Thursday's Topic: Summer Reading update

   I finally posted the pictures from my Summer Reading bulletin board. I think it came out pretty well. One addition for the bulletin board for later in July, is to post a "luggage" that has the child's name. This will be for any child who stops in with a book log in the end of July and talks about one book.

   I was inspired today to write about Summer Reading after reading some of Abby the Librarian's great posts on her blog about the topic. In fact, I am going to link this message to her board.

   I am using this post to explain how we run summer reading in our library. I find it so interesting that each library does it in their own way. First of all, we had our "official" kickoff on June 9th. This was the first official day of signups. I am saying its the first official day because we had several classes who came in for library visits sign up for summer reading. We had an "unofficial kickoff" on the following Monday. This is when we had our big kickoff event. We were fortunate to have presenter, Emily Ellison come to our library. She did a terrific interactive music program. The kids were singing, dancing and playing instruments. Fun was had by all!

  The events will begin the week of July 5th. The first week we only have our Chess and board game programs and Creative Writing. The second week we start our crafts and Girl Scout Creative Arts program. We also start our storytime. For the storytime, we have 2 sessions. It is either one or the other session. We created two to accomodate the large number of attendees during the summer. In fact for most of our programs, we are starting a waiting list. I am wondering how to work the waiting list. I was wondering if anyone else had some sort of rule or policy for this. I have some ideas but not sure which one to do.

  The crafts and activities will relate to our theme of "One World, Many Stories". I like the idea of an international type theme, because as another poster said, I love traveling. Most of the craft programs will have a story or word game or other related type of activity. The Girl Scout program is a program sponsored by the Girl Scouts but is not limited to Girl Scouts or inspiring Girl Scouts. It is for boys and girls. There are four different creative arts activities. These include: theater, poetry, drawing and writing. We also have our volunteer chess instructor, who is back and is very good and is doing a Chess workshop with the kids.

  Here's hoping summer reading goes well. I will add more updates on programs and attendance and more later.