1000 Books is Here!

Clip Art is by ReviDevi.

I've been dreaming and scheming about this program ever since I heard Marge Loch-Wouters give a presentation for a 2012 Summer Reading Workshop in which she mentioned the 1000 Books Programs she has been involved with.

We had a kick-off party with Clifford as the drop in guest. I read a Clifford Book, Clifford stopped in for some pictures, then he left for a "nap" so the kids could have some milk and cookies. While the kids were snacking, I took the opportunity to talk to the parents about the 1000 Books Program and the importance of early-literacy activities for young children. Clifford came back after his "nap" and walked around the library and took some pictures with the kids. More than ten families attended and I had 12 kids signed up by the end of the morning! 

When the kids signed up, they received cute little bags provided by our Friends of the Library with our logo on them. In the bags are little folders with a log sheet and instructions for how to participate.

The theme for our program is Build Your Reader or Building Tomorrow's Readers and uses construction vehicles and the log uses construction cones to keep track of books. The instructions are on one side of the page, the cones are on the other side of the page (front and back).

This also ties in nicely with our Picture Books Place arrangement of our picture books. After each 100 books read, the child will be able to put a window sticker on the building of their hundred books on our Wall of Fame.

The address on the building corresponds with the number of books read. When the child reaches 1000 books, they get to put a star with their name on it on the boulevard below the buildings!

As part of our Building Tomorrow's Readers, I have added an early literacy activity station to the children's area of the library. This week/month the activity is making cookies with stickers in relation to the Milk and Cookie launch party with Clifford.

After this week's preschool and toddler storytime sessions, we are up to 24 registered kiddos!

TIC TOC, TIC TOC

Cookies on the table, milk in the fridge, rug out for a story, book propped up on my chair, sign up sheets ready to go, bags packed and ready for distribution, activity for parents and child out on the table, check, check, check. Our guest of honor. . . wait, WHERE THE HELL IS CLIFFORD?????

All I can hear is the clock, as I sit here waiting for the FED EX delivery of the Clifford costume that needs to be here in an hour, that was sent over-night due to a mix up at the costume supply place. Sweating much? Our 1000 Books Before Kindergarten Kick Off starts in a little over an hour and I am pumped up for our program to begin, but Yikes! What is the worse that could happen. . . Clifford missed his plane.

Back up plan? Yeah. . . It's not nearly as impressive, but I have a Clifford hand puppet....

Fed Ex, you have one more hour, then I'm sending the disappointed kiddos your way.

Graph Nerd and the Easy Reader's Non-Fiction Section

There was a question on one of the list serves today about separating non-fiction Easy Readers into their own section, so of course I had to make a graph to show how well it worked at my library!

When I started at my library the Easy Readers non-fiction books were in with the fiction Easy Readers and the general children's Non-Fiction books. I separated them out, we have 50, and now they have their very own shelf at the beginning of our Easy Reader shelves. 

The year before I separated them, the books went out 19 times. I separated them in December of 2011. Since then, they went out 121 times in 2012, and 112 times so far this year!  So in the end, I would recommend separating them out. Why does that make them circ more? I have no idea. I can make guesses as to why. . . the main reason I would have to say is that they are easier to find. If one is looking for easy reader non-fiction they do not have to skim the shelves of the easy readers AND non-fiction, or they do not have to enter a complex search string into our OPAC. 

Let Down Your Hair

I had some extra yarn laying around,

 so I made up a Rapunzel braid for my fractured fairy tales display.

Summer Reading is Over!

Six weeks of summer reading has me BURNT OUT! Here's the run down:

Rubber Ducky Club (Birth through 2 years)

• Monthly literacy activities (this is a VERY passive program). The first month they get a duck, and the second month they get a free book.

Kid's Program (3 years through 5th grade)

• Opening day carnival (First Monday).
• Weekly Reading logs (kids have to read 15 minutes on four different days) with prizes and raffle tickets. Week six prize is a free book.
• Weekly in house activity (for raffle ticket).
• Weekly coloring sheet (for raffle ticket).
• Closing day party (Last Friday)

BRAND NEW Tween2Teen Program (6th through 12th grades)

• They get one log with 8 hours broken up into 15 minute chunks. After they read 8 hours they get a free book to keep, 5 raffle tickets and a bonus sheet with 5 more hours broken up into 15 minute chunks (for extra raffle tickets). 
• They can also write a "Book Blurb" for bonus raffle tickets which we hang on the shelves near the books' shelf locations (we had 63 on our shelves!).
• We had a 'Til Midnight Movie Marathon for them on the last Friday.

Mondays: Toddler Storytime, then Movie Matinee

Tuesdays: Preschool Storytime

Wednesdays: School Age Explorers

Thursdays: Junior Gardeners

The great news is that numbers have excelled expectations tremendously. The bad news is that they love it so much they want more weeks next year. I'm not sure I could handle one more week!