Oklahoma Public Librarian

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Slime Party

What is Slime Party?

Get ready for a day filled with fun, creativity, and learning as kids dive into the magical world of slime. Kids will get to explore different ways to make slime and create their own to take home. 

I came across this idea when browsing the Ontarian Librarian's blog. She outlined her program well and I took a lot of inspiration from her post. 

What I did to prepare

I purchased a lot of supplies. This event cost almost $100. You might be fortunate to already have most of the supplies but we didn't have a good stockpile on hand. This is a very messy program and we already had tarps that I used to cover the floor and table coverings. This was great for clean up so we didn't have to mop or clean the tables. The supplies I bought were cups, detergent, foam balls, a gallon of clear glue, instant snow, lotion, and soft clay. I bought items that were good for sensitive skin to make the event more inclusive. I also used stickers, sequins, aluminum trays, forks, measuring spoons, play dough toys, glitter, essential oils, hand wipes, food coloring, and shaving cream from our own stash. After I got all my supplies, I experimented with how each item affected the base slime recipe. I would highly recommend doing this yourself because my job at the event was to help troubleshoot slime issues. There's no way I would have been any help if I didn't experiment beforehand.

Set up

I set up the room into 4 areas. The first was the slime base table that had all the ingredients to make a regular old slime. We set out cups with lids that were pre-filled with glue, two pitchers of water, two cups of detergent, instructions, forks, and measuring spoons. We used two tables pushed together but I would recommend this to be your biggest area. Most of the guests' time was spent here but since we didn't have enough room they spilled over onto other tables which wasn't helpful when others wanted to use that table for what it was made to do. If you have the space, add a few empty tables with coverings around the room for people to work at. 

The second area was for playing with your slime. This table had trays, playdough supplies, and cookie cutters. This is your testing zone. Is the slime as stretchy as they wanted? Is the slime fun to play with? Does it smell good? All these questions and more were meant to be answered here. However, as I said before, this was turned into an expansion of the slime base table. It still worked really well and I did see quite a few kids having fun.

This next area was where the magic happened. I requested another staff member to help with this program and this is where I put him. This is the add-ins table where we had all the cool stuff. We limited each slime creation to 3 add-ins, this didn't include color and smell. You can also see that I had a cart with extra supplies. I ended up going back to this cart about 50 times for glue, extra cups, and the like.

The final table was to decorate the outside of the slime containers. I included stickers and washi tape that we had to spare. I didn't buy anything new for this table and the kids still loved it. 

Takeaway

This was a fun event! We had about 50 people that were a combination of kids, teens, and adults. There were even some new faces. I had people in the room for the whole event and many didn't want to leave when time was up. If I do this again, I will have more tables for them to work at and another staff member to help with troubleshooting and crowd control. 

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Review: How to Sell a Haunted House by Grady Hendrix

Louise has just found out that her parents died in a car crash, but she doesn't want to go home. She'll have to leave her daughter behind with her ex and deal with her brother Mark that she hasn't talked to in years. She is the responsible sibling, so she has to go if anything is going to get done the correct way. 

Going back to her childhood home brings up a lot of emotions. Not to mention, Louise didn't remember that this old house was filled to the brim with puppets that her mother made. It makes the house feel off, but she can't just throw away her mother's art and livelihood, right? She might not get a say in the matter since Mark is bulldozing his way through the legal side of things. Suddenly the house starts to protest and weird things start happening that can't be explained. Maybe this house doesn't want to be sold.

This was a thrilling read with so many creepy twists. The first part of the book is told from Louise's point of view, and she explains that Mark has gotten everything he's wanted since they were little. Mark's narrative reveals that Louise doesn't know half the things he's dealt with because of the puppets. At its heart, this book is about possession, secrets, and family. 

Grady Hendrix is a contemporary horror feend. I still think about his book Horrorstor to this day. If you're looking for a exciting read to bring in this Halloween session, this is it. 

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Review: Firekeeper's Daughter By Angelline Boulley

Daunis Fontaine has never really felt like she fit in. She lives in between her mother's Canadian heritage and her late father's Ojibwe Tribe. Daunis had to put her life plan on hold to help her mother after they experienced another family misfortune. She desperately wants to go to a college to study medicine but it's too far away. She settles to go to a nearby school with her best friend for a year. What could go wrong? It turns out, a lot and tragedy always comes in threes. When Daunis witnesses a murder, finds out the new guy isn't who he says he is, and that drugs are tearing her community apart, she has no other choice but to join a criminal investigation by going undercover to find out who started down this slope.

This is a complex book that has a suspenseful story with bits of humor tossed in. The author is a member of the Sault Saint Marie Ojibwe Tribe that is featured in this story. She was able to add a lot of depth by using her life experiences as a guide. While this book started like a typical young adult novel, it progressed to have complex relationships and deals with drug usage and death. For that reason, I would recommend this book to older YA readers and those who love general fiction.

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Book Tasting for 4th - 6th Graders

What is a book tasting?

This is an event to expand a reader's palate. Guests will be able to "taste" or sample 4 - 5 books to find their next great read and maybe a book or two that they thought they'd never pick up.

