Summer Reading Program - Week 8

The last week! I had originally been scheduled to miss one day this week for a vacation in Colorado (and my birthday). But life likes to throw us curve balls, and we had to rush back to our home town in New York because of a death in the family. As a result, I missed most of the last week of SRP, so the details below are second hand. But I made it back to Texas in time for the last day of the program!

Reading Program

This week's prize was...

A book!

We had several different titles of varying reading levels available for the children to choose from. This is always their favorite week, and they're always so excited to start going through our selection.

Storytimes

Though my substitutes had little time to prepare, they both did wonderful storytimes. I'm very lucky to be in a system with enough children's librarians to help out in a time of need.

Program

This week's presenter was a magician! We had a good turn out, and I'm sorry I didn't get to see his cool tricks.

Sea How Much...

No picture this week, but we ended our program with 20370 books and hours read. Wow! This year's group went above and beyond last year's record. So proud!

Summer Reading Program - Week 7

Reading Program

Dinosaur bouncy ball, a good prize for all ages! We even had some that were pink with glittery dinosaurs.

Storytimes

Who doesn't love dogs! Apparently not everyone, because attendance was even lower than last week for all three groups.

Programs

Teen Gaming Night

They came! We had fun! I had a Wii set up with Super Smash Brothers Brawl and several tables with board/card games. The boys were entertained with SSBB for a little while, but then they gradually became more interested in what the girls were doing: playing Apples to Apples. If you've never played, you're missing out. It's the best party game in the history of mankind, and doesn't involve embarrassing and/or lewd behavior. Some of the cards went over the teens' heads, mainly those with names of celebrities who were well known before 1999, and if it weren't for the other staff member there, I might have walked away feeling extremely old. But fun was had by all, and were surprised when I announced that we were all done for the night.

Clowning Around

I will admit that I am not a huge fan of clowns. In fact, they are pretty creepy. We managed to find the one clown that does not give me nightmares, for which I'm grateful. His act is more geared toward younger children, and they do not even blink their eyes when he's on stage. We had a good crowd, not too big, not too small, and everyone had a great time. Attendance: 78 people.

Sea How Much...

16280 Books/Hours

Summer Reading Program - Week 6

Reading Program

Toy truck! Though the girls weren't too thrilled about it, the boys were ecstatic! These lasted a bit longer than the other prizes, but not by much.

Storytimes

Wee Read and Toddler Time had an average amount of attendees, but attendance was WAY down for Preschool Storytime (which means we actually had room to move!), which was fortunate considering that our air conditioner decided to conk out on us. This week's theme was camping, and you can find my lesson plan here.

Programs

We had a mad scientist come to visit us, and this program always draws in a big crowd. We had some of the same issues we did with the zoologist. I didn't give out tickets this time, but we had to limit the amount of adults who attended and block others from coming in when we reached our maximum occupancy. Add to this our issues with the A/C, and there were some unhappy patrons. Luckily, the children didn't notice the heat, and the parents were happy to vacate their spaces after just a few minutes in the room. Total attendance: 173 people.

One new issue cropped up this week: day cares. I've had day cares come to summer programs before and were well behaved, but the two that showed up this week were overly excited and talkative. To make matters worse, the presenter was still relatively new at his job, and didn't quite have his crowd control skills down pat, so it was a very loud and chaotic experience for everyone.

Sea How Much... 

13090 books/hours! We've read so many books that I had to expand our sea!

Summer Reading Program - Week 5

Reading Program

Our prize this week was probably the cutest thing I've ever seen: dinosaur rubber duckies! The pink pterodactyl went fast, so I wasn't able to get a picture of it, but the rest are just as adorable.

Storytimes

Oh boy did we have a big crowd for storytimes this week! Both Wee Read and Preschool classes had larger than normal attendance at 31 and 85 people respectively. Our theme this week was Bugs, Bugs, Bugs.

Programs

Since a large number of families go away for the holiday, we use this as a rest week for performers, so it was fairly quiet in the afternoon.

