End of Summer Reading Carnival

We don't always have a big ending for our Summer Reading Club program, but I always think it's nice to do a little something that day. This year, I threw a carnival with games, prizes, and even cotton candy! This was a 1 hour program (although some families stayed a little longer) and it was advertised for all ages (but most attendees were 2-8 years old). I didn't end up having a lot of teen volunteers to help with this program, so instead of having kids collect tickets and redeem them for prizes I just had a prize for each game won and relied on parents/the honor system.

Hand Golf! (because I couldn't find our set of kids' golf clubs) Kids had to roll until they hit 100 points to earn a sticky hand toy.

  

Potato Sack Race! Everyone who made it to the end of the course earned cotton candy (made by a teen volunteer).

Pete the Cat toss game (left over from Pete's birthday party in April). Kids threw velcro covered balls at Pete. When they got all four balls stuck, they earned a bag of popcorn.

   

Tin Can Knock-Down- kids threw balls to knock down cans. Little kids had a big ball and older kids (or kids who wanted a challenge) could throw a smaller ball. They had as many tries as they wanted and when they knocked down all the cans they earned a container of bubbles

  

Bean Bag Toss- I set out small containers labeled with more points and bigger containers labeled with fewer points. Kids who tossed until they earned 100 points won a sheet of stickers.

  

Plinko- this was left over from a program a coworker of mine did this spring. It was made using a lid from a box of printer paper and straws. Kids dropped their bottle caps until they landed in a prize spot and won a balloon sword or guitar (pre-made by the same coworker who made the plinko). Pre-making the balloons saved a TON of time.

At the end, kids could take a picture with a clown cut-out to remember the day! Kids and adults both loved this one and it was totally worth making a quick cutout (cardboard was from a coworker's new big screen TV).

This program went so well! Around 40-45 kids ended up coming by (which is really solid for a program at our library). The only thing I would have changed is planning ahead a little more with making cotton candy. I pre-packaged all of the popcorn but I wish I had asked our teen volunteer to start making cotton candy earlier so all of it could have been pre-packaged, too. We have a very small cotton candy maker, so it took a little while for each batch and some kids had to wait a bit. Luckily there were plenty of games to keep them occupied!

Little Scientists: Flowers

Little Scientists is absolutely one of my favorite programs! It's for 2-5 year olds and lasts about 30 minutes. This month, we investigated flowers:

First, we read Plant the Tiny Seed by Christie Matheson. This was perfect for this program- short enough for the attention spans of the age group but still showed parts of flowers and things flowers need to grow. After the story, we broke up into stations:

We always have a take-home experiment (usually an activity that would not be possible to complete in our 30 minute program). This month, kids all got a cup with a stem of Queen Anne's Lace and water dyed with liquid watercolor. I filled the cups right before the program started so that the flowers were still white when kids got there and they were encouraged to guess what would happen to the flower and observe changes over the next few days. The internet told me any white flower would work for this, but Queen Anne's Lace was fabulous- the colors showed up easily and quickly.

Building a flower- kids used roots, stems, leaves, and petals to "build" a flower.

To practice visual discrimination, we played an insects vs. flowers game. I though this would be most interesting to the younger attendees, but even the 4 and 5 year olds liked this one. I found this printable on Teachers Pay Teachers here.

Color matching game

Flower counting station- kids had the option of choosing an easier activity (counting petals on a flower up to 10) or a harder activity (practicing tens tables up to 20). Kids who were able ended up doing both.

I didn't take a picture, but we also used snap cubes to measure some flowers and compare sizes.

Parts-to-whole matching activity- this one was also a big hit. Kids tried matching a picture of a flower with a close up picture of a part of the flower. This one was also from Teachers Pay Teachers here.

We do a craft most sessions, and this one was a big hit. Kids used flowers (cut out using our die cutter) and beads to make "flower power" necklaces. They were encourage to make a pattern with the colored flowers or talk about the colors they used, but they could  really do whatever they wanted. Sometimes that's the most fun craft of all!

