What are your plans for this summer to engage children, youth, and/or adults in using the library collection? We have LOTS of summer idea posts on the CLN so search for those posts using key words like “summer plans” or “summer reading”.
Bob Haskins posted their plans on page 2 of our brochure discussion. Maybe we can twist his arm to post the front side of the brochure here.
You will find LOTS of ideas from our past CLN posts by searching the word "summer" in the above search field.
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Our children's director worked with our pastor to secure books in various reading levels covering the topics of missions and missionaries. Families were encouraged to borrow the books and read them with their children, and then a follow-up book discussion/get together happened at a local park.
I loved Debbie's "Passport to Reading" map and visuals - it would have been a great addition to the missionary reading!
Update on our Passport to Reading summer reading challenge - we began yesterday and had around 46 or so people sign up, ranging from pre-schoolers to adults (and including a nice number of teens this year).
We created Passports for each of four different age groups and have decorated the library, inside and out, with flags from all over the world. Many of our prizes are world/travel oriented. In addition to the Passports with the reading assignments, we are giving participante (who want them) a blank "passport" and a couple of rubber stamps - just for something fun. The first week's reading reward is a small sheet containing 20 country stickers which can be put in those booklets as well.
I love this! Well done!
We do a summer reading program for the whole church. We have a number of kids and adults who participate. We invited all the children to the library the last Wednesday night they met before summer break and gave each a bag with summer reading info, stickers, a small craft kit, and a snack. We let them each check out two books to start the summer.
During the summer, we give a prize for each 10 books read. We alternate between 10 book prizes and slightly larger 20 book prizes. We ask each person who comes into the Media Center to put their name in a fish bowl and have a drawing each week for a prize bag. Everyone who reads at least 20 books gets an ice cream certificate from a local coffee shop at the end of the summer. Anyone who reads 100 gets a book put in the library in thir honor at the end of the summer. We try to choose a book that person would really enjoy. FBC Summer 2024 small.pdf
Our pastor is doing a summer sermon series on the parables. Last Thursday we launched a "gratitude" emphasis stemming from the parables since they involve gratitude responses. We are using two books to engage our readers. One for adults and one for kids. Here's the invitation we carried in last week's Enrichment Center email newsletter:
Last Sunday, Pastor Jay presented The Prodigal Son parable that illustrated the true meaning of gratitude. Let's use these two books to guide us to learn by experiencing the meaning of gratitude in our lives today. Drop by to checkout one or both books, or to drop a thought of gratitude in the Gratitude Jar on top of our return cabinet by the door. As you read Enrichment Center books this summer, ask yourself and your kids what the books make you feel thankful for? We now have a new jar and slips of paper for you to express your feelings of gratitude. You can use this in your home too! And yes, we have several of copies of these books.
Sadly, the picture I took of the display will not load here.
Our preschool minister is including blurbs about this emphasis in her weekly emails to parents of preschoolers.And I sent copy to our Communications Director to include bulletin and MidWeekly blurbs about the emphasis.Yesterday we had one family bring their daughter to draw a picture of what she was thankful for yesterday. This Wednesday our preschoolers are having a play day in our playground. Our preschool minister will introduce it to those parents.
We had a great response to our Gratitude theme this past week and yesterday. The Preschool Minister's office is right next to the Enrichment Center. She told me on Tuesday there were 3 different families hanging out in the Enrichment Center at 3 different times. In her Monday email to our preschool parents she invited them to bring their families during the week. I loved walking in to the Enrichment Center Wednesday morning to find the shelves had been used. It was pure joy to straighten things up. I also did such Sunday morning. AND we had several families drip by Sunday morning. One Mom of 4 thanked me for the gratitude theme. She shared that her 2 elementary age children have a hard time embracing gratitude. The 2 preschoolers have no problem with gratitude. She plans to bring out their once-used gratitude jar at home. She gladly checked out the 2 gratitude books we are using for this theme. I processed 5 copies so famlies could use them at home. I'm pretty sure some bought their own copies. Some of our adults also used a gratitude slip to put in our jar. Yes, I was very busy yesterday!
Our summer reading challenge kicks off this Sunday (been advertising heavily). The children's pastor created the 1st-5th grade challenge:
- read a book on his list (1-2 list, 3-5 list)
- complete an activity from his list (like design a bookmark, fill out his worksheet, illustrate a scene)
- turn in the activity to spin the prize wheel. Max one/ week. Prizes -toy box choice, -book from him, -card to McDonald's or similar
We in the library added on for all other ages:
- Read anything in the library. Get a raffle ticket when done. Max one ticket per week.
-For a 2nd ticket per week, fill out a rate/review slip for the book, to help others find good reads
- Raffle at the end for 5 gift cards to church bookstore or cafe.
- movies, audiobooks, audio teachings count too.
- reading aloud or being read to counts too.
These both run 9 weeks. We'll display the activities on a library bulletin board, and some in Children's Ministry. We'll tape the review slips to the shelf by each item.
(typed on my phone, sorry!)
Our church is running a summer reading club. I made bingo-like sheets on cardstock for 2 different cards. These included lots of different topics, books about God, book by x author, book with red on the cover, book about summer, memory verse, chapters of Bible,etc.2024 Summer Reading Club cards 1.xlsx; 2024 Summer Reading Club cards 2.xlsx This is open to the entire church. It will run from June 16 - Aug 18; We are having a celebration of reading on Aug. 24th. We just wanted to focus on getting more folks in the library.
The past few years we have tried to match our summer reading theme with whatever the children's ministry theme is for the summer. This year it is a Mystery theme. We plan on featuring mystery genre books, having weekly puzzles to solve and are even working on a scavenger hunt. Would love to hear ideas for a catchy theme title that includes "mystery" in it.
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