Drop-In and Get Crafty: It's Showtime at Your Library!

I always enjoy putting on this drop-in program to kick off summer reading. This year's theme was "It's Showtime at Your Library!" and after looking at different craft ideas, I knew I wanted to do this cute popcorn craft because it would go perfect with the theme.

Everyone cut out their popcorn buckets and glued their piece and their movie ticket onto their construction paper. The fun part was scrunching up yellow tissue paper to put a 3D effect to their popcorn.

This program is always a great chance to talk to patrons and inform them of upcoming programs.

We had some coloring pages to color and some nice Kids Bop background music.

Summer Reading Club Outreach

Today, I visited with a local school to tell 1st through 5th graders about our Summer Reading Club program at the library. It was a great chance to see the kids in the community and spread the word about a valuable program that promotes reading. 

I was able to tell them all the details of the program, answer any questions, hand out fliers to their teachers, promote upcoming programs, and read them a short story.

The kids were so welcoming and sweet and had a lot of great questions. It was also nice to visit one of my elementary schools as a kid.

Right now, it's all about gearing up for the kickoff this Saturday because after all, "It's Showtime at Your Library..."

It's Showtime at Your Library!

Drop-In and Get Crafty: Reading by Design

Reading by Design is our Summer Reading Club theme adopted from the Illinois Library Association and I always like to do a drop-in craft on our theme.

A design craft can pretty much be anything, but I narrowed it down to a mosaic craft. Because the drop-in is always scheduled the same day as the summer reading kick-off and because I'm happy to announce that we had our local public schools involved, I was expecting a bigger crowd. I had a great turn-out and made enough crafts available for over 50 attendees. I like how there is a two-hour time range to space everyone out and give patrons the option of coming in at a time that would be more convenient for them. 

For the craft prep, I used older construction paper of all different colors that was previously used and taking up space in our office and cut square shapes out of them. I searched the Internet for possible mosaic print-outs and found a total of six for everyone to choose from that ranged from birds to flowers and to fish, which was the most popular one. 

This was an easier craft to prep for and was happy about it too because with a bigger group, I didn't want it to be too time consuming. It also allowed me to use supplies we already had that would probably end up getting thrown out.

The kids used their imaginations to make colorful construction paper mosaics that imitated stained glass. It gave them practice with cutting and gluing while the older kids worked on the more difficult print-outs. Some of the group felt like coloring and we had that as an option too.

What a nice way to kick-off summer reading!