Warm Winter Reads

Once there was a librarian who refused to go overboard with the Christmas decorations. But when her supervisor hinted that maybe she should do something festive with the bulletin boards, the librarian decided that she should probably come up with a new idea - and fast!

Thus the Warm Winter Reads display was born:


With less than two weeks remaining until Christmas it seemed kind of silly to do something holiday themed. So I went with a broader winter theme instead, which I could in theory leave up through February if desired. Much in the spirit of the mystery bulletin board I did this fall, I pulled nearly every book (both picture books and chapter books) I could think of that had a story tied up in the winter season and/or that had a cover featuring snow. I made color copies of the covers and mounted them on colored paper. Blue paper snowflakes were cut out and added some visual interest. The tagline at the top reads, "Curl up with a warm winter read." No printed reading list this time since, honestly, I just didn't have time to put one together.

Chicka Chicka Boom Boom

Last week I did a storytime for my preschoolers all about ABCs and 123s. One of the books that we read was Chicka Chicka Boom Boom by Bill Martin, Jr. and John Archambault, illustrated by Lois Ehlert. I used this story as the inspiration for a new bulletin board.

Using construction paper, I constructed a large coconut tree. Letters were also cut out of colored paper. As a craft for storytime, each child was given one or two letters to decorate. A few kids drew shapes, some just scribbled, and one kid just wanted to write his name - each letter was decorated differently. Once storytime finished for the week and all of the letters were decorated, I hung the letters on the bulletin board to create a scene in the spirit of the story.

The bulletin board was completed with a quote from the book and the first names of each child who helped with the letters.

I liked how creating this bulletin board really got the kids involved. It was a good way to tie this book into something happening at the library, as well as a good way to link this lesson in letters with art. This project was a win-win all around!

Mystery Bulletin Board

As a general rule, I do not like cutesy little slogans that tell you how wonderful reading is. I especially don't like seeing them at the public library. Because really, if you're inside the public library chances are that you already understand how much fun reading can be. Why belabor the point?

So when I started planning one of my new bulletin board displays for this fall, I knew that I wanted to highlight something a little more specific that the library had to offer. I decided to focus on a reading list that I had complied over the summer, highlighting various mysteries for school-age readers. My hope is that instead of preaching to the choir about the wonders of reading, perhaps a display like this will highlight an aspect of the library's collection that some kids have not yet explored.

This display was easy to make. The primary focus of the display is images of book covers backed by colorful paper. I also printed a few large mystery-themed images to fill in some space on this large bulletin board. One end of the display features a pocket holding the reading list itself. That way if the images have proven inspirational, kids and parents can help themselves to a copy of the mystery book list.

Hidden Landmarks

When it comes to special summer activities at the library, I come from a long and proud tradition of the, "find-this-picture/object/stuffed-animal-at-your-library" game. The idea is simple: Take an object. Any object will do, but it's more fun if it goes along with the summer's theme. Hide it somewhere in the library - not tucked away somewhere where you can't see it, but someplace where you have to be paying attention to notice it. Invite kids to search for this object. Change the hiding place periodically to keep things interesting (I like once each week, but I once worked at a library that came up with a new hiding spot every day). It's a fun activity especially for kids age 8 and younger who come to the library often - the hunt is one exciting things at the library that's always changing. Best of all, it requires relatively little staff effort.

To go along with this year's theme (One World, Many Stories), I decided to hide pictures of famous world landmarks. Many of the landmarks were easily recognizable even to very young children, like the Eiffel Tower and the Great Wall of China. Others were a little more obscure. I came up with a fun fact about each landmark, posted along with the photo, for extra educational bang.



Each week the kids could check in at one of the large bulletin boards in the children's area to see which landmark was hidden this week. The bulletin board also featured a large map of the world (I printed my large 57"x76" map in sheets from this website, and it worked great). As each landmark was hidden, I would add a dot to the map indicating where in the world it came from.



I don't give the kids any sort of prize other than my sincere congratulations when they find the hidden picture. I did, however, once work at a library that gave away stickers to successful searchers.

Bulletin Board - Non-Fiction

In my library, the children's non-fiction is set up in a pretty interesting way. Instead of rows and aisles of books, our non-fiction collection wraps around the room, covering two whole walls. Above these shelves I have a good amount of bulletin board space to play with. But what should I do with this space?

Remember, I personally believe that library bulletin boards should be both useful and decorative. And what better use of this unique space than to highlight the non-fiction collection below! I decided to think about the questions that we get fairly regularly from kids seeking materials. Where are the dinosaur books? The sports books? What about joke books? I selected 24 different subjects and made simple signs with the appropriate Dewey call number and the subject name.



Next came the fun part. I went through the non-fiction section and selected 2-3 books from each of these subject areas. I made color copies of the covers of each book, shrunk down in many cases to the appropriate size. A ladder and several dozen pins later and voila! A lovely bulletin board that is both attractive and useful to patrons. Now when they ask us where they can find books about animals (or pirates, or fairy tales, or the weather...) we can use these signs to guide them to the materials they need.

Bulletin Boards

One of my responsibilities at my new job is to decorate the children's area. Spruce it up; make it special. One easy way to to that on on the two large bulletin boards in the hall that leads from the children's area to our meeting/programming room.

I have a few opinions about what makes a good bulletin board in the library. It should be fun. It should capture your attention. Color is a must. But I also really think that it should have something to do with the library itself. Somehow these spaces should promote what the library has to offer - a part of the collection, programs, or even reading/literacy as a whole. After all, I didn't get my MLS so that I could work as an interior decorator, so any decorating that I do is going to (generally) accomplish something.

Here's my first board, the larger of the two:


To help get geared up for fall I decided to do something seasonal. I immediately thought of trees and colorful leaves. The tree is pieced together from about 20 pieces of brown construction paper. I pinned the paper up to the board and then used a box cutter to trim the paper to the shape I wanted. Turned out pretty good if I do say so myself! The smaller leaves which fill in the space were left over from a past display and were done on a die-cut machine. For the larger leaves, the acorns, and the squirrels I actually found a box full of large outlined images (aprox. 9"x6") that seemed designed to be copied and used for classroom activities. I made photocopies of the shapes on colored paper, cut them out, and pinned them up.

This season also lends itself to a delightfully cheesy catch phrase: "Fall into a good book." I had hoped to actually print off cover art of several different books to put onto the falling leaves to go with this theme and promote these titles, but unfortunately the library does not have a color printer! Black and white images would not do. Perhaps in the coming days I'll make color copies of actual book jackets shrunk down to the appropriate size to suit this purpose.

Here is my second bulletin board:


This board is definitely more geared for parents, featuring descriptions of the six early literacy skills that experts believe that children need to master before they can become good readers (more on this later). Each sheet describes one skill and tells parents ways that they can help to encourage this skill at home. The building blocks along the bottom are there for visual interest and support the idea that these skills are, "the building blocks of reading." I like to talk about these skills during storytime whenever possible and having this information posted for parents to explore on their own - especially so near the room where storytime takes place - can only help to promote these ideas.

Another bonus - because this board isn't seasonal, I can leave it up as long as I need to!