Summer Reading Club 2015

Reading Tails

For every story time, we cycled through a variety of pre-selected books as well as
breaks, and for simplicity, each of our options is listed under the Story time
category.

Week 1: In Your Own Backyard

Story Time
Books:
1. The Secret Life of Squirrels- Parents really loved it and the children thought
the pictures were hilarious but the content of the story was somewhat
missed by the children.
2. Ernest- Adorable! Everyone loved it!
3. Hugless Douglass- Another adorable book and fantastic for an evening story
time! Everyone needs a before bed hug!
4. I Want My Hat Back- Hilarious! Kate and I made a hat just like the book and
acted the actions out as we read the story. The kids had a great laugh




Breaks:
Shakers-everyone would get a shaker and shake to music and wed play a
form of Simon Says where wed say shake really high, shake really low,
shake to the left, etc. They love it!
Animal yoga- wed pose, move, and make sounds of animals related to the
theme. A hilarious time and they certainly love pretending to be animals.

 Letter of the Day- wed select a letter, show the kids, practice the sound it
makes, and then wed show multiple things that started with the letter and
wed all make the sound of the letter and then say the word.
Puppet kisses and naming it- A moose! They LOVE finger kisses.
Mystery box- at the start of story time wed put some clues related to the
theme into the box and pull out one at a time to guess the theme! Then
wed take down the curtain on the whiteboard and reveal the theme and
some pictures!

Craft
Canadian Animal Passport
Since the theme of the summer was animals, we decided it would be fun to make
a passport to help the kids understand that we would be travelling all around the
world to visit some of the worlds most unique and lovable creatures. We were
surprised at how well they understood the purpose of the craft and they loved
getting to carry their own passports! The craft was very simple: we made a cover
booklet out of construction paper and then filled the inside with white paper
where they got to stick on animals they have seen in their own backyard, as well
as getting to write their name, draw a self-portrait, and even use the inkpads to
make a thumb print.

Scavenger Hunt
Bird Watching
This scavenger hunt was very simple and
can certainly be tweaked in the future to fit
almost any theme. We hid birds on the
walls throughout the Childrens
Department and each child had a piece of
paper with the picture and name of each bird, and they went around searching
for each of them while learning many names of birds. This scavenger hunt was so
popular it inspired our passive program for the summer (more on that below).

Guest Speaker Series

Nature NB
A representative from Nature NB came into the library for an hour to discuss
tracks, scats, and facts! The kids got an opportunity to see skeletons of some
common animals of New Brunswick as well getting to touch footprints and even
poop (you know the kids LOVED that)! They were very interested in the topics
being discussed and got to take home a coloring book with lots of great facts
about the nature in New Brunswick.

School Age Fun

Aboriginal Carpet Symbols
Animals are such an important piece of the aboriginal culture and we felt it
particularly valuable to incorporate Aboriginal topics into a discussion about New
Brunswick and Canada.
We used a resource provided by Patricia Knockwood and developed a program
around the animals featured on the Aboriginal storytime carpet. We chose several
animals and used their characteristics to develop an activity based on it. The
following are the activities and animals we used:
Turtle= Clever and related to time: Built a fishing rod out of selected
supplies and then added tape to the end of their rod to catch a fish located
at a designated distance away from where they built their fishing rod.
Loon= Generous and messengers: We sketched a poster on Bristol board of
4 blank heads and necks, along with lines for a message and squares
around the edge (a border). Many directions were cut up from paper and
the kids took turns piecing together a direction and then heading to the
board to add in whatever their direction said. The intention was for the
children to give a thank you note to the Kim, Loralie and Nancy and they
had directions about adding features to their heads, writing a message, and

decorating the border with symbols from the carpet. An example of a

direction is: add hair to Kim.
Bear= Balance: An obstacle course involving the kids pairing up and holding
the opposite ends of a board and carrying it through the obstacle course
without dropping the marble from their board.
The children seemed to have a
fantastic time and particularly
loved the loon activity. They got
to take home a mobile that they
created with the symbols from
the carpet and they especially
loved giving the library their
thank you message. They also
seemed to have really taken
away some important lessons
about Aboriginal culture.

