SRP Week 4 Reflection

This week was a bit busier than the last. I presented 14 programs with an attendance of 284.






The Stars Preschool Story Times went quite well. I initially had 3 books planned, but ended up only using 2: Stars by Mary Lyn Ray and Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star illustrated by Jerry Pinkney. I remember when I first read Stars back in the spring that I didn't like it. After reading it 5 times during the week, I really liked it. I even had one mom ask me if she could check it out. Jerry Pinkney's illustrations of Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star were fabulous. I liked the wordless bits best. The kids wanted to sing the song, but we couldn't get the pacing right.

The inspiration for my Good Morning Here, Good Night There School Age Event came from the California Library Association's Summer Reading Workshop. The original program used Turkey as the country. The problem I had was that Turkey is not enough ahead of North Carolina. Using The World Clock, I isolated those countries that were at least 12 hours ahead of North Carolina. I decided to go with Australia. Last summer, during the One World, Many Stories Summer Reading Program, I also did an Australia program. This time around, it was easier to plan because I has already planned a program like it before. I made a new felt board set for the occasion (coming Friday) to go with a song I found in the PUBYAC Archives ("DINGO"). I loved using Over in Australia: Amazing Animals Down Under by Marianne Berkes and illustrated by Jill Dubin. It worked well even with the older kids because they enjoyed locating the hidden animals. The origami koala was wonderfully easy. I made copies of the instructions, but I liked to walk the kids through the craft. I made 4 koalas in the course of the week.

The Jeopardy Night Edition for Teens was another program I borrowed from the California Library Association's Summer Reading Workshop (click on Teen SRPs 2012 Ideas.docx). I used the questions they provided. All I had to do was make the board and provide prizes. Six teens showed up and they played on 2 teams of 3. Our teen events are advertised for ages 11-17. The average age of the teens that attended this program was 11.8 years old. If I would have known that, I would have changed some of the questions. They all blanked on the Vampires in Literature category. The Shadow Animals category was hilarious. I should have practiced beforehand.

Seven tweens attended the Fairy Tale Movie Theater. The first thing they did was vote on their top 3 movie choices. The top 4 choice were The Princess and the Frog, Tangled, Sleeping Beauty, and Mulan. Interestingly, Cinderella didn't receive any votes. Then began the first set of technical problems: no sound. After fiddling for about 25 minutes, the branch manager and I got it working. About 30 minutes later, the 2nd problem began. The Princess and the Frog was the library's copy. It had been well loved and started to skip. I had cleaned the DVD before we started. I restarted it a couple of times, but finally had to give up and go with their second choice, Tangled. These difficulties made the event run a little late, but a good time was had by all. Of course, I also had a display of fairy tale retellings and pointed the tweens in the direction of the 398.2s.

I can't believe the Summer Reading Program is half over. Next week will likely be as busy as this one was. As usual, I'll have preschool story times, school age events, a teen event, and the 2nd stuffed animal sleepover.