We just wrapped up our Spring Break. Last year, as you might remember, we experimented with doing a week worth of mostly school-age programming. We had mixed results, but I’m glad we tried it. You can read all about what we did during that week here. But I was going to be out of town…
The key to unlocking American Girl was understanding that I had to understand the material AND that I should let the material guide me and guide the program. And not just the material as in American Girl but the material as in the specific girl I’d chosen: Rebecca. In reading the Rebecca books (I’m speaking here of…
Does your library host an American Girl program? For many years, our library has run American Girl during the summer. It was as close to a core program as our library has ever had hosted and certainly the closest to a core program for school-age. And yet. I watched as year after year it spiraled out of…
Why did I decide to host this event? Oh, if you work in a library and with children and teens you know why. You know that, for them, Minecraft rules their imaginations. At my library, the kids will play Minecraft for hours at a time. They play it together, they watch each other play…
Again, this is a program I chose to offer because of the sheer popularity of the books. Perhaps you are noticing a trend! Perhaps this has helped get you started thinking about what series/characters are super popular at YOUR library that could be turned into a single day event/celebration! (that’s what I hope anyway…) So…
Magic Treehouse was another event I decided to have based on the popularity of the books. These books remain wildly popular at our library and the fans remain as dedicated and intent as ever. We have multiple copies of each title and sometimes they are ALL checked out. I figured with a fanbase this…
This program was a modified repeat of a program we had two years ago. (Yes, you can offer the single-day programs again!) I know lots of libraries that have hosted Fancy Nancy events and I really suggest it. Fancy Nancy remains very popular at our library – often there are simply no Fancy Nancy books even…
I was inspired to have a Ninjago event because it was a word I heard over and over again on the lips of our 6-12 year old patrons. This was my sweet spot of ages this summer, so it was in the back of my mind. Then I read Sara‘s amazing and inspiring blog about…
A few years ago, our library made a significant change in our summer programming offerings. We switched from focusing mainly on sustained, multi-day programs to single day standalone events. (We still have some of the multi-day programs and I plan to write about all the positive ways we’ve changed them!) We themed these days around…
Yikes – you can totally tell summer reading chaos has eaten my life! Back in March I resolved to bring my blog back to life and commit myself to posting regularly. I’ve been doing pretty well with it (and it’s turned out to be much more satisfying than I remembered!) but then, of course, came…
