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Program Goals Introduce kids to the library Give them something to take back home and interest parents in the library Make the library a fun destination Bingo Scavenger Hunt 15-20 minutes Explain how the game works Stay in the children's area Try not to run and yell Mark off the pictures on your bingo sheet with the crayon, then get a sticker and turn your crayon in for a penny for the wishing well The bingo game is a bunch of pictures of things in the children's area, scrambled. We usually have to redo it each time b/c things change.  You can see the original game boards here . You can either have them find everything and get one sticker or actually mark off lines of pictures and get multiple stickers. Depends on how much time you have. Storytime 10-15 minutes If you time this right, the kids can draw on the back of their bingo sheets while they listen. Selections A library book for bear by Bonnie Baker The Midnight library by Kazuno Kohara The first is good for talking about ...

Program Goals Introduce kids to the life cycle of a chicken Bring in non-library users Partner with schools and community This program doesn't have a way to count attendance, but it does bring us a lot of great publicity. Generally, I provide the incubator, my school partners provide the eggs, and local people from the community provide expert assistance and the materials for caring for the chicks for a week or two after they hatch. We started this in 2012 and have been pretty diligent about repeating each year. Things we have learned: Make sure you know where the chickens are going afterward. They grow really fast. Everyone is a chicken expert. Just smile and nod. They are stinky and need to be cleaned regularly. Make sure you have got somebody roped in for this job. Some chicks will die. It's great if you have a person on staff who comes in before the library opens and removes any unfortunate casualties. Staff and patrons are shocked when I say this, but I tell people all the...

Continued in 2017/2018 by my new associate, Terri. She's added in even more difficult challenges but has gotten a great turnout from kids who want to find everything! We did learn not to put money or candy in though... February 2016 This was a hard one to get a picture of! Winter Theme, January 2015 Winter Holidays by Jess, December 2015 Created by Jess, October 2015, Fall Camouflage Updated April 2015! We have a new list for marking off the items that includes both pictures and words and a sticker reward. The response was HUGE. We went from less than 20 to over 100 participants in a month. The kids were much more enthusiastic about the stickers than expected and I had to put stickers at the other desks, since they were enthusiastic enough to trek up to the circ and information desks and ask for their sticker. I started this in the summer of 2014. My aide put together the first one, then a volunteer, then I turned it over to my new associate, who does amazing work. We count partici...