SRP 2022 Reflection - Summer Programs

 

In my last post I reflected on the reading challenge portion of our summer program, and in this one I'll focus on the programming. Overall, the programming part went well; programs were well-attended and we received a lot of positive comments.

The way I organized summer reading and programming was very different from what my predecessor had done, but more in line with what most libraries seem to do.

SRP 2022 Reflection - The Reading Challenge

 

When I started this job in December of 2021, I knew that the summer was going to be hard and stressful, with getting a late start planning it, rebuilding from the ground up, having no idea what people wanted or what kind of numbers to expect, and it was my first time being responsible for actually planning and executing an entire summer reading program. I've lived through many, but always in larger systems where SRP was planned centrally by someone else, and only having to be responsible for planning my own handful of programs. But I was excited at the prospect of for once being able to do things the way I thought they should be done, or so I thought.

SRP Week 8 - Aquatic Reptiles

 

Since I had booked the local herpetarium for this last week of summer programming, I decided to use aquatic reptiles as the theme for this week's programs, including both oceanic reptiles and the freshwater reptiles that live in our land-locked area.

SRP Week 7 - Shark Week!

I've been doing "Shark Week" with my storytimes for several years now, since long before it was cool and everyone was doing it. I also was using "Baby Shark" before the PinkFong version went viral (my son hates the song and blamed me for it going viral, LOL, as if I were some big influencer 🤣). I'm not even really that into sharks, but I used to like Shark Week on the Discovery Channel, back when it was more educational than sensational, and I found it to be a really fun theme to do, plus a way for the younger kids to get into the Shark Week frenzy (see what I did there?) in an age-appropriate way. I was originally supposed to do a whole big Shark Week program during the summer of 2020, but you know what happened to that. So I incorporated elements of what I had planned for that into my programs this year.

SRP Week 6 - Boats & Floats

Last week was all about boats and buoyancy! Even though we are nowhere near the ocean, we still have plenty of lakes, rivers, and streams for boating.

SRP Week 5 - Under the Sea

This week had a general ocean/fish theme, with some fun books and activities.

SRP Week 4 - Pirate Treasure

I had mixed feelings about doing a pirate theme, but I knew the kids would have fun with it, and an idea for a program came to me that I really liked, so I decided to embrace it and focus on the treasure-hunting part. 

SRP Week 3 - Marine Mammals

 

As a land-locked state we really weren't able to bring in many guest performers, speakers, or animals that really tied to the CLSP theme of "Oceans of Possibilities", so I just focused on ones that I knew would draw a crowd and people would enjoy. This week we had a petting zoo with farm animals, and while none of them were sea creatures, most of them were mammals, so I decided to make this week's theme "Marine Mammals".