Late Night in the Library- October

I LOVE being in the library! Now, granted.. it is overwhelming, but an overwhelming in a good way. My brain is constantly moving, I am constantly learning, and I am constantly finding one more thing that I love about my new job.

During this summer I was inspired by one of our Irving Library sessions that Jennifer Larariviere gave. I loved so many of her ideas such as finding a just right book..but I also loved her idea about parent involvement with parent/child reading event.  She did hers during lunch time, but after conversing with my principal that wasn't really a feasible idea.  BUT.. I did come up with another idea! Each month I am going to have a late night in the library.  The library hours are currently 7:15am-3:45pm every day (well.. except Wednesdays it is 3:00pm) but I know that sometimes parents can't make it to the library during that time.  We had our first late night in the library to go along with Trunk or Treat.  Now, Late Night in the Library will not always go with another event.

The idea:
-have a read-a-loud
-have a STEAM activity to go along with read-a-loud

Invitation sent out to all the students (there was a Spanish version too) I used  Picktochart to make this.. I LOVE this program!

The book that I chose to go with this evening was Big Pumpkin by Erica Silverman. I of course also scoured Pinterest for ideas on what our STEAM activity could be that would be fun, affordable and fairly easy. I came across this blog Fun with STEM: A "Punkin Chunkin" Catapult with Craft Sticks.  Thanks Heidi Songs for the great idea (and directions!) There are of course a ton of ways to do this activity, but I liked the ease of this one.

Materials needed:

-Popsicle sticks (7 per patron)

-masking tape

-we used candy corn pumpkins 

The Idea

Give parents and students a chance to work together.  Give parents a chance to sign up for a library card (and check out books with their student!) and of course share a story.  They also got to view the 50 pumpkins that were submitted to our first Book Character Pumpkin Contest.

I was super thankful that the specials teachers were there to help me out! Since people came in at different times, it was nice to have several areas set up.  I ended up reading the book 2 different times, with the 2 different groups that meandered through.  I also used a counter to count how many people we had come in.. we had about 70!!!  3 parents checked out 10 books.

Ideas for next time

I have the very high possibility of doing the next Late Night in the Library on my own, so now that I have done it once.. I know how to organize a little bit better.

-have station signs with directions in both English and Spanish

-Have materials in several locations

LOVED that I had Max help me out for this.

Next up.. October 31st is Texas Library Snapshot Day and my husband is SUPER excited to be the Guest Reader to 3 groups.  He of course will be reading Where the Wild Things Are.. and there will be a STEAM Activity go along with that as well.  The library will also be open for extended day until 5pm.  I plan to do 2 more read-a-louds that afternoon and STEAM activity for those that come.

Do you offer a Late Night in the Library? What different programs do you do?