I can hardly believe it, but the end of the Summer Reading Program approaches. Saturday, July 30th is the last day for you to log in your reading time, but you have until August 6th to pick up your prizes.
Summer Reading Program (SRP) has been a blast at Blue Springs North! Turpentine Creek’s Big Cats came to see us, and everyone got a chance to view and interact with these amazing animals. Mr. Stinky Feet paid us a visit, singing songs and entertaining kids of all ages. We celebrated the last Harry Potter movie with magical creatures, wands, and a costume contest featuring our own Harry Potter, Professor McGonigal, and Hermione. Firefighter Brian and his friends from the Blue Springs Fire Department taught the kids fire safety and brought their shiny red truck to explore.
So we are at the close of MCPL's summer reading program. During the past few months in Excelsior Springs, we had 750 listeners, readers, and teens enrolled in the program! Last Saturday, seventy-five of those participants took a free "trip" around the world as we celebrated their One World, Many Stories summer reading successes with a party! They had fun playing a game for each continent, receiving a souvenir bag, and participating in a raffle where several names were drawn for prizes at the end of the celebration.
Our second day in Italy takes us to Florence or Firenze, as the Italians call it. It’s beautiful, and art work is everywhere. Statues are throughout the city, and the most popular is one called David. I think he needs to be wearing a bookmark! We walked across the Ponte Vecchio, which has jewelry shops on the bridge. Other shops are selling leather items, so I’m looking for another pretty bookmark. Lunch was fantastic; it was a real Italian pizza with a salad at an outdoor restaurant.
This past week, a bunch of our very talented teen librarians got together with a single goal: to make a zombie movie. Wait, what? How is that relevant to the library? Well, we made a zombie movie to promote our upcoming Teen Summer Reading Program! The very short promo features teen employees and teen volunteers from around the MCPL universe. We had so much fun putting it together.
Do you catch yourself day dreaming about summer? I think everyone does from time to time, and everyone for sure dreams of being on summer break! This summer, plan to be involved with your kids in our Summer Reading Program. The program begins May 21st and ends July 31st. You will be able to sign up online after May 21st, or go to your local branch to sign up. Be sure to look at which of our 3 programs (Listener, Reader, or Teen) is the most appropriate for your child. Come and Dream Big @ your Library and READ this summer. Now wake up from your daydream!
There is less than a month before our Summer Reading Program begins! I thought it’d be fun to play a game to see how well you know the books in our collection. Can you identify a book just by seeing part of the cover?
It's that time of year again. It's warming up outside, students everywhere are counting down to the end of the school year, and here at MCPL, we're gearing up for the Summer Reading Program! In order to encourage kids and teens to retain the literacy skills they've learned at school, the library works to reward reading achievement when class isn't in session. Research has shown that at least 15 minutes of sustained daily reading prevents information loss. The brain wants to be stimulated, and we're in the business of making sure it gets its fill.
May is here, and The Summer Reading Program will start the last week of this month. And this year, we're excited to Dream Big and Own the Night with children and teens all over the area.
In preparation for this, several of our staff members go around to area schools and talk to kids about The Summer Reading Program. I'm lucky enough to be one of the staff members who gets to talk at local schools. Going around and getting kids excited about reading is one of my favorite parts of my job.
Launched in 1999, Get Caught Reading is a nationwide campaign to remind people of all ages how much fun it is to read, and how important it is for kids to read or be read to. Research indicates that early language experience actually stimulates a child's brain to grow and that reading to children gives them a huge advantage when they start school. How appropriate it is that MCPL's Summer Reading Program starts in May!
