Letter O Storytime

Letter O was a little bit thin (just wait until next week!), but we managed to find plenty to do – orange, opera, ocean, and owls filled the story portion, and then we did an octopus craft.  It was a little bit more “make it like mine” than I’ve done for most of this year, but there was still some room for personalization.  And there were none left behind, which was good.  We definitely notice more crafts left in the department when we do something painty or gluey.  I’m all for giving them the sensory experience of painting, but if it’s not going home anyway, I’d prefer to just cover the tables with roll paper and let them at it, and then leave the mess here.

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Letter N Storytime

We’re back to Storytime after winter break.  I don’t have any huge insights here.  Somehow it often feels like the first storytime of a session is a little bit flat, and it’s hard to tell if it’s the theme or just the difficulty of ramping back up again.  Especially with a theme like letters, you just have to take what comes, and we didn’t come up with as many potential topics for N as we did for some of the other letters.  (P?  I could do P for weeks!)  Still, we had fun with noodles and noses and naps.

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Hands-On Science: Balloon Science

This one was a mix of chemistry and physics, but all of the activities and experiments used balloons.  It was a ton of fun.  We popped a fair number of balloons, which was not that big a deal, except that a few ended up stuck in the new light fixtures.  Ooops.  That’s one downside to hanging light fixtures in a children’s Program Room.

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Boys and Books: How to Save Your Tail

Once again, we had a lovely Boys & Books session, with a lot of returning families and a few new ones.  We’re averaging 6-8 families per month, which is smaller than our Mother-Daughter Book Club, and a lot smaller than most of our other programs, but still a decent size considering it’s a boys’ book club.

What’s more amazing than the numbers is how much the kids who come love the program.  One of my 4th graders skipped basketball practice last night to come (and his dad is the coach!)  In fact, last night, the 4th graders who are coming for their second year started complaining about how they’ll age out in September – and it’s only January.  I’d love to see if I could get a 5th-8th grade group going (our schools start middle school in 5th grade) but I’m not sure I have it in me to do two book groups a month.

I suppose it’s a good dilemma to have.  And not terrible if they age out on the book groups but look back at them with nostalgia?

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