What I did to prepare

When I first came across this idea, I was super excited. I went straight to Canva where I created a book tasting menu that was similar to a few examples I had seen. I wanted to have a different genre featured at each table so I made signs that reflected this. I purchased some tall table stands so they could easily be seen. I did some more research to flesh out my ideas and put a date in the public calendar.

I chose to do my first event with 6 different genres. I picked biography, realistic fiction, fantasy, sci-fi, dystopian, and adventure. I felt that these would capture a wide range of kids' interests. The position that I recently filled at my library had been vacant for almost a year at this point so I didn't have a frame of reference for how many people would attend my event. I wanted to prepare for the worst in both directions so I went with a larger plan.

The plan

My plan was to explain how to use the menu, sample a book, and tell everyone that they would have 7 minutes to look at each book before we rotated to another table. I imagined the event being quite time-sensitive since it was only an hour long and everyone needed to move at least 5 times to fill out their menu. 

The event

Each table had 4 place settings, about 6 books, menus, pencils, and table markers. I ended up explaining the menus to each group as they walked in since I had some show up early and others came in late. Most of the caregivers decided to stay to look at the books with their kids and that ended up being great. Since everyone came in at different times, I decided to throw out the 7 minute rule since each unit moved to other tables as they finished a book. This made the event feel calm when I expected it to be more go, go, go! I had a decent turnout of kids and caregivers everyone told me they had a good time. Some even requested that we do this for different age groups.

Takeaway

Everyone went at their own pace instead of following a timer. 6 tables were too many so I'll only use 4 next time. Many of the people who came did not know what biographies were. Then when I explained them, they were very uninterested. I plan on changing this table to be just non-fiction books and adding some animal book so they will find in more exciting. Lastly, I had some kids that were younger than 4th grade come in. I welcomed them to stay and participate however, they had a harder time filling out the menu. I plan to make it simpler for when I do this event for younger kids. 

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Dog Man Day

What is Dog Man Day?

Dog Man fans of all ages are invited to join the supa epic event with activities and games. We'll play Dog Man bingo, a personality test, assess your sniffers, and more.

Dog Man is Go! That don't make no sense! But we like it!

I first came across this idea from a post from Ontarian Librarian. She was able to get a Comic Creator booklet and some other cool items to make her event a hit. I took a few of her ideas and made them my own but she is the reason I made this event.

I learned about Dog Man Day after Twenty Thousand Fleas Under the Sea came out. Scholastic made an event kit with lots of activities. I read through them and picked the ones I knew I could do. With the power of these two sources, I was able to put together a plan for my own event.

What I did to prepare

I would say that reading at least one Dog Man book is a requirement for running this program. I read up to Brawl of the Wild and I can see why the series is so popular. 

Staffing was simple. There was myself and two others. One was there for the first hour and the other was shadowing the whole event. For the activities I picked out, I would recommend two people for the majority of the event. 

I ordered two plushies for prizes at the event. One was Bark Knight and the other is Li'l Petey. They are in the background in a few of the photos below. The kids loved these so much.

I planned activities that were going to be set up around the room as well two group activities. I'll list them below with more links.

Activities:

Dog food

K-9 Sniff Test

Make a Dog Man headband

Puzzle

Paper Activities:

Word searches

Dog Man face cutout

Coloring sheets

Draw a comic

Set Up

The first table was the nutritious snack of dog food and a few books for checkout! I bought coco puffs and put them in some dog bowls we already had. I told the kids we didn't have any spoons because they needed to eat the food like Dog Man would eat it. One child immediately got on all fours and literally ate like a dog! Other kids used their tongues or hands to eat. I was very tickled by the idea of them eating out of dog bowls and they loved it too. You might be worried about have a huge mess to clean up afterwards as was I. However, I did a few patrols and picked up loose pieces and only found one that had been stepped on. It was surprisingly clean for the whole event. 

The next table is the K-9 Sniff Test. I put smelly things in colorful cups then put tin foil secured by a rubber band on top and poked some holes in it. I picked things that I could easily get and would be a bit difficult for kids to figure out. I collected their guesses and gave one of our plushies to the winner. This is the list of smelly things I used: lavender oil, orange oil, peppermint oil, pickle juice, soap/bubbles, cinnamon and coffee. We already had a few essential oils on hand and they worked very well. 

The next table had the supplies to make a Dog Man headband. This station was a huge hit. Every kid ending up making a headband and they were so cute. I did precut some yellow badges to help out the smaller kids but this was very easy to put together. 

I found this puzzle on Amazon and thought it was perfect for my event. The kids actually put it together twice. 

The last table was various paper activities and supplies for them. I picked out a word search, coloring sheets, Dog Man face cutout, and how to draw Dog Man.

 I also decided to write down the schedule on the white board in the back of the room. This worked out well for me to stay on task and it helped the adults to know what was happening and when. I would recommend doing something like this if you plan to organize your own event. 

Takeaway

This was a great event. There were a few moments that felt slow but the personality test and bingo got everyone excited. The majority of guests left after I announced the winner of the K-9 Sniff Test. The few that stayed finished putting together the puzzle and took extra coloring sheets home. I'll put on a similar event when the next Dog Man book comes out.