Pizza Party: SRP 2019

The last two years we ended the summer with a bang with our ice cream social. I decided I wanted to try something different this year! Our local Casey’s convenience store told us at the beginning of the summer that they would love to partner with us in any way they can. That partnership came about in the form of pizza discounts! It was SO helpful because I had a lot of people signed up to come, so I was very appreciative of Casey’s for making a deal with us. Thanks Casey’s!

I had actually never had Casey’s pizza before but it is really good! Some of the kids were PSYCHED when I told them where the pizza came from, so we definitely made a good decision. The people who work at our local Casey’s are so great, one guy even buckled the pizzas in to my car!

This is a very unstructured program. It is just to celebrate another awesome summer of fun and reading! So the kids got their pizza and their reading prizes (if applicable) and then were on their way! We also had popcorn left over from the movie, and some suckers left over from earlier in the summer, so they were able to get some of that stuff too if they were interested.

And then it was all over! We had SUCH a wonderful summer. I have gotten a lot of compliments from adults too which is so great. Apparently it was a great summer for everyone!!

Circus Cinema: SRP 2019

I’m sure I barely even need to give you time to think about the perfect movie to show during a Circus themed summer reading movie event…..it was The Greatest Showman!

Kids LOVE this movie. I had so many parents tell me that their kids were obsessed with this one when we told them what we were showing. I set up the projector in the story pit and we watched on the big screen. I apparently didn’t get any photos of the kids during the program, but here is what the setup looks like:

The black paper on the windows really helps to block the sun, and I turned off all of the lights in the library so the screen looked a lot better during the actual showing.

We had popcorn for the kids to enjoy as well!

This one is a staple because it is cheap and easy and fun for the kids. We always do it during the week of the county fair, because a lot of the kids don’t come to library programs that week. I try to keep it a little more low-key so they don’t feel like they are missing anything AND so that we don’t prepare crafts or book a performer on a day that kids might not show up. This was our lowest-attended program of the summer, but we had fun!

 

Costume Parade: SRP 2019

One of our staff members had the idea to do a circus costume parade this summer! It was a really fun one! At the last minute, we moved our parade to the local retirement home because of rain. It was a really good partnership and I honestly can’t believe I didn’t think of it sooner! If we had paraded outside, only the adults who came with the kids and maybe some random passersby would have seen the kids all dressed up, but parading in the retirement home meant all the residents could see the kids too! It was wonderful.

We walked up and down the halls of the retirement home and waved to the residents. They had such a fun time seeing the kids and the kids loved having an audience!

At the end of the program, we had them all sit on the floor for a photo and we announced the winner of our costume contest! The winner was chosen by library staff, and she won a ticket to the Peru Circus! They were kind enough to donate several to us to give away, and this was the first one! I wish we had had categories for costumes and given out more tickets, because the winner had a joint costume with another boy. She was the ring master with the elephant, and he was the guy who cleaned up the elephant poop! He had a pooper scooper and everything. (you can see it in the bottom of the photo below) It was hysterical!

This was a really fun program and I would absolutely do it again! We are always looking for ways to partner with the retirement home, and I think this was a really good fit.

 

 

Cookies and Canvas: SRP 2019

The last few summers, we have done a cookies and canvas program. It’s like a wine and canvas, but for children! They always have a good time with this one because it’s fun to learn to paint something new on a fancy canvas and also I give them cookies so that’s a win! This is the only program that costs $$ all summer, and it is $3 per canvas to help cover some of the cost. I order these canvases from Amazon every summer. They are pretty cheap and a great size!

This year to go along with our circus theme we did a rally cute painting of an elephant holding balloons with some circus pennants at the top. It looked like this (this is a photo of the projector screen we used so all the kids could see the painting to don’t judge me for poor photo quality please!):

One of the ladies who works at our adult branch is a very good artist (she painted this cute guy) and she does cookies and canvas events for adults and teens once a month. Sometimes they book up! She had never done one for kids this age before but she graciously agreed to help us out!

We set her up at the front of the room with an iPad and Apple TV hooked up to project her canvas onto the projector screen. The setup looked like this:

So she sat at that table with a fresh canvas and a microphone, and as she painted the picture again, she told the kids what kinds of shapes to make with what colors to give them some direction. Most of them did a really good job! It is going to be a giant smiley face blob if I try to include a photo of the whole group, but here are some close up shots of kids painting!

And here are some finished products!!

And perhaps the most important part….the cookies!

Each kiddo got two cookies and a drink. We had water and strawberry lemonade! The painting was very fun but this part was definitely a hit!

