Silly Bandz Party - Brainstorm

Name brand Silly Bandz are 10 or 10 at Kroger right now, which got me thinking...Silly Bandz Party for upper elementary and tweens. For a cheap in-house Silly Bandz program, have the kids win Silly Bandz by playing Silly Bandz themed games, and do a Silly Bandz themed craft. A few games and crafts I came up with are:

• Have the kids shoot the Silly Bandz at a target on the floor and see who is closest, or have them shoot at a bucket to see who can get the most inside the bucket. Each team can have their own color so you know whose is whose.

• Have a Silly Bandz team race where one person has to run around the room looking for their team's color Silly Bandz and then bring it back and put it on the wrist of the team member waiting at home base. The team whose home base person has the most Silly Bandz around their wrist when time runs out, wins.
• Put Silly Bandz around someone's wrist or around a paper towel roll and see who can figure out what shape the Bandz are.
• Make homemade Silly Bandz with silicone sealant and food coloring
• Put out a jar and guess how many Silly Bandz are in the jar.
• Make rubber band bouncing balls out of regular colored rubber bands.
• Make Silly Bandz necklaces and braclets by linking Silly Bandz together.

Does anyone have any other ideas to add?

Author visit and children's program

Elizabeth Lange Cannella, author of There's a Monster in My Lunch Box gives her “Imagination Presentation” to spotlight reading and creative writing for children. She will read a copy of her own book, as well as focus on other local authors and some well-know classic authors - everything from Devin Scillian to Dr. Seuss . This program can be modified to be geared toward K-3^rd grade or 4-5^th grade. Elizabeth Lange Cannella can be contacted at:

Ph. #248- 935-5496 or email elcbooks@elcbooks.com

For more information about the author you can visit her site: http://www.elcbooks.com

And the winner of the Chattski goes to...

I want to give a special congratulations to the Westland Library. Being a youth services librarian and a mother of a toddler, I have become a connoisseur of library story times over the past few years and I was particularly impressed by the Westland Library's Toddler Time. There were several activities during the story time that enabled the kids to get up and move around, keeping them actively engaged throughout the whole session. One activity involved giving each child a small sticker and letting them place it on a printed drawing of a bridge. The older children had fun choosing whether to put the sticker above or below the bridge, while the younger children, like mine, were just excited to put a sticker on something. A pack of stickers and a sheet of copy paper....genius. I did something similar with velcro sets at my library, but I only had about five sets and each set had a limited number of pieces. If I was still doing story times, I would steal this activity.

The story time wasn't the only thing that impressed me about the Westland Library. While my son was placing his sticker, I was talking to a father of another tot. He was telling me how a librarian told him he didn't need to pay for a membership and about all the different resources the library had to offer. 'So', he said, 'I got a card and after story time we're going to check out some books and dvd's'. Be still my heart! A convert! This library really takes advantage of the fact that library programs get new people in the door and uses it to actively reach out to potential patrons. After story time my son and I wandered out to the children's area and sure enough, a librarian asked me if I had been to the Westland Library before, if I lived in Westland, welcomed me to the library, and made sure I didn't leave without a program schedule in my hand. Now that's how it's done.

Congratulations, Westland Public Library. You win the first Chatty Librarian award. Let's call it....hmmm. A Chattski! Good job, Westland.