Sea How Much...

9950 books/hours!

Summer Reading Program - Week 4

Four weeks done, just four to go! This week's recap is a short one

This week's prize was a treasure chest magnet craft from Oriental Trading.

This was also the first week that the children could complete the program. They are marked as complete when they turn in four weeks (not necessarily consecutive weeks). When they complete, they receive a Texas Reading Club certificate with a free burger from a local fast food chain and a free pass to a nearby rollerskating park.  

Storytimes

Our storytime theme was fruits and vegetables. All three groups had a regular attendance number, and this week's classes were very enthusiastic! 

Programs

We hosted a visit from a storyteller on Friday. She told us four Aesop's fables and even acted two of them out using props and a backdrop. Attendance was at 78, and wasn't quite what we experienced last week. That's quite alright by me, because no one became grouchy or unruly, and everyone was able to get a seat. 

Sea How Many Books...

7950 books/hours!

Summer Reading Program - Week 3

Wow! Week 3! I didn't think that we could get more crazy, but I'm always surprised.

This week's prize was a dinosaur silly band, and I was surprised at the number of boys who were equally as excited as the girls to get one.

Blue, of course, was the first color gone, hence no picture of it!

Storytimes

Attendance finally looks like it's equaling out, finally. There were still quite a lot of kids at storytime, but I have altered the crafts a little so they're not so overwhelming. This week's theme was Summer, and it's my favorite one of the summer so far. 

Programs

Thursday - Teen Game Night

Three of our four branches are offering teen video/board game programs this summer. My first was on Thursday night. I set up the Nintendo Wii with Super Smash Brothers Brawl and put out various board games and card games. I also had a table for Nintendo DS users.

Sadly, Teen Game Night was just not meant to be. Whether it was too early in the summer, too late in the evening (7:00 to 8:00 pm), or the fickleness of teens, no one came to hang out. We had almost no patrons in the library that night, either (a first this summer!), so I guess I won't feel too bad about it. There's always our TGN in July.

Friday - Weekly Performer

This week we hosted a visit with a zoologist who brings live animals. The theme for our show (he brings different types of animals depending on the theme) involved creepy critters. He brought an alligator, a king snake, a tarantula, a scorpion, a Burmese python, and a giant Madagascar cockroach (guess which animal made me leave the room!). His shows always have a huge turnout, and we had 175 people cross our meeting room threshold, which includes those who left and let others take their place.

Unfortunately, with a crowd this size, there are always some issues. Last year we couldn't fit all of the people who wanted to come in, so this year I gave out numbers 1 through 160, which is how many people I can safely have in the room. I started giving out numbers a half an hour before the show and encouraged the adults who had older children to not go into the program room so that I could fit more children. Most adults were more than okay with this; they understood that it was a children's program. But there was a handful of adults who were just looking for an argument, and couldn't be convinced that their entry guaranteed that one less child could enter the room. When we filled to capacity, there were even more issues (fire codes, people!), but thankfully I had an assertive staff member guarding the door for me.

Sea How Many Books...

We are at 6050 books/hours!

Summer Reading Program Week 2

The days just get more crazy as they go! Two weeks down, six left. At this rate, Summer will be gone before we even knew it was here.

SRP
This week's prize was a growing insect. The kids' eyes lit up when they realized how much they could scare their parents with it, once they realized that the tiny bug would get much, much bigger.

Storytimes
This week's Baby Storytime (Wee Read) crowd was even bigger than last week with 11 babies attending.

Our theme for Toddler and Preschool Storytime was Father's Day. Despite having a very intense craft planned, both classes went off without a hitch. I couldn't believe the amount of patience these kids have! Attendance for the preschool group is still growing, and I may have to scale back on the types of crafts I do for them. It's impossible to cut out intricate crafts for such a big crowd.