Circus Crafts: SRP 2019

We always do a craft program in the summer because in my experience, kids love crafts! Some of the crafts we did at this program were leftover from earlier in the summer (like the sand art, or a story hour craft) but many of them were brand new. We tried to pick a variation of things for the kids to enjoy! I am going to outline each craft and show some pictures of the kids enjoying the program!

Sand Art

This one was a hit all over again! Earlier in the summer we did sand art and the kids loved it! We got all of the same sand stuff out at this program, in case anyone missed the big program, or if they liked it so much they wanted to do it again!

3D Circus Tent

This project was a little difficult! You can find the template here. The instructions are really easy to follow but it as hard for the kids to actually execute. Essentially you color the pieces, cut them out, and glue/tape the tent together. The ones who did it really liked the final product though!

DIY Juggling Balls

This one as an absolute smash. I ran out of rice AND balloons during the program. The link is here. Essentially you fill a balloon with rice, cut off the part you would usually tie, fold it over and duct tape it down. And then cut some circles out of another balloon, and stretch it over the rice-filled balloon. It was fun and easy and the kids really enjoyed it! (There was rice everywhere, but cleaning up messes is a huge part of my job!)

Clown Ties

I’m sure this is on Pinterest somewhere, but as far as I am concerned we made this one up as we went. One of my staff members cut out big clown tie shapes, and we gave the kids different shapes to glue on, and a string to wear them with. It was a fun and funny one and went really well with the clown noses they got as summer reading prizes!

Story Time Crafts

There were several of these and I am planning on explaining the ones that went along with my programs in additional posts, so I am going to post pictures of these crafts and just list the basic description.

Tiger Face Paper Plate Craft

Lion Mask

Elephant Party Blower Craft

Balloon Bunch Name Craft

Handprint Elephant Circus Craft

Popcorn Eyedropper Craft

Peru Circus Show: SRP 2019

Did you know that Peru, Indiana is the circus capital of the world? They have an active circus, as well as a circus museum! Peru is actually the city I was born in, though I’ve (almost) always lived in Greentown, about 30 minutes away. But the close proximity made this partnership absolutely perfect for our summer programs. Better yet, their week of circus shows was the week after summer reading ended. So our program flowed seamlessly into theirs, and I hyped up the circus all summer long! Not only that, but they donated some tickets for me to give away at the end of the summer. I know some of our patrons were going to take their kids anyway, but some ended up with a free ticket!

This show was sponsored by Edward Jones Investments in Kokomo, IN. The woman who I was working with from the circus works at Edward Jones and as we were discussing finances, offered to sponsor this event since she had ties to the circus. Without her, this wouldn’t have been possible so we were very appreciative!

I am not going to post a TON of photos of the circus performers because in my opinion that would diminish the surprise and spectacularity of their show.

I know this photo is a little goofy with all of the emojis but it was a full house and I wanted you to see it!

They had all kinds of cool acts and tricks to show us! It was awesome, but not as awesome as their show in Peru, so this was a great advertisement for them, and a great and fun summer program for us! It was awesome!

 

DIY Circus Performing: SRP 2019

We tried SO hard to think of out-of-the-box things for this summer and this was one of our coolest ideas. I was in contact with a wonderful woman from the Peru Circus who really hooked us up this year. They not only worked with us on this program, but they even performed a show for us, AND donated tickets for me to give away at the end of the summer! It was truly awesome of them to be so involved with our summer programs.

For this program, some of the jugglers from the circus came out to teach the kids how to juggle. I also had a friend (who isn’t in the circus) come out and teach the kids some hula hoop tricks! We split the kids into two groups, and had them spend about 20 minutes at each station. For the last 15 or so minutes, I told them they could pick whichever station they wanted and get some extra practice. It was a really unique experience for the kids and they had a blast!

Juggling

The guys who came from Peru were so wonderful with the kids. They were all young themselves (some really not much older than my oldest kids) but they have been practicing juggling for years and they do it all the time! I was running around and didn’t hear the specifics, but they walked through the steps of juggling with the kids, and talked about how much they practice to be as good as they are! It was really awesome. Here are some photos of the kids learning to juggle:

Hula Hoop Tricks

When I decided that this would be a great station to have, I immediately thought of my friend Cait. She posts videos on Facebook all the time of her doing some really cool stuff with hula hoops! She was so interested in teaching the kids even though she had never done it before. I was thrilled! She brought some of her own hoops to show them and I borrowed the ones they could use from the gym. It became clear pretty early on that some of the kiddos were too little to do very many tricks, but Cait was a good sport! She worked with them on how to hula hoop normally and how to do a few of the easier tricks. They loved it! Here are some photos of the kids with their hula hoops:

I’ve had a lot of parents tell me that their kids have been playing with hula hoops since this program! Fewer have told me they have been practicing juggling, but one did tell me her son told he he wanted some juggling balls for his birthday so I will call that a win!