A Very Belated Read Across America Day!

Oops! I forgot about Read Across America Day! This is the last year of Seuss. It’ll be interesting to see what happens next year on Read Across America Day.

I went for a Dr. Seuss STEM day in my library. We had Cat in the Hat patterns, The Lorax Truffula Tree building, and One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish sorting.

I forgot to take pictures of the actual pattern portion. But I cut out four of the Cat in the Hat’s hat and colored them in with different patterns. I then cut out a variety of stripes, and the kids had to recreate the pattern on the hat templates I created. The back of each pattern also had suggested extension activities like extending the pattern, how many red stripes etc.

Using only recycled paper and my Truffula tree tops the kids had to build their own Truffula trees.

The fish are of varying size and colors, and some I drew hearts and dots on. I had the kids sort the fish by size, color, hearts, polka dots, and asked if they could think of any other way to sort the fish.

Overall, this was a fun program. We did it as a passive program, but in the future I think I’d run it as an hour long toddler/preschool STEM program.

Advertisements

Summer Happenings

We’re halfway through our summer reading program, so I thought I’d share some of our library’s happenings: passive and active.

Teen Fandom Passive Program:

One of our volunteens made this endcap sign for our teen area. It’s been super fun to see what teens are loving, and as a major Harry Potter fan, I love that Harry is still on the list. The list also includes, Percy Jackson, Shrek and Hamilton.

Stuffed Animal Sleepover:

One Thursday evening a group of kids came to their library with their favorite stuffed animals, and listened to a bedtime themed storytime. After storytime their stuffed animals stayed behind for an epic sleepover, which was documented. Obviously. The next day, the kids came to pick up their stuffed animals, and some photos. We had some lovely volunteers help us with a display to commemorate the shenanigans.

Captain Underpants Passive Program:

I found a template online and our volunteens have been cutting them out for us. We have the underpants and crayons/colored pencils available for kids to color in the library. They can take home the underwear or display it in the library. Of course, we can’t keep any of the Captain Underpants books in stock to display with the passive program.

Teen Club:

Once a month teens gather in the library meeting room to discuss books, get ARCs, play games and enjoy some snacks. While I’m not leading the program, it’s been fun to hear about!

We’re Ready for Fall

A little passive programming:

And some teen volunteer created desk decoration. We decided to celebrate the new Viking’s Stadium:

Passive Programming

I’ve come up with a few different Passive Programs for children at the library this past April.

We rotate play and learn kits and right now our kit is career themed, with lots of dress up options and career centered games. With this theme in mind, I created a display where children can color a “person” as their dream job, and then fill in the “When I grow up” sheet. So far, we have lots of Police Officers and Moms. Of course, I took a picture very shortly after we started the program. We have lots more people on our wall today!

April is also National Poetry Month, so I created a display in the Teen Area for blackout poetry. If you aren’t aware, blackout poetry looks something like this or this. Unfortunately my blackout poetry didn’t look nearly as cool, and neither did the teen’s, but they tried! And hopefully it got them thinking about poetry.

Finally, during Earth Week I created an Earth Yoga Sequence. I was not around that week, but I hope it went well! It was fun to create, and I hope to use yoga in storytimes and programs in the future.

Earth Week Yoga Sequence

Lotus Pose (take a deep breath)

Table Pose (stay calm like a strong rock)

Mountain Pose (stand tall and strong like a great big mountain)

Tree Pose (stand straight and grow your branches, like a tree. Don’t worry if you sway like trees in the wind!)

Mountain Pose (stand tall and strong like a great big mountain)

Tree Pose on the other side (stand straight and grow your branches, like a tree. Don’t worry if you sway like trees in the wind!)

Table Top Pose (stay calm like a strong rock)

Lotus Pose (take a deep breath)