Week 2: Prehistoric Friends

Story Time
Books:
1. Dinosaurs Love Underpants- An absolute hit with the children...probably
because you get to read about underpants, which induces an abundance of
laughter.
2. Cave Baby- A great take on the lifestyle of being a child in Prehistoric times.
Kids loved the happy ending of this book.
3. Me Want Pet- Another great read about being a child in Prehistoric times. I
think most kids can relate to the childs desire to have a pet! Plus, you get
to read it in a hilariously written dialogue.
4. RAWR- While simplistic, it is a great read about dinosaurs for the younger
groups.

5. Dinosaur Rescue- Not the best read-aloud but the boys in particular loved
it!
6. Mammoths on the Move- An excellent story for adding some diversity in
animal life for a prehistoric theme, but best used on an audience who is
able to listen to a longer story.

Breaks:
Im a Mean Old Dinosaur (to the tune of Im a Little Teapot):

Im a mean old dinosaur

Big and Tall
Here is my Tail
Here is my Claw
When I get all hungry
I just growl
So look out kids Im on the prowl
Dino Stomp- a song on YouTube we danced and sang to
Dino yoga and roars
Letter of the day
Puppet kisses with the big dinosaur puppet
Mystery box

Craft
Fossils
We pre-prepared fossils out of flour, salt, and water, and then imprinted
footprints and dinosaur shapes using small dinosaur figurines and then baked

them for 40 minutes at 325 degrees Celsius. After cooling, each child got a fossil
and then had the opportunity to paint and decorate the fossil. Though it was a
minimal crafting process, the kids got a chance to take home a really great thing
that many of them showed us for several weeks after.

Scavenger Hunt
Dino Hunt!
This weeks scavenger hunt involved
each child getting a treasure map that
we created and followed it to find
different dinosaur bone parts. They
collected one at each location and then
got to create their own dinosaurs by
piecing them together at the end of the
hunt!

Guest Speaker Series

The Quartermain Earth Science Museum
A UNB employee who works at the museum came in with a great presentation on
New Brunswick millions of years ago, as well as an excellent demonstration about
the different eras and what a timeline is. At the end of the program, the children
had a chance to dig for fossils and make their own fossil. While perhaps a little
long and content heavy for the younger children, they seemed to have a great
time and were very interactive.

School Age Fun

Dino CSI
For this activity we enlisted the detective skills of the
kids to solve the mystery of what happened to the
dinosaurs once and for all. We chose 6 of the plastic

dinosaur toys from the childrens department and assigned them each a name
and personality, the task for the day was to use the hints provided to figure out
which dinosaur caused the extinction. The children had to figure out who, where
and what caused the extinction.
There were 5 stations for the kids to visit in order to gather evidence to solve the
mystery. Each child was given a top secret folder to collect their evidence in
and a secret agent badge to wear.
-Mug Shots: A photo of each dinosaur was placed on the window along with their
names and a short bio describing some interesting traits or hobbies each dinosaur
had.
-Crime Scene: The dinosaurs were scattered on a table along with pictures of
various items that matched the hobbies and past times of the dinosaurs.
-Tar Pits: A 3D replica of one of the items found on the crime scene was made
out of model magic and placed in a box. The box was filled with paper shreds,
ribbons, straw and other things and covered with a garbage bag. The kids had to
reach in and feel around and determine which object pictured on the table was in
the box. This is how they determined what caused the extinction.
-Watering Hole: Pictures of different locations were placed at this station.
Portions of one picture were blown up and taped to the back of a jar filled with
water. The children had to look through the jars and match the distorted picture
with a larger version of it in order to determine where the extinction took place.
-Extra Evidence: Here the children examined photos of the dinosaurs teeth and
photos of food left at the scene in order to determine which dinosaur caused the
extinction. At this station they could also choose one envelope containing a
bonus hint that would help them piece together the crime.
Each child made their guess of who, what and where caused the extinction and
then the story behind the crime was revealed. The children had a great time at
this program and all enjoyed trying their hands at crime solving. Most of the

children were able to figure out all of the clues and put together what happened
to the dinosaurs!

Week 3: Shark Week!

