just posted a few times, but already I can see that the short-short form will be a real help in focussing my thoughts on what I've read.

I've also been trying to Google around and find other Colorado children's librarians on Twitter, but I haven't had much luck yet.

Are YOU on Twitter? Let us know what you think about it, and if you have any children's library ideas.

PS. You can follow me at MelissaZD

PUBYAC

Last week I took a call via the hunt group from a patron who was trying to remember the name of a humorous chapter book about a knight that she and her daughter had read a few years ago. She remembered a lot about the book, but mostly information about the cover picture and about the author (though not his name!); what she did remember about the book was not enough to narrow down a keyword search. Plus, she uses the Aurora and Arapahoe libraries in addition to Prospector, so there was no way to restrict the search that way.

Rather than tell her I didn't know the book and couldn't find it, I posted a stumper request to PUBYAC, and within 24 hours had two librarians email the title to me. (It was Swords for Hire by Will Allen. We own it. Never heard of it.)

PUBYAC is a listserv (an email mailing list) for public libraries serving young adults and children. People send an email to the listserv address, and it is automatically forwarded to everyone on the list. It is an extremely active and vital community, with numerous discussions weekly about all aspects of youth services, with tons of program ideas and storytime resources. One way to use PUBYAC is as I did, by posting a question about a mystery book to the "collective brain." (If you do want to try PUBYAC as a stumper resource, please read and follow the stumper etiquette posted on the PUBYAC site.) Another way might be to ask for input about a situation your library is experiencing, or to report on a succesful new program you tried.

I strongly encourage you to sign up and follow the discussions for a couple of months to get a taste of what goes on in youth services outside our district! It is a very active list, so you would get lots of emails, but I can help you set up an email filter, or you can opt to get the messages in daily "digest" instead.

New Early Literacy Resource!

Lori Romero, Richard Lyda, and I all recently had a chance to work on a new resource website for Colorado librarians. We're part of a state-wide organization called Colorado Libraries for Early Literacy, and the website is one of our first projects. We're trying to bring together as much material as we can for librarians who are working with literacy-based programs.

Will you take a look at it and let us know what you would love to be able to find here? What resources do you wish for as you plan your literacy-based storytimes? It's very much a work in progress and we could use your input!

Colorado Libraries for Early Literacy

Facts on Fiction

Tool time!

I just came across this site earlier this year as I was working with a patron. It was a mom who wanted to know if there was a site for books that told parents what the content was (like Kids In Mind) does for movies).

Ta-dah! Facts on Fiction! What I appreciate about the site is that it is not "rating" the books as good or bad (which some of these sites do) but just providing the information and letting the parents make the call.

Another nice non-judgemental site is Common Sense Media, which provides parents with information about movies and TV, but also books, games, music, and web sites.

Anybody have another resource like this that you like to use?

To Prize or Not to Prize?

Do you guys know about CYS-Lib? It's an email listserv for people working with children in Colorado public libraries.

There's been a great conversation on it recently about whether or not libraries should hand out prizes (and if so, what kind, and how much should we spend) for kids who participate in summer reading programs.

This is a perennial discussion topic! There are those of us who feel that if we hand out prizes for reading then we aren't encouraging the right attitude--that reading should be its own reward.

But there are those of us who feel that while kids who are already readers will read regardless, kids who aren't "natural readers" or who struggle with reading really do respond to the challenge and reward of prizes for achievement.

There are others of us in the middle ground--okay with prizes, but looking to place them in a context that includes our "whole package" of programs, books, information, hangout spots, etc. and also looks to include other types of rewards. Some libraries make donations to charities for every hour or book kids read past their required reading, for instance.

What do you think about all this? Leave us a comment! Your Summer Reading Program Committee is listening!

If you'd like to sign up to receive the CYS-Lib emails, send an email to: majordomo@aclin.org. Leave your subject line blank and in the message body, write the two-line message:
subscribe cys-lib
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If you'd like to see what some of the discussion has been, let me know and I'll round them up to share.