| Introduction | For our last summer reading program, we decided to do A Very Bluey Christmas. Since Australia has Christmas during their summer season and the holiday promotes togetherness, we thought it was perfect. Little did we know how popular. We clocked over 400 people for our program. We did a two hour window. |
| Crafts | Inside our meeting room, we had all paper and craft activities. All credit goes to my coworker for these picks. Festive Cards  Letters to Verandah Santa  Ornaments  Puppets  Christmas Crackers  Tree Toppers  Coloring Sheets |
| Scavenger Hunt | To help break up the crowd, we had a scavenger hunt in the children’s department. Once the kids returned their sheet, they received a sticker and a free McDonald’s French Fry Coupon. |
| Outside Activities | We are very fortunate to have a large lawn space. We ended up using a chunk of it to create an outdoor play area. This was my brain child area. I crafted a “creek” in honor the creek epsiode. We put out water tables, buckets, and a baby pool. We filled them with sand, rocks, insects, fishes, and reptiles. We did advertise that there was going to be water play and to dress for a mess. We also asked that patrons finish up all their indoor activities before making their way outside. I was supposed to man the outside, but I ended up having to help monitor Santa, so a shelver helped me out. She ended up having the hose and if kids got the okay from their adults, she would get them wet.  Fear of someone drowning, I kept this primarily mud. The water in the picture got drained out before the kids arrived. I knew kids would climb into the pool.  Our “creek”. Kids would move the buckets to different areas. |
| Character Outside Activity |  We had a holiday tattoo station. Kids could either pick a holiday or summer tattoo. The line for this was crazy. I had to make a make-shift barrier towards the end because people were still getting in line after last call. |
| Santa | We of course needed Santa and some elves. We have a great partnership with this character company, and the owner helped us brainstorm some activities. She was able to get summer dresses for the elves and Santa arrived in his summer gear. |
Month: November 2023
The Day the Crayons Went to School Display
I took inspiration from The Day the Crayons Go Back to School for our 2023 school display. I talked with our volunteer about my vision and she came up with this!
MakerSquare: Crystallizing Watercolors
Description: Create a piece of art using salt and water.
Warning: Paint may stain clothing and furniture.
Supplies:
· Watercolor Paper
· Paint Brush
· Watercolor Paint
· Tablespoon of Epsom Salt
· Teaspoon of Table Salt
· Tablespoon of Water (not provided)
· Mixing Bowl (not provided)
· Sheet Pan (not provided)
Directions:
· In a bowl, combine the water and paint with the table salt and Epsom salt mixture.
· Swirl or gentle stir the mixture until the salt is dissolved. It is okay if there are a few grains. If the salt is not dissolving, add a tiny bit more water.
· Place watercolor paper in a pan or a flat container.
· Start painting with the paint mixture.
· Create a variety of thin and heavy areas on the paper. Thinner layers will have a shimmery finish while heavier layers will have larger crystals.
· Thinner layers will crystallize in about 2 hours. Heavier layers will crystallize in 24 hours.
· Enjoy the art piece!
Source: Fun at Home With Kids
Play-Doh Reads: Llama Llama Red Pajama
| Opening Song | “I Like To” by Early Emily |
| Hand-Out Supplies | Play-Doh, Play-Doh mats, popsicle sticks, straw |
| Action Rhyme with Play-Doh | Pizza Man! Pat-a-cake, pat-a-cake, pizza man (Clap Play-Doh) Make me a pizza as fast as you can. Roll it (Roll Play-Doh) Toss it (Toss Play-Doh) Sprinkle it with cheese (Pretend Sprinkle Over Play-Doh) Put it in the oven (Mime Putting Play-Doh in Oven) And bake it fast, please! Credit: SurLaLune Storytime I adapted the movement to work with Play-Doh |
| Letter Recognition and Tactile Focus | I found these awesome sheets from Pre-K Printable Fun. I laminated them for future use. The kids got to pick if they wanted to work on the lowercase or uppercase letter “P”. We then moved on to the bottom half of the sheet with making pumpkins. I started them with one large pumpkin. I then had them split their pumpkin into 2, 3, and 4. Source: Pre-K Printable Fun |
| Shape Tactile Focus | We talked about how quilts can be made up of different shapes and sometimes they are have circles inside of quilts. I created a sheet with a bunch of different circle shapes. Kids worked on filling their circles while I read Llama, Llama Red Pajama to them. |
| Book | Llama, Llama Red Pajama by Anna Dewdney |
