Summer Reading Program Crafts

More Fun Summer Reading Programs Stuff:

The theme for this year's summer reading program is 'One World, Many Stories.' Each branch is responsible for representing a different continent. North Albany is Asia (I think everybody wanted Asia so we got lucky). The bulk of our programs and decorations will have an Asian theme. When kids sign up for the summer reading program they will be issued a 'passport' and will be encouraged to travel to as many branches / continents as possible. At each branch they will be given a stamp of that continent in their passport.

I am in the process of brainstorming some Asian-themed programs for this summer. My idea is to represent as many different Asian countries as possible. Mostly it will be arts and crafts stuff. When we have a good bunch of programs to select from we can begin planning / scheduling things.

Each branch will take their best 1 or 2 crafts and share them with the other branches. We'll have a pool of 'international' programs that we can choose to host at our branch and offer another way for kids to collect stamps from other continents, even if they can't visit other branches.

So far I've come up with some program ideas that I'll list at the bottom. I'm trying to get more ideas so please post any that you might have either in the comments or in a new post. Also, I have a google doc that I'm working off of and I've invited Kevin to join because he has a google account. I want to ask Nina and Diane but you'd have to have a google account to be able to log in. Let me know if you have a google address so I can invite you to the google doc.

Anyway, here are some ideas so far:

Program Ideas (Asia)

Japan Candy Sushi - http://www.busybeekidscrafts.com/Dessert-Sushi.html

China Lantern Craft - http://www.enchantedlearning.com/crafts/chinesenewyear/lantern/

Japan Children’s Day (May 5th) - Cart Kite http://www.freekidscrafts.com/japanese_carp_kite-e336.html

Japan Origami Craft - http://www.activityvillage.co.uk/origami_for_kids.htm

Japan Fan - http://alljapanesecrafts.com/japanese-crafts-for-children/

Vietnam Dragon Puppet - http://www.adoptvietnam.org/vietnamese/tet-puppet.htm

India Fighter Kite - http://www.ehow.com/how_7562649_make-afghan-fighting-kite.html

Middle Eastern Crafts - Book coming from APLM (Middle Eastern Crafts Kids Can Do)

Korea - Yut-Nori Board Game (4 players) - http://tlc.howstuffworks.com/family/indoor-crafts6.htm

Summer Reading Program

Last week I attended the first Summer Reading Program meeting for summer 2011. Here are a few tentative outcomes from that meeting:

• SRP participants will receive a "reading passport" with blank pages for library stamps. Each branch will represent one of the 7 continents and will have a stamp of their continent. When a kid comes in to report on what they've read, we will stamp their passport. This will encourage kids to visit all of the different branches to collect all of the different stamps. North Albany is Asia. We will have various SRP events that may or may not have an Asia theme.
• I believe there will be one major kickoff event to start Summer Reading. This was held at Delaware last year. Not sure about this year yet.
• Last year's sign and reporting was all done online. This year we will return to paper signup/reports. Not sure if we will also have an online component for this...

We'll be having more meetings as it gets closer to summer. We're going to be having various programs to encourage kids to sign up and I'd like to do outreach with the YMCA and the school when the time comes. I'm looking for any and all ideas on how we can get our numbers up. Although it's a long time off, start thinking about programs, ideas, etc...