Story Time
Books:
1. Im a Shark! - An extremely
great read aloud! This is
maybe one of Stevens all-
time favorite books. Both
the kids and parents love it and is even better when read as a duo!
2. Smiley Shark- A very good story that seems to resonate well with the kids.
3. Clark the Shark Who Shared- A good story with an excellent message. Its
message is a little deeper and is a great read for kids who are in daycare,
since sharing is such a vital lesson being instilled in them.

4. The Shark Who Was Afraid of Everything- While not extremely comical, the
kids seem to really enjoy it and it is a fantastic length.





Breaks:

Ocean themed yoga

Shakers
Letter of the day
Puppet kisses with the shark
Mystery box

Craft
Shark Doorknob Hanger
A shark was cut out of construction paper to look like it was consuming a door
knob and then the kids got to add teeth, googly eyes, and decorate their shark.
They seemed to really enjoy this craft and loved the idea of attaching it to their
door when they got home! Simple preparation when busy in the middle of the
summer.

Scavenger Hunt
Shark Attack!
The kids used up close photos of different areas of the childrens department to
figure out where different sharks were hidden. They were also given a paper to
attach the sharks to, with a square for each shark corresponding to its name. They

searched for a variety of sharks, while having the chance to learn about more
than the ever famous Great White Shark.

Guest Speaker Series

No guest speaker this week.

School Age Fun

Sharks!
This week was in celebration of Discoverys Shark Week and so we did 3 activities
that helped us look into the life of a shark, on top of doing a slideshow of some
really cool sharks and facts. The 3 activities were:
Shark scent: The kids sniffed cups stuffed with Kleenex and infused with a
smell of some sort and they had to guess the smell of each cup. For
example, cup 4 had Kleenex with vanilla
poured onto it.
I Cant See: Just like how sharks have poor
vision, the kids were blindfolded 2 at a time
and went behind a curtain to crawl around
the floor and search for letters of a
predetermined word. For example, we
would tell the 2 children to search for the
letters to make up the word car and their
teams would then spell out the word once
they found the letters.
Build a Boat: Sharks are prone to attack man made items in the ocean and
each child built a boat out of a random assortment of items and then
placed them in water to see if it would float.
They seemed to have a great time and each activity was really successful in its
own right. I actually wouldnt have done all 3 activities in the same program if I
was to do it again as they seemed so interested in each activity that it was a bit

too rushed. They LOVED the scent game and the blindfold game in particular.
They have asked us since then if we were planning to do them again anytime
soon.

Week 4: So-Fari So Good!

Story Time
Books:
1. We all went on Safari- Excellent read and while doing so, we counted the
animals seen on the safari using an African tribal drum. A great interactive
story!
2. Oh Dear Geoffrey- A cute and short story about a wobbly giraffe! The kids
fell in love with Geoffrey!
3. Giraffe and Bird- An excellent story about friendship and a very good read
aloud.
4. Hippo Goes Bananas- A hilarious story that resonates very well with the
kids.




Breaks:
Drum counting during We All Went on safari- We would tap out of the
number we learned on each page from the book and count with the beat
and we would then count to the same number in Swahili.
Letter of the day
Animal yoga
Shakers

 Puppet kisses with the lion

Mystery box

Craft
Safari Blow Painting
Based on the traditional art method of blowing paint, kids got a piece of paper
and dipped a straw in paint and then blew the paint around their page, creating
an abstract and colorful background. They then took cut-outs of animals seen on
a Safari and decorated their painting. Getting the technique right for the children
was tough at first but if you water down the paint, it becomes much lighter and
easy to move around the page. They were so proud of their paintings and
thought, how often do I get to blow paint around?!

Scavenger Hunt
Animal Patterns
Each child received a booklet with 6 sheets of animal print paper stapled in the
form of a book and they used the pattern of the animal to search the department
for 6 different animals as well as books related to the animal.

Guest Speaker Series

Afro-Cuban and African Drumming with Jon Bailey and Louis La Rosa
The group brought in an assortment of drums and played a selection of pieces
that introduced them to Cuban music which was rooted in African history. The
presenters also discussed some of the history of the music and how Cuban music
is intertwined with African music and culture. It was an absolutely amazing
program that both children and parents LOVED! The children had the chance to
touch the instruments and play and dance along with them. One little boy had so
much rhythm that when he was asked to try a beat, he stayed up with them for

the remainder of the program and played drums alongside them! He was grinning
from ear to ear and had a fantastic time!