Programs
For the weekly performer, we had a yo-yo expert come to show the children some tricks and teach them how to use a yo-yo. The children are always fascinated by what she can do with only a yo-yo, and they don't even realize that they are getting a science lesson at the same time. More people than last week attended this performance, and we're inching closer and closer to that pesky maximum occupancy level.

Sea How Many Books We've Read

Holy haddock, Batman! We reached 3200 books/hours read this week!

Though I like the idea of a visual representation of our books/hours count, I think next year I'll switch to adding a piece to the board for every 100 books or hours read.

Summer Reading Program Week 1

Wow! Last week flew by! We had lots of families in here to check out books, sign up for the reading program, and turn in their reading logs.

SRP

This week's prize was a dinosaur cup. We must have made a good choice when picking prizes, because all of our cups were given out! In order to get a prize, every child must read at least one book or one hour.

For every ten hours or ten books a child reads, we give him/her a raffle ticket. I'm pleasantly surprised at the amount of tickets we've already given out.

Storytimes

We had a great group for our Baby Storytime, with a little over average attendance (8 babies, 1 sibling, and 8 adults). I give the babies and their caregivers a chance to interact with each other at the end of the program, and it always makes me glad to see the moms taking the time to socialize and get to know each other. I can tell this is going to be a good group!

This week's theme for Toddler and Preschool Storytime was Going to the Library. Attendance was average for our toddler group (16 children, 12 adults), but I could not believe how many preschoolers came with their families (40 children, 6 siblings, and 24 adults)! Luckily I had enough crafts left over from the toddler group so no one was left out.

Programs

Every Friday during the summer (except for the Friday after Independence Day) we host a performer. This week it was a puppeteer who did a Texas version of The Three Little Pigs. She's always good for a laugh and throws in jokes that only the parents would get. The program passed without many incidents, and we pulled in a crowd of 126 people. 

This summer we're doing something new, too. One of my colleagues came up with a scavenger hunt featuring a pirate named Petey (he's also the star of our SRP video). Petey has hidden clues to his favorite ice cream flavor, and it's the job of the children to find the clues and decipher the puzzle. When they figure it out, they come to the Children's Desk to claim their booty (a word search, a finger puppet to cut out, and two stickers). The hunt will be available all summer.

Sea How Many Books We've Read

This year I managed (with great difficulty) to order big rolls of paper. I hung up some blue paper in our program room and my plan is to show the children how much they're reading. Each week (on Friday), I'll put one fish for every ten books they've read, and I'm expecting it to be a lot of fish! We've already cut out 1700 fish (thank goodness for the Ellison machine!).

No fish yet!

Sign

250 Fish

That's our week. How'd your SRP week go?

Let's Hear it For Summer Reading!

I'm going to join the ranks of librarians who are blogging about their Summer Reading Programs. I'm very interested in how other libraries run their programs (read: nosy), and thought I'd share ours. This year's theme for the Texas Reading Program is Dig Up a Good Book.

We started registration for our Summer Reading Program on May 23rd, and so far we've had quite the turn out. In my old system, we kept track of everything on paper, but thankfully one of the the adult librarians here put together a Microsoft Access database for us to use to keep track of statistics and numbers. It has made quite a difference in how smooth the process is for everyone involved!

Mood Pencils

When the children register, they are given a reading log, a bookmark, and a cool mood pencil (they have been a serious selling point this year!). 

The reading log has a box for each week of the program, eight total. The kids keep track of how much they read per week. They can count it in books or hours, and once they pick, they have to stick with it throughout the summer. They bring their logs in the following week, and as long as they've read one book/hour, they get the weekly prize. Our prizes this year are dinosaur shaped cups, silly bands, growing bugs, and others.

For every ten books/hours they read, we give them a raffle ticket for the grand prize. This year it's a Nintendo DSi. I love watching their eyes light up when they hear what the prize is!

Everyone will start reading for the program on Sunday, and so will I. Thanks to Abby Librarian, I will be keeping my own log of books I read during the summer and displaying it for the kids to see.

Stay tuned for next week when we start our summer storytimes and programs!