Baby Summer Camp

To go along with my quest for more baby programming, I had a Baby Summer Camp at the library this past week. The program was for 0-36 month-olds and their parents, although most of the kids for this particular programs were between 12 and 30 months. Here's what we were up to:

Obstacle Course- depending on ages, kids hopped over the pool noodles...

crawled through the tunnel (or through a hula hoop)...

and rode a pony (or ran) to the finish line! Most kids were young enough that they only did one step of the obstacle course at a time.

Arts & Crafts- paint in a bag, one of my personal favorites.

Music- we just had a nice donation of new instruments, which everybody loved banging on, honking, and strumming.

Popsicle Stick Picture Frames- we took pictures on our photo booth computer and decorated classic popsicle stick picture frame. I did find that kids were less interested in this part (which I somewhat expected) so it was nice having the music station in the same room.

And swimming! Only one little girl went all the way in, but all the kids liked splashing in the kiddie pool.

Little Scientists: Music & Sounds

This was the latest in my Little Scientists series (a STEAM-based program for 2-5 year-olds). Our Summer Reading Club theme this year is Reading Rocks, so I thought a very noisy Little Scientists would be perfect! Here's what we were up to:

"Song Writing" stations- kids used symbols like squares and hearts to "write" a song. Each shape stood for an action like clapping or stomping and then they would perform their song for the adults. This was great for the 4 & 5 year-olds.

Our art station- paper plate tambourines.

 

The highly- popular free music/instrument/dance station, courtesy of our bluetooth speaker and our assorted library instruments.

Xylophone station- kids used colored strips to match the missing keys in a picture of a xylophone (printable can be found here). Then they could play a real xylophone!

Sound vibrations- we used drumsticks on a set of real bongos, a balloon stretched over a cup, and a balloon stretched over a bowl to see how high we could make beans and rice jump! 

My personal favorite (which kids also liked and caregivers loved) was the cup-and-string telephone. Nobody could believe it actually worked, but kids loved whispering messages to their adults and hearing back from them.

Baby Prom

For the past year or so, I've been trying to pick up the number of programs we offer for infants and young toddlers (generally 0-23 or 0-36 months). Our library has a pretty large population of families in these age groups and they also seem to be looking for more activities besides our lap sit storytimes. As I was brainstorming, I thought how much fun it would be to offer programs based around life milestones, just scaled down for babies. Thus, Baby Prom!

This ended up being a very simple program to plan and execute and the only thing I needed to purchase was the balloons for our fantastic photo booth. Around 30 babies attended with about 45 adults and I think it was a really fun bonding experience for everybody. Plus, almost all the babies were dressed up and about half the adults, which made it extra festive!

Photo op! The arch is made from coat hangers, held together with gorilla tape, and decorated with balloons. We own a compressor made just for blowing up balloons, so it only took about 3 hours to make.

Our library has a computer dedicated to taking photos. It uses the Sparkbooth program and an attached photo printer to print photos on demand- it's very popular at programs!

The dance floor

Making corsages (adults were more interested than the kids, which was expected)

Kids and adults loved the dancing (especially all of the shakers and scarves that went along with it)

Bubble machine was on full blast (also a huge hit)

Friend & family groups planned to attend together, which I thought was really fun!

Overall, we had a great time and I think it's definitely worth repeating next summer!

What I Read This Week 5/29/2018

A friendly & uplifting look at a flag many kids may have seen before. The colorful illustrations reflect the tone of the story and I especially like the inclusion of real-life photographs at the end of the story.

Sweet rhyming story for more science-minded friends. Fan's of Andrea Beaty's books (Rosie Revere, Ada Twist, and Iggy Peck) will also enjoy this one.

A really fun seasons book. I loved the illustrations and the rhyming adds a fun touch.

Super sweet story about the importance of friendship (and sharing carrots). 

Really unique illustrations in a non-fiction book that would make a great bedtime story or storytime read aloud for pre-schoolers.

Loved this one- really reminded me of Natalie Russell's Lost for Words. Very sweet plot about finding your place in a group of  friends and fun, detailed illustrations.

Very sweet twist on a traditional fairy tale. I think the updated illustrations are a huge boost that makes this story a more timely version of classics like King and King.