School Age Fun

Animal Rescue
A life sized board game
was built for this
program, modeled after
the co-op play game
Pandemic. The goal of
the game was to repair
the fences of animal
reserves around the
world and save the
animals that had
escaped. The children
were divided into 5
teams, each of which
was assigned a special role in the game. One child from each team stood on the
board at a time and switched with team members after each round of turns. On
each turn the children could perform 4 actions: save an animal, trade information,
travel, and repair a fence. All the children communicated and worked as a large
team to try and beat the game, which they managed to do successfully.
This was a good program and the kids enjoyed the idea of getting to play a life
sized board game, also, the fact that everyone worked as a team to win made it
non-competitive and fun for all. The concept of the game was a little challenging
and slightly better for the 10 and up age group. The game was successful,
however we had a younger crowd for this program which made game play a little
confusing at times and Steven and I had to help coach the teams towards
decisions affecting the game.

Week 5: Barnyard Bonanza!

Story Time
Books:
1. Interrupting Chicken- A good story and
some funny moments. Mediocre in
comparison to other stories we had read
over the summer.
2. Duck for President- An excellent story
with consistency throughout the story
that added repetition. It was, however,
very Americanized and much of the story was lost upon them as they didnt
know terms such as: president, senator, congressman.
3. Meow said the Cow- An unequivocal hit with everyone (children and
parents)! By far one of the best stories of the summer. While reading, we
could hear parents talking to their children about animal sounds and
everyone child loved correcting the animals and making the right sound!
4. Lazy Daisy, Cranky Frankie- The children loved the punch lines of the story
and adored the joke about purple underwear! Its also very short so its
great for a rambunctious crowd.
5. Russell the Sheep- It was a good story but mostly fell flat. The bedtime
theme was good for evening storytimes.
6. Chicken Dance- A funny story that transitions excellently into the actual
Chicken Dance!

Breaks:

Letter of the day

Animal yoga and sounds
Shakers
Chicken Dance
Puppet Kisses with the rooster
Mystery box

Craft
Chicken Hats
A very simple craft concept that made the children laugh endlessly! We rolled
paper using a template into a cone and then attached string to the bottom of it.
The children then decorated their crazy chickens with legs, beaks, eyes, wings and
more, and then tied them on their heads and walked around clucking like
chickens! One of the best crafts of the summer!

Scavenger Hunt
A Farm Harvest!
The kids used a series of rhyming riddles to search for stickers of different items
that can come from a farm (ex. cheese, milk, peas). While a little tougher for kids
who couldnt yet read, everyone still had a great time and loved filling up their
baskets!

Guest Speaker Series

Farmer Shelia and her animal buddies!

Sheila brought silky chickens, chickens, and a bunny to the library while discussing
with children about what a hobby farm is and why one does a hobby farm. The
animals were a HUGE hit! Kate was even pegged a chicken whisperer for how
the silky chicken sprawled out over her lap and didnt move for a long time!
Children and even people who work here are still talking about the bunnies!

School Age Fun

Library Game Night
This program mimicked the television show Hollywood Game Night except for all
of the games related to animals. They played a variety of games in teams of 2,
trying to gain as many points as they could. We created a slideshow of various
games for them to play. Some of those games were:
Animal ID: They would play against another person from the other team and bid
about how many words theyd need to use to have their team guess the animal.
Real or Fake: They would see the name of an animal and as a team guess whether
it was real or fake.

Tiled out: A picture would slowly appear through tiles and the teams would try to
guess what the picture is of.
Order Up: The teams would have to order themselves based on a directive
without speaking.
This was a huge hit and they had a
fantastic time playing it. It is also
minimal prep and a great program
for the middle of the summer.
They also feel very fancy
pretending to be on a game show.
This program was such a hit we
did it on our bonus week of
programs.

