Junior League Artists

Last June I did a program called Little Helpers, where I basically made giant, foam board "Little Helpers" coloring sheets (our Early Literacy Read-to-Me club theme) and had the kids help me color and decorate them so we could have a nice, hand-made, summer display in the department.

It went really well so I decided to do it again this year! This summer's Early Literacy Read-to-Me club is called Junior League (as part of the CSLP Reads Theme, "On Your Mark, Get Set, Read"), so again, I made giant foam board coloring sheets with those words on them. This takes a little more prep than it may look like. First, I printed out the letters in the words using our Circut machine. (Last year we didn't have a Cricut and I, instead, just printed letters on the computer and cut them out. The Cricut made this easier this year, but it's still totally doable either way!) Then I traced the letters onto the foam board in pencil. I did this two times for each word so we could have four signs in total. Next, I went over my pencil lines with thick black paint (and a really cruddy paint brush!) and these were basically my coloring "pages." After that, I asked one of our maintenance guys to drill two holes in the top of each board (for hanging later) and I was set to go! Here are the results, all laid out and ready to be decorated:

Last year, I debated a lot about what craft supplies to put out for the kids to use. I wanted a variety of things, but I didn't want anything to overpower the words too much. Finally, I'd settled on crayons, stamp pads for hand prints, colored pencils, and do-a-dot markers. This year I made it easy on myself and used the exact same supplies, which again, were perfect. Why recreate the wheel, right?

Then the kids came in and, more or less, they went to town:

Last year I needed to go over the letter outlines again once the signs were decorated, but this year the colors were all a lot lighter in general so I skipped it. Here are the finished products:

 And here they are, all hung up in their home for the summer:

So beautiful!

What worked best: I think the relaxed, hang-out-and-color nature of this program made it fun for everyone who came. Moms chatted and colored; kids stamped their hands without a care; even the librarian (me) enjoyed just hanging out for a little while. It was just laid back and fun.

What worked least: Last year I got a bigger turnout with more coloring! This year, when the program was over, there was still white space left! So my coworker and I had to fill it in ourselves (shhh).

 All-in-all, this was a super-fun craft that both the children and the adults really enjoyed!

International Taste Test + Winter Reading Club (Book A Trip)

I have always said that my favorite part of travel is tasting all the snacks from other countries. The grocery store is a regular stop on all of my trips. In fact, the following picture from my trip to Australia just appeared on my TimeHop feed this morning:

So anyway, when I stumbled across WorldOfSnacks.com (and quickly became obsessed with it), it spiraled into the inspiration for not only one of my biggest programs yet, but our entire Winter Reading Club theme!

I present you... the International Taste Test.

Choosing snacks was no easy task. WorldOfSnacks.com is a wonderful, amazing, super-easy-to-use website where you can order treats from all around the globe, HOWEVER, inventory when you're shopping for a large quantity (i.e. a library program), is limited. It's clearly not an insanely corporate operation over there, but instead a few people who are even more interested in snacks from around the world than I am. It's cool though. After a good amount of cart finagling, I wound up with a decent assortment of goodies from 5 different countries. Selected based on interestingness but also based on availability, I had goodies from Japan, Mexico, Korea, Italy, and Ukraine.

Here are the snack tables all set-up:

All the goodies came to the library in two big boxes. I made some signs and some flags for the tables (shown above) + some other signs to label all the different goodies that we had (although, they didn't exactly explain much, really). Then we cut everything into kid-size samples, and at 2:30pm, the flood gates opened! What a show!

We had approximately 75 patrons come to taste the goodies! Such great turn out! Everything disappeared quickly. First to go was the Purple Sweet Potato Kit Kats, followed quickly by the other flavored Kit Kats and then by the Hello Kitty Biscuits. So basically, the Japan table was a total hit. Leftover at the end were the Takis from Mexico and the Shrimp Crackers from Korea.

My love of foreign travel did not end here. The International Taste Test was only the kickoff to the Winter Reading Club-- themed: Book A Trip.

"Book a trip to the library for this year's winter reading club. As your family reads together, you'll visit six different continents and earn stamps in your passport plus a fun prize at each destination. Earn a stamp each week from January 25th through March 6th and a special prize at the end. And be sure to stop in to kick off all the fun at our International Taste Test on January 17th."

I lucked out because not only were the bones of this reading club already in place from 2006 but I was also able to successfully locate them on our staff hard drive! In short it goes like this: Each week the families "travel" to a different continent, read a book (either one about that continent or anything else that they want), then earn a sticker (one of these, from Upstart) in their reading passport + a souvenir from that place. Here is a link to the "travel itinerary" which outlines the continents in which we "travel" plus the prizes that are earned at each place.

The welcome packets, received upon club registration, look like this:

Pictured above are: The plastic bag that houses everything (these from Upstart), a welcome letter to the parents explaining how this year's Winter Reading Club works, the "travel itinerary" which outlines which continent we travel to which week, a list of recommended books if the families choose to read titles that correspond with each location (they don't have to!), a little compass notepad (these from Oriental Trading), a reading log passport (these from Upstart), a flag pencil (these from Oriental Trading), and two bookmarks with continents on them (any two of these from Upstart).

The weeks follow along like this:

Registration (Jan. 17 – March 6): Sign up packet with reading passport
Week 1 (Jan. 25 – Jan. 31): Australia – Boomerang & Australia Sticker
Week 2 (Feb. 1 – Feb. 7): Asia – Fortune Cookie Eraser & Asia Sticker
Week 3 (Feb. 8 – Feb. 14): Africa – Zoo Animal Sticker Sheet & Africa Sticker
Week 4 (Feb. 15 – Feb. 21): Europe – Medieval Stamper & Europe Sticker
Week 5 (Feb. 22 – Feb.28): South America – Frog Squirt Toy & South America Sticker
Week 6 (Feb. 29 – March 6): North America – Mini Foam Finger & North America Sticker

The prizes are all from Oriental Trading and the passport stickers are these, from Upstart.

