Today I am excited to share another guest post! We are accepting guest post submissions on an on-going basis so feel free to contact us if you’d like to share something related to youth services. We are open to ideas! This week our guest poster is all the way from Australia. Welcome Kristy Baker who is sharing ideas for filler activities for school-age kids. For the past ten years Kristy has been working in a variety of learning environments in a variety of roles with young people. More recently, she worked as a Teacher Librarian before moving to the public library sector and is currently working in a public library in a rural part of north-west New South Wales, Australia. She can be found from time to time on Twitter at @kristybaker663.
I have been programming and facilitating two face-to-face Junior Book Clubs since the beginning of 2016. The programs are under development and include various activities aimed at promoting a love of reading, literature, and public libraries in young people and their families. The participants create and contribute in their public library by building displays or writing pieces for the eNewsletter. We used to facilitate a Maker Space and have run creative writing workshops in the school holidays – a lot of the ideas for book clubs crossover. One club is aimed at young people in kindergarten or prep – grade 2, and the other club is aimed at young people in grades 3-6. The younger club meets weekly, and the other meets fortnightly; both for one hour each. The need for a suitable activity spontaneously comes up during the meetings and I have found that planning meaningful activities for these instances can be just as useful as planning the main body of the meeting.
Fillers
Fillers are activities that are implemented ‘on the spot’ in a moment when you have time to spare (such as waiting for a clip to load, everyone finishes the main activity with a lot of time remaining, waiting for everyone to arrive).
Hot seat is a drama game that can be really effective and lots of fun. One participant takes on the role of a character that the audience is familiar with, and sits in the Hot Seat as questions are asked of them. The answers may not always be obvious and the aim is for the person in the Hot Seat to really consider the point of view of the character based on their knowledge of the story or character. Answers should be longer than ‘yes’ or ‘no’! Depending on when this filler comes up, you could use a character from a story shared in that session, or choose a well-known character.
Library Charades
This is a fun one that you can personalise to reflect your library space or activities. It is based on traditional charades with the element of mime, however all of the topics are about the library. For our Library Charades we take photos of the book club participants doing various library ‘things’ – activities or using particular equipment or within specific spaces – and the photos are used as prompts for the charade. Things like:
- reading the blurb
- browsing
- using the OPAC
- researching on a computer
- walking up the stairs to the meeting room.
As we come across new topics or activities, or things change at the library, we can add new photos.
The game does take a bit of practice and demonstrating of clear actions! Participants take 3 guesses from the audience before volunteering clues. We have some really tricky ones that the participants wanted to include – such as book titles, and even verso page – for these ones we give some verbal clues up front! Participants, one at a time, select a piece of paper with a photo and act out the content. I play the game in this format with the younger club and I quietly double check with the person doing the actions if they understand what the topic is first. I’ve found it’s highly necessary for me to know what will be acted out too because sometimes the participants misunderstand or may not see the connection between a guess and the topic.
Activities for Early Finishers
Not every child will finish an activity, such as craft, at the same time. (If this is your goal, using timers – such as sand timers – can be really useful). There are some simple activities that can be employed for individual early finishers that won’t take your time away from the whole group. The first example, below (Story Tree) is specific to one of the Book Clubs I run and relates to a broader idea.
Story Tree
We have been ‘growing’ the Story Tree as a part of the younger Book Club since the club commenced. All of the leaves feature the title and author of the stories we read each session. (Participants can also add a pear to the tree. Pears feature a text a child has read outside of Book Club & has shared with the club). A child can colour a leaf for the Story Tree for a book read in that session (the leaf can have the title and author/illustrator details written by you, or the child) and stick it on the tree. If you don’t have wall space available to display something like this, you could possibly make a scrapbook. Older children could do something asking for more detail about the text, as well as choose their own display theme.
Browse
As a part of being in Book Club, participants are the first to preview new items from the Junior collections. Early Finishers can browse these items, with or without some targeted direction such as – who would you recommend the items for, how would you describe the style, what’s your favourite part – depending on the text type and length. Again, sand timers as a time management tool can be useful so kids know how long they’ve got with the activity.
Why plan fillers and early finisher activities when you may not need them?
- You will end up needing them, at some point!
- They can become regular, or routine, activities that participants get to know and can either run themselves or are just very seamless to employ – not taking much time or preparation.
- They are activities that you can add to your repertoire!
What activities do you employ for early finishers or as time fillers?