Stuffed Animal Sleepover

I'm not sure if Stuffed Animal Sleepovers are old hat in the library world by now, but I'd taken a fairly extensive break from them for while and, over time, wound up getting so many requests from patrons to bring them back that, finally, I did! Even though I've blogged about this program a bunch of times before, it's been a while (a year and a half!), and since each Stuffed Animal Sleepover has its own personality, and also because the pictures are SO DARN CUTE, I wanted to write about it again.

The idea of the program is pretty simple--a few books, a few songs, and a craft--but the real fun starts when the kids go home and leave their stuffed animals behind for an overnight sleepover party! SO HERE IT IS: My fifth Stuffed Animal Sleepover! Can't believe it!

As the stuffed animals and their owners arrived for the evening, I gave everyone a name tag. I've changed the name tags up a few times over the years but resorted back to my first ever version, because I think it's the best. I don't often use name tags in programs but they're important for the Stuffed Animal Sleepover so I can make sure the right stuffed animals match up with the right kids at the end. In fact, I take a lot of measures to make sure this is done correctly.

Once I took the kids back to the program room, I did a regular, simple bedtime-themed storytime. A list of my favorite bedtime-themed books can be found on my Recommended Storytime Books by Topic list. For this program I started with Bear Snores On by Karma Wilson (as usual), then I sang Five Little Monkeys with the monkey mitt.

After this, the kids moved on to the craft tables and decorated "sleeping bags" for their stuffed animals to sleep over in. In the past these have been pillow cases from Oriental Trading decorated with fabric markers, but this past time I changed it up and used canvas tote bags from Oriental Trading instead. Aside from this slight change, this is the same craft I've used for every Stuffed Animal Sleepover since I started them, but it just works! So why reinvent the wheel? The kids like it (even repeat attendees) and it gives them a way to "tuck in" their stuffed animals before they leave them, which I'm not sure I could do without.

Then, when everyone was finished (and when there was about 5-minutes left of the program), we wrapped up with one more book: Tuck Me In by Dean Hacohen. Then, to end the program, I had the group sing Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star twice-- once normally and once as quietly as possible so the stuffed animals could drift off to sleep. Then they kissed their animals goodnight, whispered goodbye to me, and tip-toed out for the evening. 

There's a very important behind-the-scenes step that comes next. Before taking the animals out for their library adventure, I always always always photograph each animal with its sleeping bag and name tag. That way, when the children pick up their stuffed animals the next day, I can match everything up right without having to worry or guess. Sometimes matching the sleeping bags isn't so easy so this step can be very critical!

Now on to the fun! Here's are the picture from the seven stuffed animals' big night out at the library:

Telling secrets in their sleeping bags.

Playing computer games.

Playing Gin Rummy

Playing other games: Connect Four, The Very Hungry Caterpillar Game, and Checkers.

Making Valentines.

Building at the Lego table.

Doing puzzles.

Choosing books to read.

Thanks to Mary, our clerk who stayed most of the night with me, each stuffed animal got a super-custom-picked book that matched them. Then, as a circulation bonus, when the kids came in the next day to pick up their stuffed animals, I asked if they wanted to check those books out, and guess what? 6/7 of them did! Here are a few of those animals and their books:

Upon pick up the next day, each kid went home with a pile of goodies: their stuffed animal, sleeping bag tote bag, name tag, a book chosen for them, and a set of photos from their animal's night out. As usual, the kids liked the print outs, but the parents LOVED the print outs. This has held true every time. In fact, I have copied and pasted this exact sentence from post to post.

What worked least: Rather than something not working, the biggest challenge in doing this program has been trying to do so much of it after hours. I've found that I just can't do too many of the photos while there are patrons in the library. Not only are there very few places you can set the animals up without disturbing people, I also just kind of want to keep the magic alive a little too. So most of the hard part is done after the library closes--propping up all the stuffed animals, taking all the photos, matching all the stuffed animals back up with their sleeping bags, and preparing the photo print outs (a Publisher document). I wish I could figure out a way to fix this, but right now, I can't think of a better method. It's not hard work per say; it's just hard because it's late at night and I'm super tired.

What worked best: Singing Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star and then singing it again quietly so the stuffed animals could "fall asleep" is sooo cute. We all whispered from this point on and this was a good, natural way to say goodnight to the animals and end the program.