| Song Activity | Before I started the song, I had the kids make five balls of play-doh. I handed out 3X3in poster board and had the kids put their “monkeys” on the bed. They could make their monkeys jump but had to remove a monkey when one fell off. Song: No More Monkeys by Asheba |
| Open Play | After we were done with the structured storytime, I released the kids and their adults for open play. I had tables out with a ton of play-doh tools. |
| Goodbye | Clean Up Song by Gracie’s Corner |
Gabby’s Dollhouse: Cakey’s Bakery
| Introduction | We talked about Cakey and all the food we were going to make! I was inspired to create food based around the characters of Gabby’s Dollhouse. I already had all the food on the table for easier access. |
| Treat 1: Kitty Fairy’s Fairy Bread | This recipe worked out great for Kitty Fairy, and it was probably one of the favorites. I researched several different versions and settled on this recipe. I recommend getting thicker white bread. |
| Treat 2: Mercat’s Cookies | I adapted this recipe to fit our theme. Instead of seashells I gave them goldfish crackers. I made sure to get the goldfish colors packages. For the graham crackers, I crushed them before the event and had containers at each table for the kids to sprinkle their frosting. |
| Treat 3: Cakey’s Marshmallows | Cakey’s marshmallows was the overall favorite for both kids and adults. I had a staff member staff this station, since we were dealing with heat. I would release the tables when there was space available. We thankfully had melting pots that she would refill as it got low on chocolate. We made it more budget-friendly by having attendees only dip the top of their marshmallows and then sprinkling their marshmallows. I believe this was the recipe used for our base. However, we did not use the oil since we had the melting pots.  |
| Craft | Our craft was a cakey headband. I made a template and had our volunteers cut out the pieces for the kids. |
| Dance Party | We finished up the program with a dance party to the Gabby Dollhouse Soundtrack. |
Gabby’s Dollhouse: Baby Box’s Craft-A-Riffic Craft-Ganza
| Set-Up |      This was not going to be a guided program, so I created a set-up to where patrons could float around and grab the necessary materials. I did create stations for each craft. I also provided the kids with buckets to where they could gather all their materials. |
| Craft 1: Hamster Kitties | I found this inspiration directly from Gabby’s Dollhouse youtube channel. I figured Hamster kitties would be fun to make. They were kind of a pain to make….. The kids loved them, but we relied heavily on their adults and a hot glue gun to make them. Honestly, I was slightly creeped out by my sample. source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Ne44nlyoBc |
| Craft 3: Pipe Cleaner Cat Ears | Again I took inspiration from the same video and made pipe cleaner cat ears. This was a nice compliment to the hamster kitties because it wasn’t as time consuming. I would heavily recommend in investing in a lot of jewels. The kids went gaga for them. I think I only have one sheet left. I also lost a strip of jewels during the program. source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Ne44nlyoBc |
| Craft 4: Baby Box Face Popsicle Stick | I always like to make a craft based on the character we are focusing on and I thought it would be fun to make a Baby Box Popsicle Stick puppet. I used mostly our die-cut machine to create my template and had a volunteer make up my counts. |
| Snack: Kitty Bagels | I unfortunately do not have any pictures of our snack craft. I set-up station with the snack pieces. When the kids were ready to eat, they would come up and I would give them the pieces to create a kitty bagel. I adapted my version from my source. To help save money, I did mini bagels. Each kid only got half a bagel. We used regular cream cheese. We still used the strawberries, pretzels, and raisins. Source: https://www.theinspirationedit.com/hello-kitty-celery-carrot-hidden-veggie-cream-cheese-bagels/ |
| Conclusion | This was a great hit. I would say the kitty ears and the popsicle sticks were the most popular. Kids were kind of half and half on the kitty bagels. Some took all the pieces while others only took some of pieces. |
Building Readers Display
This has been one of our most popular displays! We had to constantly restock it! Credit to my volunteer for bringing my vision to alive.
Summer 2023 Take-Home Crafts
Instead of doing a weekly themed storytime craft during the summer, I made punny crafts. The adults definitely appreciated it more than the kids.
These were the puns:
Nacho Average Friend-Chip
Best Friends S’more Ever
You’re My Butter Half
Orange You A Cutie
You Make My Heart Pop
Eggcellent Together
LIBRIONYIAN 