What a beautiful beginning to the library's Summer Read 2013 garden. The local Master Gardener's Association helped to plant donated vegetables. The garden was HUGE and the children loved to visit it. We also made crafts, read stories, sang songs, played games, and generally just had a great time. Special guests visited, we planted flowers, played with worms, made our own critters, and learned how to find materials in a library. We also had story time at community locations to bring our programming to the public at large. Our children and teen group (which met regularly for a homestyle dinner provided by myself and the library) ate the many vegetables from the garden. And our outreach students from local daycares and schools could visit the site and acquire an in-depth understanding of where our food comes from as they explored our many offerings.
Information Literacy Part of educating the public involves giving tours of the library, along with providing useful information about pertinent topics.
All children's programming at the Franklin Public Library was organized, crafted, and ran by Shannon Motter from October 2011 until October 2013. Story time at the Franklin Library and in the surrounding area through the library's Outreach Program often entailed puppets and crafts and a little bit of fun. This might mean Ms. Shannon being a cat or a pumpkin, or whatever goes along with the theme of the day. Busy Bees Storytime was every Tuesday morning and was the most popular offering of the library. So popular in fact, that it was divided into 2 sections on Tuesdays and another on Monday afternoons. The Monday program was called Crazy Bananas (ages 3 to 6 years). Busy Bees catered to 2 age groups, 6 and under and then 3 to 6 years. The library also offered a monthly Kids' Club for children ages 6 to 12 and provided music, stories, games, skits, and crafts. This program ran year round. Every December, the library hosts its annual Gingerbread Contest, which is open to all area residents. This year's contest featured 3 area business owners as judges. The library also offered a Winter Celebration Day for children ages 6 to 12 on this date.
Story time!!
Pirate Day for Busy Bees Story Time.
Every day was a different theme, but sometimes I really got carried away. Dressed as a Pirate, story time will always be more fun. We read "Pie Rats Ahoy" (Richard Scarry), visited with our Pirate Puppet, and made Pirate Spyglasses, among other fun activities (more stories, crafts, and oh, yeah, walking the plank).
Bulletin board and advertisements for programming.
Summer Read 2012
For the Summer Read, Dream Big READ! program I ran 3 age groups (6 and under, 6 to 8, and 9 to 12), twice per week. On Saturdays I ran an additional Family Movie Matinee. My most popular program was the 6 and under group, on both Mondays and Saturdays. With all of the programs, we read stories, sang songs, listened to music, made crafts, made our own science projects, had puppet shows, put on skits (with the older kids), and played games. I also had 3 craft days related to our Dream Big theme.
The Franklin Library (Children's Librarian Shannon Motter) also joined forces with the Oil Creek State Park (Naturalist Robin Baker) to offer the Owl Prowl on Justice Trail in Franklin, Pa. Families listened to stories, crafted coloring pages, and listened to and observed Owl sounds and habits along the trail. This was our biggest hit of the entire program.
Fall Fun Day 2012
At the end of October, children ages 6 to 12 were invited to join the Fall Fun Day. Baytree Farms donated pumpkins for the children to decorate. We also made crafts and read stories. They children even put on a skit on our meeting room stage.
Children's Pathfinder
I created a webpage and pathfinder for children to utilize as they learn how to use the library, the OPAC system, and research topics. You can access it here: View from the Moon. Don't miss the video tour of the Junior Room.
Want more ideas? If you're interested in Public Libraries, you may also like Educational Materials or Library Instruction or Educational Displays where I link to handouts and guides I have created, and discuss my seven requirements for great library instruction.
Librarians may also enjoy my thoughts on a basic Strategic Plan for an academic library. I give ideas for what steps to take in order to bring more patrons to the library with different types of programming and welcoming faculty and staff into the library community by including them in library tasks such as Collection Development, educational programming, and related endeavors. Organization Matters are important. You can view some of my methods for addressing staff schedules, daily library issues and so forth here.