At the end of the club, instead of a final party, we'll just give out certificates of completion and one final prize. We wanted to see if a kick-off event (the International Taste Test) would be more well-attended than a wrap-up event and YEP, with approximately 75 taste testers, it sure was! Success!

The Winter Reading Club is now underway. In regard to the International Taste Test...

What worked least: I ran out of Kit Kats too fast! I just didn't have any idea of the magnitude of this program when I was shopping for treats! I could have had a whole Kit Kat Taste Test program (hmmm...) and it probably would have been successful. So next time, more Kit Kats! ("Next time" being the key part of that statement.)

What worked best: This was the best way to ensure a good turn out for our Winter Reading Club, for sure. In 24-hours, we have almost half of the number of patrons registered for the club that we had all of last winter. This was also the most excited I've seen patrons about the Winter Reading Club in a long time. A kick-off event is definitely a better way to go than a wrap-up event...especially a kick-off event that involves treats!

Little Helpers (Craft)

Last week, I did a program called Little Helpers. Previously, I wrote a blog post about some of the details involving our Early Literacy Summer Reading Club, also called Little Helpers. Since the whole theme this summer is helping, I thought what better way to tie things nicely together than to have our "little helpers" help create some Summer Reading Club decor for us?

Naturally, the text of the decor read:

Little Helpers!

This took a little more prep than it may look like. First, I printed out the letters in the words (approximately one letter per page) and then traced them in pencil onto thick poster board. I did this two times for each word so we could have four signs in total. Next, I had one of our pages go over my pencil lines with thick black paint. This basically created four, thick, massive coloring pages. After that, I asked one of our maintenance guys to drill two holes in the top of each board (for hanging later) and I was set to go!

I debated about what craft supplies to put out for the kids to use. I wanted a variety of things, but I didn't want anything to overpower the words Little Helpers too much. Finally, I settled on crayons, stamp pads for hand prints, colored pencils, and do-a-dot markers.

Then it was time for the little ones to come help decorate!

They had such a good time! And I got four beautiful and original signs out of the deal!

Once the signs were decorated, I decided to ask a page to go over the black letter outlines one more time since a few were kind of buried under the colors. It was only really necessary on a few of letters (most severely of all being the "I" in the lower "LITTLE" seen below) but it really made all the letters pop a lot. Here are the finished products:

And here they are, all hung up in their home for the summer:

So beautiful!

What worked best: Everyone was really into the hand printing. And it was so easy too!

What worked least: One of my regular storytime kids said "the difference between this program and other programs is that we don't get to take any craft project home." It wasn't a complaint really, just a normal 3-year-old observation. But if I ever do a program like this again (which I would like to do!), I'd probably make matching coloring sheets so the kids can take something home also.

All-in-all, this was a super-fun craft that both the children and the adults really enjoyed!

Early Literacy Summer Reading Club 2015 (Little Helpers)

It's time for summer reading! Registration for this summer's reading programs starts tomorrow and I finally have everything organized, set out, and ready to roll. I was in charge of organizing this year's early literacy reading club (which I called Little Helpers) so I decided, hey, why not blog about it?

I named our early literacy Summer Reading Club Little Helpers since the Collaborative Summer Library Program theme for children this year is "Every Hero Has a Story," and the early literacy art seemed to focus more on community helpers. I had my graphic designer husband (shameless plug), make me a quick Little Helpers logo as well as some other matching text and, combined with the art from Jarrett J. Krosoczka, I started creating the pieces of the sign up packet. (Also, while we're on the plugging of my husband, he also made me the fabulous header seen at the top of my blog).

Anyway, here's what you get for signing up for the Little Helpers Read-to-Me club:

From left to right: Brochure & Activity Book, Vintage library stickers, Bookmark, Letter to the parents, Reading log, and the envelope it all comes neatly packaged in.

 ** The full Brochure & Activity Book can be downloaded here! **

** The reading log can be downloaded here! **

The bookmark is from CSPL Reads and the vintage stickers are really because we have SO MANY OF THESE, spools and spools, taking up space and honestly, they're still cool. So if the kids don't care for them, I hope they'll at least be a fun throwback for the parents. They were a throwback for me.

This year, the children earn prizes for every two books they read, up to 12 books, and a bonus prize if they hit 20 books. The prizes are:

2 books-- Fire Chief hat + Invitation to our wrap-up Brady Rymer concert
4 books-- Coloring Placemat
6 books-- Rubber Duck Community Hero
8 books-- Police Station Sticker Scene
10 books-- Hand Clappers
12 books-- Super Hero Sunglasses
20 books-- Beach Ball
Alternative prize-- Mini ABC book

I decided to add in the alternative prize because my reading club's ages range from birth to 5-years-old. Something like the Police Station Sticker Scene might be great for the older end of that range, but maybe not as good for the tiny babies. So, for any prize listed above, if the parents choose to, they can request the alternative prize as, well... an alternative.

This is what it looks like if you earn all 7 prizes:

From left to right: Brady Rymer concern invitation, Police Station sticker scene, Fire Chief hat, Clapping hands, Rubber duck community hero, Superhero sunglasses, Beach ball, Coloring placemat, Sign-up packet.

And these are the ABC books for the alternative prize:

Our final wrap-up party is a Brady Rymer concert, but unfortunately it coincides with my summer vacation so I'll be missing it.

Happy summer, everyone! We finally made it to June!