Block-a-Palooza

There's not much to say about last Tuesday's Block-a-Palooza! It was so simple, yet so great-- an all around win for a repeat in the future! For ages 2-5, here's what my newsletter description said:

Mix and mingle lots of different types of blocks and figurines to create whatever you can imagine! This program is self-directed, so work at your own pace.

This sums the morning up pretty accurately. I put out lots of blocks--possibly every block in the library--the big, cardboard brick kind; the traditional, simple wood kind; colorful, wood ones that kind of work with the traditional wood ones; the soft, rubber kind; and some foamy ones that might be meant for the bath. Plus matchbox cars, different plastic animals, mini stuffed animals, and some plastic boats. Then, when the kids arrived, I handed them a (plastic) hard hat, put on a playlist I'd made for the occasion, and told them to just enjoy! THAT'S IT!

What worked least: I felt like this program was too easy. After I set it up and looked around the room, it seemed so... mediocre. It was just a room of blocks and little toys. Blah. But when the families came in, everyone LOVED IT. They were so happy! They even told me it was a great idea! I guess sometimes simple is all you need!

What worked best: The mix of different blocks and toys really allowed the kids (and parents) to get creative. I would do this program again and I wouldn't change a thing!

Fun note: I specifically told everyone that they didn't have to worry about clean-up, that the luxury of making a mess and leaving it was part of the fun of this program. But these families were so sweet. They all insisted they help put things away. We have the best patrons ever! 💜

National Oreo Cookie Day Taste Test (Plus ANOTHER subtle yet important announcement).

Happy National Oreo Cookie Day! I am celebrating by having Oreos at my desk while I work the entire day. But last night my coworker, Jen (of Elephant and Piggie Party), and I celebrated early by hosting a delightfully sweet Oreo taste test. The idea for this had been brewing for a while in our office full of sweets-lovers. In fact, every time my department head brought in a new Oreo flavor for her staff (us) to sample, we always talked about how we should "make a program out of this one day." Then one day, one of us (me? Jen? My department head? Someone else?) noticed that March 6th was National Oreo Day and--poof!--a program was born!

We spent the next few months collecting Oreos as we saw them, trying to grab all the flavor possibilities and they shifted into and out of season.

Oreos anyone? I've got almost a years-worth!

The plan was to have the kids walk around and sample each flavor, then quietly vote on what they thought each one was. It was a guessing game. In the end we wound up with 15 options for tasting:

Cinnamon Bun

Red Velvet

Pumpkin Spice

Apple Pie

Cookie Butter

Mocha

Chocolate Hazelnut

Mint

Birthday Cake

Hot & Spicy Cinnamon

Lemon

Coconut Thins

Salted Caramel Thins

Peanut Butter

Peeps

Last night, to set up, we put each of the 15 flavors out in little sample cups with signs that said "Taste #1," "Taste #2," etc. We also had a table in the middle for water bottles and voting. The set-up room looked like this:

Peek-a-boo! I have a 6-month pregnant belly again! I'm due in June!

Then, as the kids entered the room, we had them each start in different spots and move around the tables to sample the 15 different Oreos. It was A LOT OF OREOS. Almost an irresponsible amount of Oreos, really. As they sampled, they wrote down what their flavor guesses were on their voting sheets. I whipped this sheet up in 10-minutes on Publisher. It can be seen below and downloaded here. (Enjoy!)

Some kids really put time and thought in, smelling the cookies and closing their eyes as they nibbled. Others just wrote things like "I have no idea" and "Really yummy" on their sheets. Kids are funny.

After about 25-minutes of sugar consumption, when we saw that many of the kids were wrapping up their flavor guessing, we had them come up to anonymously vote for their favorite. We decided it was better to have them vote before we revealed the answers so nobody could be biased (because Oreos clearly have different cool and uncool ranks?). Jen made the CUTEST ballot box. Look:

Then it was time to reveal the answers! The kids sat down and, cookie flavor-by-cookie flavor, I had them tell me their guesses for each sample. This was fun! A lot of them were really surprised by some of my "big reveals!" Cinnamon Bun, Cookie Butter, and Coconut were some of the biggest shockers.

In the background, while I was revealing all the answers, Jen was totaling up the favorites and compiling a first place, second place, and third place. Just for fun, she and I each took a guess at the winner before the program. My guess was mint, hers was chocolate hazelnut. The actual winner? MINT! Props for me! Here are the group's top 3:

That's #1 Mint, #2 Cinnamon Bun, and #3 Peeps!

What worked least: Does a room full of kids consuming a lot of sugar in less than 30-minutes count for this? If so, that.

What worked best: I think having two of us who were equally responsible for the program in the room-- as in having two librarians as opposed to a librarian and a page-- helped keep what could have been chaos, in some order. Going forward, I don't think I would do any taste test programs solo ever again. This was so much better. It's a two librarian job!