Summer Camp Challenge

Recently, the director of a summer day camp called me about our policy regarding library visits and checkouts without parents. After some discussion, it seemed best that the day camp only come in to visit our branch over the summer, without the expectation of being able to checkout materials.

Our children's area is a very small space; the day camp has up to 15 campers and I couldn't see how well the logistics were going to play out there. So I told the director I'd be glad to do something engaging with her campers during their 30 minute visit. She was shocked. "You would?" she asked and my reply was "absolutely."

It's been a while since I've had an elementary-school age story time. For a time, I ran a juvenile
 non-fiction book club with some success. But it's been a few years since I've been able to read a book to a group of elementary schoolers. (I volunteer in a kindergarten classroom, but I manage small reading groups, and the children read aloud to me.)

After our phone conversation, it occurred to me that since our library system hands out a free book as our summer reading program incentive after four visits to the library, these children would be able to choose a book to keep at the end of our sessions. Bonus!

What a great group they turned out to be! We had a blast, reading Diary of a Spider, making paper plate spiderwebs and playing "stick the spider to the web." (For my program template, click here: http://nurturereading.blogspot.com/2013/07/summer-camp-story-time-grades-k-4.html)

It's been refreshing to get out of the groove and engage with elementary schoolers. So often, I only interact with that age group on program days, when there's not much time. Plus, these were children who hadn't visited our public library branch before--I'm curious to see if they come back to visit during the school year.

Summer day camp challenge:  crossing my mid-line this week.