We had a wild opening ceremony to our TD Summer Reading Club, one of our best with almost 80 children signed up in our first afternoon (and another 15 by my writing this on Monday morning). So it’s shaping up to be a fun filled summer of reading, crafts and fun!
Our opening ceremonies kicked off with a couple of hours of activities in games which included: An obstacle course through the stacks of books, the death-defying Lego Firewalk, a hotdog and hamburger BBQ (sponsored in part by Lawrence Meats), and the super popular Ninja Rope. This was serenaded over by James Mannion of the Mechanical Botanicals.
This registration drive was to promote our initiative to keep kids reading over the summer. Kids who read more over the summer maintain their literacy levels. Then they can continue along with their studies at school without slowing down. Studies show keeping your children reading over the summer improves their grades at school… so keep reading!
We’ve had to scale back our program this year due to funding restraints so instead of having summer students to assist, the program will be run by myself (Mr. Chris) with the assistance of a clerk when available. So what that means is our regular 1 hour a day, 5 days a week program is now a 30 minute Storytime 5 days a week (Monday-Friday at 2pm) with a craft/activity on Monday, Wednesday, and Fridays.
We’re still incentivizing reading at home! By reading at home and reporting back to us (by Friday each week) children have a chance to win prizes each week by earning points for entries into our prize draws. Every 15 minutes of reading gets your child 10 points, and every 25 points gets an entry into that week’s prize draw.
We also have other milestone rewards for children as they read: Brag Tags and climbing our reading mountain. Every hour they read they can come pick a Brag Tag charm for their cham necklace! Children can keep adding to their necklace to show off to their friend show much they’ve been reading!
Our Reading Mountain is a display in the library where children can create a character to follow the path lines with minute milestones up to the top of Reading Mountain if they can read 800 minutes, which is our milestone as 20 minutes a day of reading is the recommended amount for children reading for 20 minutes a day five days a week. As children pass milestones, they will earn buttons they can wear to show off their progress as well.
We hope that all of these incentives can keep all of our children reading over the summer. We all know that you’re never alone when you’re reading a good book!
It’s not to late to sign up for reading club. Just stop by the library for the form.
