2015 Summer Reading Finale Party

The wonderful chaos of our summer reading program is over, for this year at least. We've had a busy summer with more kids doing reading logs than we've had since I've been here. We had some great programs as well. Overall I would say this summer has been a success.

Now that the craziness has passed, I wanted to update you all on one of the highlights of my summer, our finale party. Hopefully these ideas come in handy for those of you who are in need of last minute summer inspiration!

I pretty much kept to the same basic idea as last year's party, by doing a variety of stations related to our Every Hero Has a Story theme. Once again it was invite only, a special treat for those that finished their reading logs.

Our stations this year: 

Dress like a hero: This station was pretty simple. I printed out some masks for the kids to color and some aluminum foil for them to make superhero outfits out of.  The aluminum foil was something I did before in our American Girl Club and it was great to see how into it some of the kids were. We had many capes made and many masks worn!

Build a superhero fortress: Legos are the gift that keep on giving. Our Lego collection (donated before I worked here) is free and fun so I try to bring it out whenever I can. This is a station that I can use every year and tweak to whatever theme we are using.

Shoot a bad guy: We threw balls at pictures of bad guys I had taped to two liter bottles. I chose Disney villains as our bad guys because they are recognizable and not all that scary.

Super bubbles: Our bubble pool was such a big hit last year that I brought it back again this year. Three gallons of my special bubble solution was all it took to set up this fun and easy station.

My recipe:

1 gallon of water

1 cup Dawn Dishsoap

4 tablespoons of glycerin (purchased at craft stores like Michael's or at the pharmacy) 

The kid's had a blast playing in the bubbles with hula hoops and bubble wands. I had more than one parent mention trying it at home as well, which is always a sign of a good time.

Super hoop gliders: I found directions to make a simple hoop glider by cutting two pieces of construction paper, one twice as long as the other, and taping them onto a straw. I included a target for the kids to throw the gliders at as an added challenge.

Picture from openclipart.org

Picture station: I made a superhero backdrop by taping some cloud bulletin board paper to the wall and adding black and yellow construction paper buildings. Ironically, I did not get a picture of this station.

This was a great end to the summer, and I think the kids and parents enjoyed all the activities I had a available. Looking forward to updating you guys on a few more of my other recent programs as well!

Every Hero Has a Story: Superhero Crafts

We officially started our weekly summer kids programs this past Tuesday. Because this is the week of the Fourth of July holiday, I started out with crafts. The good thing about doing crafts during a holiday week is it allows me the option to save materials for any kids who aren't able to attend.

For the summer I do two sessions of each weekly program for Grades K-2 and two sessions for Grades 3-6. I am somewhat flexible with these age ranges, especially in the case of siblings. Breaking it up this way allows me to adapt the programs more specifically to each age range and maintain a registration size of around 12 for each program.

Without further ado, here are the crafts we did:

 

K-2nd graders

 

Superhero Cuffs

 

 

Supplies needed:

Toilet paper tubes
Paint
Brushes

Cost: Nothing

I cut slits into toilet paper tubes and let the kids paint their own cuffs. Word of warning they may stretch a bit as they are painted! I told the kids they could always squeeze them back into shape once they dry.

Superhero Capes

Supplies needed:
White fabric (about a half a yard per child)
Fabric markers

Cost: About $17 for the fabric, $15 for three new packs of fabric markers.

This was my big splurge for the program. I bought the cheapest white fabric I could find at JoAnn Fabrics and new fabric markers. The fabric was cut into cape sized pieces and U shaped hole was cut in the top for the neck. It was definitely worth it, especially when I saw a little boy come into the library the following day wearing the cape he had decorated. FYI: I've also seen capes made out of old t-shirts, which is something I might consider if I did this again.

Superhero Shields

Supplies needed:
Paper plates
Paint
Paintbrushes

Cost: Nothing

To complete their gear, the kids painted paper plate "shields". These were definitely a hit as well.

Desk wrap: 

Supplies:
Large roll of paper
Crayons

Cost: Nothing

Our final craft for this age group was decorating a large piece of paper I will use to wrap my desk this summer. The great thing about this craft is that once it is displayed kids will most likely bring their families by the library to show it off.

3rd-6th graders

Superhero Puzzles

Supplies needed: 
Popsicle sticks (About 5 per puzzle)
Print outs of superheros or old comic pages
Glue
Crayons or Paint

Cost: Nothing

I got the idea for this craft at GeekyKool.com. The basic idea is taping Popsicle sticks together and gluing an image on. The sticks are then cut apart to create a puzzle. I didn't have old comics available, so I used the hero images that have generously been made available at Hafuboti. The kids could color or paint these heroes, a process that kept most kids engaged for close to a half an hour.

Superhero Scratch Offs

Supplies needed: Scratch offs and scratching tools

Cost: $6

I didn't have a chance to get a picture of these, but we broke out the superhero scratch offs I ordered from the CSLP program. They are basically black superhero shapes you can scratch to reveal a variety of colors. The kids seemed to like these, even though some of them just proceeded to scratch off their entire super hero.

Create your own comics

Image from openclipart.org

Supplies needed:
Comic print outs

Crayons

Pencils

Cost: Nothing

I printed out sheets of comic strips for the kids to create their own comics. There are many places you can find these templates online, but I got mine from the blog Sweet Hot Mess. Due to how long they spent on the puzzles, many of these comics ended up being taken home.

I hope that everyone is having a great summer so far, and that these crafts come in handy. If you have any programming or craft ideas to share I'd love to hear them!

Every Hero Has a Story: Who is your hero?

Ever since I took an early childhood related webinar through MLA about two months ago, I've been thinking about how to provide literacy building activities on every available library surface. I created our counting ramp, and am planning on adding a Lego board and a flannel board to the sides of our shelves. For summer reading I wanted to come up with a literacy building passive program that kids of all ages could enjoy.

I took advantage of our circulation desk and paper we had on hand to create a "Who is your hero?" board.

In addition to keeping kids busy while they wait to check out books, this board has many literacy benefits:

• When writing on the board the youngest kids are developing their fine motor skills.
• As the youngest children see words written down, they will develop the knowledge that print has meaning.
• Kids will most likely sound out the names of their heroes as they write them, developing their phonemic awareness.
• Developing readers will get valuable reading practice by reading the names of the heroes other children write on the board.
• As parents see the board they will most likely talk about it with their children (one of the literacy practices in ECRR2).
• Kids will probably explain why they chose their hero to parents or staff, therefore strengthening their narrative skills.

I'd love to hear any other great passive programming ideas you may have for the summer. As always you can comment here or reach me on Twitter (@MsKellyTweets).

Summer Reading Graphic: Every Hero Has a Story

We are going with the national Collaborative Summer Library Program theme this year: Every Hero Has a Story. I'm really looking forward to the summer and excited to share all my plans with you all.

To kick it off I wanted to share a graphic I made using an online photo editor, Pixlr. It can be downloaded here. Feel free to use it in whatever way you would like!

Credit for the heroes in the graphic goes to the wonderful Rebecca at Hafuboti. She was generous enough to share the graphics designed by her fiance. I've incorporated them into my flyers and other materials and I know of many other librarians that have done the same. You can find many of these graphics in both color and black and white here. Thank you so much Rebecca for being so willing to share!

Best of luck to all of you kicking off SRP in the next few weeks. We don't start the majority of our programming until July, because we are closed for a local festival towards the end of June. Can't wait to join in all the hero related fun!