Last week marked one year since Melissa started Flan­nel Fri­day. She shared the amaz­ing accom­plish­ments of this col­lab­o­ra­tive effort and asked that we take time to reflect and share. That is very fit­ting since shar­ing is one of the things I love best about Flan­nel Friday. After being inspired by the cre­ativ­ity shown by Melissa, Mary, Anne, and oth­ers for a few months I decided to jump in. It has been such a fun and enrich­ing experience!

In addi­tion to shar­ing flan­nel­boards and sto­ry­time props I’ve made and try­ing out the flan­nels oth­ers have made, I’ve been intro­duced to new con­cepts like folder sto­ries that I have found kids really enjoy. Par­tic­i­pants share so many tips for early lit­er­acy, crowd con­trol, craft­ing and books in their Flan­nel Fri­day posts and com­ments that I feel like I’m attend­ing a weekly con­tin­u­ing edu­ca­tion sem­i­nar — on my own time, at my own pace, while devel­op­ing rela­tion­ships with librar­i­ans around the coun­try (and Scotland).

For me, the tim­ing was per­fect. Not too long before Flan­nel Fri­day began I decided it was time to stop play­ing anony­mous. I started actively using social media accounts such as Twit­ter and GoodReads bear­ing my real name. I started inter­act­ing rather than merely lurk­ing on Twit­ter. I actu­ally com­ment on people’s web pages now. The web­site I started last Jan­u­ary has been side­tracked by this off­shoot blog that is pre­dom­i­nantly pop­u­lated with Flan­nel Fri­day and Kids Tech Club posts. I have no regrets about this highjacking! Flannel Fri­day has been the friend­liest pos­si­ble way to con­nect with fel­low librar­i­ans. It encour­ages me to keep shar­ing with the recog­ni­tion that every­thing I post usu­ally helps some­body (and some­times, amaz­ingly, many people).

Sto­ry­times are a pretty small part of my job so why do I keep mak­ing flan­nel­boards? The ideas help a lot with tele­vised sto­ry­times, but mostly it’s because you guys keep com­ing up with such great cre­ative ideas that I just have to try! This week I even tricked myself into think­ing I’d already made my own ver­sion of Melissa’s paper towel tube 5 Green & Speck­led Frogs! (Wasted quite a bit of time try­ing to find it Wednes­day morning!)

Spe­cial thanks to Melissa for kick­ing off Flan­nel Fri­day, but also sin­cere thanks to every­one who has every posted, viewed, or com­mented on any Flan­nel Fri­day post or pin. It’s a won­der­ful com­mu­nity of children’s librar­i­ans, teach­ers, moth­ers, crafters and friends!