Week 6: Pawsitively Petastic (Pet Week)

Story Time
Books:
1. Bark, George- Highly entertaining! Absolutely amazing read aloud. A total
hit!
2. Pete the Cat and his Magic Sunglasses- It was a fun book and the kids loved
the repetition.
3. Naughty Kitty- It was a good book with some humorous moments but was
relatively flat until the ending.
4. The Cats Baton is Gone- It was a great read for introducing children to
some new words about music. The story wasnt the best, but it did get
some chuckles.

Breaks:

Letter of the day

Freeze dance
Shakers
Puppet kisses with the wiener dog
Mystery box

Craft
CD pets

A huge hit! They each got a CD with string looped on it and decorated the CD with
an assortment of shapes and body parts of different pets (i.e. fish, dog, cat). Not
only did they love making them, they loved naming them.

Guest Speaker Series

Fredericton Animal Hospital
They really made for an incredibly engaging presentation. They began by briefly
discussing their pets as well the kids, followed by a discussion and PowerPoint
presentation about caring for your pets and what pet needs can be. They then
gave the children an opportunity to take their stuffed pets to the clinic and get
checked by a vet! The children LOVED it! Their stuffed animals went for a checkup
done, their own band aids, and even some medical taping for the injured animals.
The presenter also gave them a bag of surprises which included: a mini story
book, coloring pages, and a tattoo.

School Age Fun

Fish Painting
Japanese culture has a very interesting way of preserving records of fish they have
caught using a stamping process. Our
program taught kids how cool and interesting
animals can be, as well as exposed then to
the ancient art form of Gyotaku (fish

rubbing). We caught a real fish from the river and the kids painted on a white
sheet with various crazy items such as: Lego blocks, bubble wrap, pipe cleaners,
combs, Styrofoam, cups, felt, cardboard, and foam, but no paintbrushes! Once
they were finished creating their background and it dried a bit, they came up with
one of us and used a brush to lightly paint the fish with black paint and then
gently pressed their page on the fish to stamp it with the fish body.
They also used Japanese characters to paint their names and decorate it.
The children couldnt believe they were actually painting
with a fish and had a blast creating their paintings. This
program was a surprising success to us and was by far one
of our favorite summer programs. We would definitely
recommend doing this again!

Week 7: Welcome to the Jungle!

Story Time
Books:
1. The Tree House That Jack Built A great story, kids liked the repetition.
The hidden surprise that Jack is reading the same book that we were was
very exciting to the kids!
2. The Jungle Run- The colourful pictures in this book were a huge hit and the
kids liked the comedic aspects of it.
3. Orangutangled A great new book that generated lots of laughs during the
storytime!
4. Solomon Crocodile The kids loved the happy ending of this story and were
very interested to see how it was going to end.

Breaks:

Letter of the Day

Shakers
Freeze Dance
Puppet Kisses
Jungle Yoga

Craft
Parrots
The kids made a parrot attached to a straw and strings (so it could fly when they
held it). They decorated it with googly eyes, wings, a beak, and streamers for their
tails and wings! They absolutely loved this craft and was by far one of the
childrens favorites.

Guest Speaker Series

Animal Yoga with Kali Schroeder
A yoga instructor came into the library to do a yoga program with kids of all ages
related to jungle animals. The children had a fantastic time and Kali proved to be
a remarkable instructor as she connected with the children in a fantastic way.
Not only did she teach them some of the basics of yoga but she also utilized a
story to build the yoga poses around. Not only did she have a great time and offer
her services to the library any time, the kids and parents were delighted to have
participated and expressed sincere hope that she would be back again soon!

School Age Fun

Harry Potter Day!
For this program we put together stations based on the Care of Magical
Creatures class that many Hogwarts students
take. Using the
book Fantastic
Beasts and Where
to Find Them we
made posters
representing a
variety of magical
creatures to decorate the room. Five games were
created to go along with 5 of the magical creatures.
- Niffler: Nifflers are attracted to shiny objects, so for this station kids drew the
name of a shiny object from a box and then had to dig through a large container
of shredded paper to locate the specific object they were looking for.
- Leprechaun: The book describes leprechauns as tricksters, and for this station
we hid a gold coin under one of three leprechaun hats. The hats were then
shuffled around and the kids had to guess where the coin ended up.
- Gnome: In a game of bean bag toss the kids had
to pull the gnomes (bean bags) from their
garden and toss them into the holes in their
neighbors garden.
- Sphinx: The sphinx is a fan of riddles and puzzles.
We created 6 Harry Potter themed popsicle stick
puzzles for the kids to put together.
- Pixies: We tried to recreate the scene in the
Harry Potter movies where the Cornish Pixies

