Thursday, June 19, 2008

busy as a bee

oh, i am so busy with my clever cleverness. how can you stand to be in the presence of such greatness?
summer reading is upon us and let me tell you that all too often the fun is sucked out of summer reading when you have to "perform" and get high "numbers." number schmumbers. i'm more interested in facts and actions than numbers.
but here is the loophole that i am enjoying ... the powers that be come up with a number that they feel each branch should hit. this number is based on the number of registrations the branch got last summer. now, we were closed last summer. miraculously, i was still able to get kids to sign up for the summer reading program. but since we were closed our numbers were very low. so i've been told that we have already surpassed our number requirement for this summer. and summer has barely started!
so no need for little old me to worry about such useless things as statistics. i am free to concentrate on important things, like actually creating a fun and enriching summer reading program. yay!
so here's what we have brewing:
All About Butterflies - as i mentioned before, the children and i will be raising caterpillars and then releasing them into the wilds of the hood when they become butterflies. today we had our first butterfly meeting in which we discussed the butterfly life cycle and talked about proper caterpillar care, ie do not shake your caterpillar. then we colored in pictures of caterpillars and butterflies and decorated them with glitter glue. glitter glue! so much neater than regular glitter!
Indoor Playground - this week i went to a really interesting meeting about the importance of play. it was fascinating. all about how kids are losing their imaginations and their ability to think and reason because they are being robbed of their playtime. so i came up with this idea to play outdoor games inside. we will make masking tape hopscotch boards, play soda bottle bowling, etc etc. i've ordered several books on school yard games and i'm sure i can think of one activity per week for this. oh i am so brilliant.
Book Buddies - now, i will not try to take credit for coming up with the idea of book buddies. but i have this one teen who is really great (he wrote the Welcome to the Library section of the newsletter) and when he saw that i had story times on the summer calendar he asked if he could read to the kids. and i said, "that would be awesome. but i do the storytimes." but i told him i would figure something out. then i quickly made up a book buddy flyer and decided that we will have older kids read to the younger kids as part of the Jr. Summer Reading Club (grades K-3). then i showed him the flyer and he got all excited that i took his idea seriously and implemented it so quickly.
damned i'm good.

6 comments:

Johnice said...

Yay for doing the butterfly program! I'm doing that too and talked another library into doing it also. I love all your ideas by the way. I've been reading your blog for quite a white now and I really enjoy your point of view, how creative you are, and your enthusiasm. I'm a Library Director in a small town 10 miles from where I grew up. Needless to say we have a very small library. So it's not so hard to believe that I got this job before I even graduated with my MLIS last May. Just wanted to say 'hey' and 'thanks' for giving me inspiration...because even a 26 year old Library Director gets in a rut sometimes.

Miss Dewey Decimal said...

thanks wrg! glad you're reading this and enjoying it! i actually know another young woman who has a similar situation (you don't live in western NY do you?) and it seems like being a young, small town library director can be both exciting and frustrating.

*Bitch Cakes* said...

You really ARE good and you make it look so easy! I'm always impressed!!

by the way, I think "do not shake" is probably a good rule for any living thing.

Miss Dewey Decimal said...

yes, in my upcoming book "miss dewey decimal's guide to basic pet care," there will be a whole chapter devoted to the various reasons why you shouldn't shake living things.

Johnice said...

No, I don't live in NY...quite the polar opposite actually. I'm from Arkansas actually.

Miss Dewey Decimal said...

i went to arkansas once. hot springs to be exact. it was quite nice there.