FREE STUFF

In my autobiography, or the world's worst parenting book ever - whichever my future editor decides will be better on the market, there will definitely be a chapter dedicated to my love and hoarding of free stuff. I LOVE getting free stuff - especially if it is something I would actually spend money on. Baby Gear? Books? Toys? Cool looking pens? Sign me up! I pretty much hit the jackpot this morning when I accidentally ended up at "The Mama Expo" at the NY Hall of Science today and it was COMPLETELY free!!! (Not like when I go to the Biggest Baby Shower or the Book Expo and rack up "free stuff" - I am aware I paid to get in so therefore I am entitled to all these samples!)

As my husband and I pondered what to do with the kids on this beautiful day, our 5 year old came downstairs and asked if we could go to the Science Museum since we haven't been there in a long time. We figured if we really pushed ourselves we could make it there by 10:30 and get free admission and then get pizza for lunch after. (It was 8:46 but we were on a mission and we could do this!) Into the car we stumbled at 10:08 and we thought "yea, we got this!" and pulled into a parking spot at 10:36. I was mentally prepared for that kiddie playroom where we always start our Science journey but instead I was greeted with "Excuse me Miss, would you like a gift bag?" "Why yes I would love one thank you! Are you having a birthday party?" Is what I asked this cute little teenage girl and she looked at me like I was crazy and she said, "No, there is an event here today and we are celebrating moms and you look like a mom". (Cool, did my stroller give that away or the pile of coats in my hand??) And that was when reality hit my husband and he said "Go do your thing just call and find us when it's out of your system - but you keep the baby with you". 

There I was - free pass from stressing out that my kids are getting pink eye from touching drums and bubble wands and off to gather up goodies I definitely don't need but MUST accumulate. The picture above is a summation of my collection. I kept it pretty calm today (I don't want my husband to think he married an insane person), but the free tutu was a definite score and so were the sting rays because we definitely don't have stuffed sting rays. Not shown are all the Happy Baby and Plum Organics pouches I hoarded. (I have 3 kids constantly on the go, pouches are expensive and the best thing to throw in a bag - I should not have to defend myself!) If I am being honest, no, I do not plan to send my kids to any of the day camps I feigned interest in to get an extra bag to hold my stuff or free stress balls but at least I am doing all these kind places a service by posting their slogans here.

The best booth I stopped at (and the reason this ties into my librarian blog) belonged to the Brooklyn Public Library. First I had to make small talk with the librarians because we are basically professional family AND because I NEED to make sure Karen Keys gets my regards! (Side point: Karen was one of the best coworkers and mentors I ever had in the biz - if you are a YA book fan - you want to be her bestie - she has a major in with those Printz nominees so find her branch, ask to chat with her and tell her that I sent you!) I wanted to share with my readers an amazing service BPL provides. It is called BKLYN BookMatch and all you need to do is fill out a form of the books you like (or your kids) and they will email you back a list of personalized reading suggestions based on your form. This is better than any generic "If you liked this, read this" bookmark I've ever made for my children's room because it actually has a reader in mind! You BPL Librarians are amazing and so innovative in the world of children's librarianship and I want people to really utilize this! (And make other libraries do this too!) So to get you started on your new reading journey, here is the link to BookMatch: http://www.bklynlibrary.org/bookmatch 

To sum up what we've learned from today's adventure: Listen to your 5 year old when he makes a great suggestion on how to spend the day. Make sure you get the cooler free pens on the table, even if it means signing up for spam emails and obviously, don't leave until each kid has at least 3 new things to clutter their rooms with! And of course,  most importantly - hit up the BookMatch questionnaire!

Happy Reading!!!

What Have You Been Up To?

(Me and Marc Brown, creator/author of the Arthur series) 

You know what they say, time flies when you are having fun. Time also flies when you have a baby, move and start a new job. It almost makes you forget that you used to do things like write blog posts. Luckily, a snow day arrived giving me a chance to make soup, bake cookies, catch up on some TV AND sit down to write this!

What I love most about this blog is that it is evolves based on where my career has taken me. From Queens Library to the Central Synagogue and now to HANC Plainview, I have gone from the world of programs and major reader’s advisory to mastering the art of preschool readiness and engaging story times to reinventing the library space and curriculum in an elementary school.

When I first started considering the library curriculum and what one teaches elementary school kids I thought to myself “this is the most boring thing ever”. Seriously, Dictionaries? Encyclopedias? Atlases? All I could think about was the embarrassment my kids would have every week when their classes showed up and I had to give over information on how to use these giant books that are pretty much obsolete thanks to Google and Google Maps. So, in true Francie fashion, I have been trying to figure out ways of how to make Library cool again. Thanks to Pinterest (how did ANYONE survive without Pinterest? What did people do? Get creative themselves? Experiment??) I have truly gotten such inspiration and confidently show up to work with ideas (I think?) that are making my students understand how the library is structured and why reading is fun and books are awesome. I guess the next stage of this blog will be sharing some of my classroom ideas and of course I will continue to showcase the books I am adding to the school’s collection.

The first topic we tackled was the standard first lesson of what is in a library and how we treat books. The younger classes got a coloring page with all those rules they couldn’t read but hopefully understood based on the pictures. We then jumped into parts of a book. I was extremely pleased to see that everyone K-3 knew this and felt like they all learned something new when we talked about title pages. Since you are sleeping reading this, the game we played on this topic was surprisingly fun. Thanks to Pinterest, I made a dice and each part of the book was on one of the six sides. There were a bunch of books on the table and each child took a turn rolling the dice and had to choose a book and show us whatever they rolled (ex: author on the dice, read out loud the name of the author on a book on the table). As far as library lessons go, I felt pretty good leaving at the end of the day after this one.

My next major topic (which we are currently doing) is Fiction vs. Non-Fiction. I had a hard time figuring out how to excite 3^rd graders with this but I am pretty confident my “Fishin For Fiction” game will be a total hit (the Kindergarten loved it!) I made laminated fish labeled Fiction and Non-Fiction and put them in a fishbowl. With leveled appropriate books on the table (mix of fic and non-fic), children took turns “fishing” and whatever they fished they had to pick up a book from the table that matched. (Ex: fished a “Fiction” fish, pointed to an Elephant and Piggie book.) I love putting books in front of the kids because I believe it helps guide them when choosing books to take home. In the past, children took whatever they wanted, even if they couldn’t understand what they reading BUT could read the words (EX: a book about Matter for a Kindergartner who read the title correctly) and I am trying to change this to get the right books in the hands of the right readers.

We’ve been incorporating call numbers in the Fiction-Non-Fiction lesson to gear up for some Dewey Decimal instruction. Gear up from some relays and scavenger hunts in our little library! I hope you continue to read my posts and hear about my journey as a school librarian and that this gives you some ideas on how to spice up some of the less glamorous (but equally important) life skills you learn from the Library!