escape from their cage and need to be caught. We cut out roughly 200 pixies and
gave each child a large ziplock bag to catch them in. Then we dropped handfuls of
pixies in front of a fan to blow them around the room.
Kids had a great time going through all of the stations, digging through the paper
shreds and running after pixies were the biggest hits of the day! We also printed
miniature copies of the Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them book and got
the kids to each design their own magical creature. We also made each kid their
own magic wand that they could decorate and take home.

Week 8: SCRANIMALS!

Story Time
This story time was very special as the children spent the summer voting on 7
books that were wrapped up and numbered. They had the chance all summer to
cast a ballot in a voting box next to the 7 books, with the number (without
knowing anything about the book) of the book they wanted to be read during
week 8s story time. There were over 120 votes cast! (AMAZING)
Throughout the story time, we unwrapped each book and of course, the children
loved guessing what book it could be and whether their book won the vote!
Books:

 Elmers Special Day: The kids loved seeing Elmer look different than other
elephants and they loved hearing about the party being planned. This book
was a HUGE hit!
Sugarlump and the Unicorn: The younger girls particularly loved it but the
story wasnt amazing.
I Loathe You!: The kids were very interested in it and it was a nice short
story.
Breaks:
Freeze Dance
Elmer Parade- we each carried a shaker and marched around Wild Wood in
a line, stomping like elephants.
Shakers
Letter of the Day
Mystery Box
Puppet kisses with the dragon

Craft
Scranimal blob
The kids painted the middle of a white sheet of paper with different colors and
then folded the paper in half. This produced a blob which served as the body of
their scranimal. They then used various body parts (arms, legs, wings, eyes) to
create their own scranimal. We added liquid glue to the paint to avoid the need of
the children using both glue and paint. The scranimals were hilarious and it was
nice to see parents also enjoy the idea of making a craft that didnt have a
correct form. It was truly a chance for everyone to be creative and silly, which
was very nice to see!

School Age Fun

Puzzles From Around the World
We decided to send the kids across the world to explore different regions and
learn how animals not only influence diets and habits, but also art and culture.
These are the activities we did:
Knot tying: This was related to island communities around the world and
how fishing is such a vital skill and activity and how they would tie and
untie knots many times throughout the day.
Mayan Puzzle: Much of the art in Mayan culture is extremely detailed and
convoluted and often features a lot of wildlife. We made a large cardboard
puzzle of a Mayan calendar for the kids to do.
Mummy Memory: Mummies are such an important part of Egyptian culture
and we dictated an assortment of items and then displayed an image of a
mummy with 1 item missing (ex. Pirate themed mummy) for approximately
5 seconds and then the children raced to find the missing item.
Asian symbol memory: We played a simple game of memory by using Asian
symbols.
Landmarks: We placed 10 names of countries on a table and then at the
other side of the room placed 10 landmarks featured on vintage postcards
and the kids worked as a team to match each country and landmark.

Week 9: Summer Hits!

We decided to do a bonus week of special
programming to close out the summer.
On Monday we had a craft day, where we
put out supplies that we had leftover from
the crafts all summer and let kids come in
and do whichever craft they liked. This
was a great way to use up already
prepared crafts and it got a lot of
creativity flowing in the childrens
department. During the week we also
redid 3 of our most popular scavenger
hunts, this allowed us to clear out unused
scavenger hunt supplies and provided a great activity for kids of all ages.
For our final week of school age fun we hosted a second edition of Library Game
Night. We popped popcorn and the kids had a great time answering all kinds of
questions and playing games. It was a close game and all the kids did a great job!

Story time
We chose the 4 crowd favorite books from the summer and put together one final
storytime.
Books:
1.
2.
3.
4.

Dinosaurs Love Underpants

Im a Shark
Bark, George
Meow Said The Cow

Breaks:
Dino Stomp

 Baby Shark
Letter of the Day
Animal Yoga

Craft
Fork painting
The kids were given simple outlines of a lion (or dog) head or a hedgehog, and
forks, ears, eyes and legs were placed on the tables. Kids were able to create
whatever animal came to their imagination and explore their artistic abilities
using the forks as paintbrushes. This was a great craft and the kids loved painting
with something out of the ordinary!

Decorations
Some of our decorations were:
An animal ruler on the door to Toad Hall-
We measured out lines to 9 feet tall and
put up pieces of tape for every half foot
and foot increment. We chose an animal
for each foot and taped it next to the
increments and it was big enough for the
children to stand next to the ruler and see
which animal they were similar to in size!
They loved it and you always got to hear
them say Im as tall as a _______.


We decorated the wall into Childrens 2 times: The first time was called
track facts and we placed different facts about animals with an animal
footprint. The second was a scranimal wall where we put up pictures of
mixed up animals and they got to guess which animal was actually real!

Survivor!
As an added
program for kids
ages 7-12 we did
the Survivor
program again this
year. The program
ran for 6 weeks on
Fridays at 2pm and
we registered 20
children. Each week
of the program
followed the same
format:
introduction, 2
games/challenges, search for hidden bonus idol, voting. During the challenges the
children either earned points, or a chance to get their name in the voting draw
twice. The program is designed so that children receive points in a variety of
different ways so that no one is left out. The games played each week are detailed
below.
Guesstimation: We put together large groups of objects (ie. Stack of
CDs, bundle of popsicle sticks, giant paper chain) and showed the kids
examples of a small number of the same items (ie. 5 CDs). They then had
to guess how many items were in each large group. A fun challenge, but
some of the kids on the younger side of things had a tougher time
guessing.
Giant Rope Maze: A floor to ceiling maze made from string was built in
Chickadee Hall. The kids had to navigate this maze to retrieve envelopes
of letters and then unscramble these letters to make a message.

Probably the biggest hit of the program, kids absolutely loved getting
through the maze and their jaws dropped when they saw it.
Memory: A massive game of memory was set up using a variety of
random objects from the library. Each object was hidden under a cup
and the kids had a great time!
Pattern Memory: Steven would quickly show the kids a pattern of
construction paper squares in different colours and the kids had to
recreate the pattern after it was hidden. The kids loved getting to test
their memories in this game!
Yes or No Pictures: We made a slide show of pictures taken around the
library and asked the kids a yes or no question about each picture after
it was shown. These kids were very observant and got most of the
questions right!
Thai 200: 200 squares of paper were placed on the ground, the kids
could remove 1,2 or 3 squares on their turn. Whoever took the last
square won! The kids enjoyed getting to play a strategic game like this
and they did a great job.
CD Swamped: CDs were arranged on the floor in a grid and each child
stood on a CD. The kids could move forward, backward or side to side
and once they stepped off a CD it was removed from the grid. The goal
of the game was to be the last person who could still make a move in
the game. Another strategic game that the kids loved!
Plank Bowling: Two wooden planks were set up on footstools with bins
assigned different point values along their lengths. The kids had to use a
paper tube to hit a tennis ball along the planks and try to get the most
points. The kids had a great time testing their aim in this game.
Tower Building: The kids were given 3 minutes to build the highest free
standing tower they could out of the supplies given. The kids did a great
job and some towers were almost a metre high, we had some budding
engineers in the mix!
Food Challenge: We set out 10 different foods (nothing gross) for the
kids to try while blindfolded. Each child got to spin a wheel to determine

which number of food they would try, and the kids got points for trying
the food and bonus points for guessing what it was. The kids adored this
game and loved trying to make their friends think they were about to
eat something gross!
Pom Pom Shooting: The kids were divided into two teams and each
team was given two pom pom shooters and a pile of pom poms. They
had to try to aim the pom poms into the other teams basket to win
points. The kids enjoyed getting to use the pom pom shooters, but
found it tough to aim them into the baskets.
Survivor was a great program and the kids constantly told us how much they
loved it! The program encouraged team work and sportsmanship and the kids all
got along great
for the 6 weeks.
Each child was
awarded a
million dollar
cheque
certificate and
book prize (with
Library Survivor
bookplate) at
the end of the 6
weeks.