Masks–we found these at Oriental Trading–a really great find!
Minecraft Bingo–I found this amazing free printable on Life with Squeaker. I printed out these free bookmarks on cardstock and gave them out as prizes.
Finally, we used our trusty bluetooth speaker/party lights to play Minecraft parody songs, plus we used the screen and projector to show Minecraft parody videos. We did the songs from iTunes so that we didn’t hear the commercials on Youtube.
Thanks to Angie and Sara for the inspiration for this program!
The first station of the training camp was an obstacle course. Our ninjas were supposed to avoid the lava (red squares) and fire-breathing dragons, walk across the bridge (masking tape), then pass through the tunnel to complete the course. As you can see, my goofy dragons kept falling over, but it was still fun.
For the next station, Banish the Bad Guys, I did some quick research on Ninjago bad guys, printed them out and taped them to plastic cups. Originally, I was going to make ninja stars to throw at the targets, but I must sheepishly admit that my origami skills are not that strong. In the end, I decided that beanbags would work just fine. I think the kids agreed, because this was a pretty popular station.
The Dexterity Check station consisted of my beloved Lakeshore Learning trays, some linking cubes, and “chopsticks” (easy grip tweezers). The object was to move the cubes from one tray to the other using the tweezers as quickly as possible. I saw some pretty heated contests on this activity.
Your Ninja Identity–For this station, I printed out a ninja name worksheet and printed a Ninjago head on yellow cardstock. The ninjas were to use the code on the sheet to translate their name into a cool new ninja name. Then, they decorated a mask, cut it out, and affixed it to construction paper strips for the headband.
Finally, we had to have a Lego gadget building station. No surprise, this was the most popular station. There’s just something about building with Legos that never gets old.
Bubbles
Opening Song: Hands are clapping
Opening Game: Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes (3 times, faster each time)
Book: My Nose, Your Nose, by Melanie Walsh (available through PINES)
Book: I Love You, Nose! I Love You, Toes! by Linda Davick. (E HUMAN BODY DAVI)
Rhyme: Open them, shut them
Rhyme: Eye Winker, Tom Tinker
Song: Hokey Pokey
Book: From Head to Toe, by Eric Carle (E CARLE).
Closing Game: Animal Action cube
Closing rhyme: My Hands Say Thank You
Bubbles/toys
Activity: body tracing–parents/caregivers traced their child on a large sheet of paper, then the kids colored them in. This was a great activity! It was fun to see the kids and their adults talking about what they needed to add to their drawings.
Almost every summer we take the week before the 4th of July and do a puppet show at all of our branches. I love puppet shows, but sometimes they can be sort of stressful–managing multiple puppets and props, making the puppets I have fit the story, and sometimes even adapting the story to a puppet show script myself. This year I was a lucky duck because we happened upon the script for “Little Blue Riding Hood” by Nancy Whetstone. Y’all, it is SO GOOD. Really funny stuff and so simple to stage. We adapted it a bit so that we could use two guy puppets (we made them brothers named Ben and Jerry). The kids enjoyed the show so much. I highly recommend trying it out!
We also did the classic paper bag puppet craft. When space permitted, we left the stage up so that the kids could try out their new puppets onstage. It was a hit! It always amazes me how creative kids can be with just simple materials and activities. The kids had a great time creating their puppets, and I loved hearing the stories they told.
Bubble machine (sing Hello Bubbles and One Little Two Little Three Little Bubbles)
Opening song: Hands are Clapping (to the tune of Skip to My Lou) Hands are clapping, clap clap clap, hands are clapping, clap clap clap, hands are clapping, clap clap clap, clap your hands my darlings. (feet are stomping, bodies are wiggling)–I think this one was in this year’s early literacy summer reading manual
Opening game: Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes (sing 3 times–first time slow, second time a little faster, third time “super sonic speed”)
Book: Pete the Cat and His Four Groovy Buttons by Eric Litwin and James Dean (E CATS LITW)
Flannelboard Activity: My groovy (red) buttons. I printed these buttons onto different colored paper, laminated them, and put a bit of velcro on the back. I handed these out to the kids and instructed them to come up with their button when I called that color. Then I said “My buttons, my buttons, my groovy (red) buttons.” The kids with red buttons came up and put them on the flannelboard. Then we counted how many red buttons we had. We did this for each color. Then we went back and counted the total number of buttons.
Song: Bubble Bubble Pop. I made these cards and we sang the song demonstrated adorably (as always) by the Jbrary girls here.
Book: One, Two, Buckle My Shoe by Jane Cabrera (E COUNTING CABR)
Book: Dog’s Colorful Day by Emma Dodd (E COLORS DODD)
Parachute activity: 3 little monkeys jumping on the bed
Parachute activity: Zoom! Zoom! Zoom! We’re Going to the Moon!
For both of these we put my three monkey puppets on the parachute and sang/recited the rhymes. Three Little Monkeys got a little out of hand (they all fell off and some bumped their heads prematurely) so we had to put some of them back on. It wasn’t perfect, but boy, did we have fun! This is something I definitely want to incorporate more in my future storytimes.
Closing game: animal action cube–we toss this at the end of storytime and imitate an animal. This has really been fun!
Bubble machine and playtime
Craft and activity: bingo markers and teddy bear counter sorting
Whew! I can’t believe we are already several weeks into summer reading! Things are going really great–lots of trackers being turned in (great job, keep it up!!!!) This week at Leesburg and Smithville we had a taste of Rio in honor of this year’s host of the Olympic games.
We decorated masks with feathers, stick on jewels, and fruit stickers, and we also decorated wooden maracas.
I hooked up our Block Party speaker/light show and played some Brazilian music for the kids to dance to.
Finally, we offered Brigadeiros, a traditional Brazilian dessert made with sweetened condensed milk, butter, cocoa powder, and vanilla. I followed this recipe and rolled the mixture into balls ahead of time. Then we put sprinkles in a plate and the kids finished by rolling the ball into the sprinkles. These were a huge hit!
I LOVE post-it art! I thought that this year’s summer reading theme (Get in the Game–READ) was a perfect opportunity to try my hand at another project.
Once a month we have a program called Kitchen Explorers, where kids make simple recipes and–best of all–taste them! This month we made baked mozzarella bites.
We purchased mozzarella snack cheese (individually packaged “string” cheese) and cut each stick into thirds. We also melted some butter and put it into a cup and placed Italian seasoned breadcrumbs onto a plate. The kids used a fork to dip each piece of cheese into the butter, then dredge it in the breadcrumbs.
Then we placed the cheese sticks on a cookie sheet lined with aluminum foil. (We used a Sharpie to line off sections with their name/initial to keep straight whose was whose.) We placed them into a preheated 350 degree oven and baked them for five minutes. When they were done baking, we removed them from the oven and placed them into a cup with the child’s name/initial. The sticks were served with marinara sauce (from a jar) briefly heated in the microwave.
Wow! What a fun program! Today we hosted a tech petting zoo for our Homeschool Hub families and it was a blast! We recently purchased some new tech including Ozobots and Sphero. We opened the program with my awesome coworker/tech specialist extraordinaire Andrew running a demonstration with Sphero using the Sprk app, then the kids took turns driving it with the Sphero app downloaded to my iPod Touch.
We also played with Ozobots. We printed these worksheets from the website, but you can also draw your own with black, blue, red, and green markers. They come with a legend that tells you what sequence of dots to draw if you want it to perform a certain action, such as going into turbo mode. The kids had a great time with this, especially with the “Ask Ozobot” worksheet, which is kind of like a modern version of a magic 8 ball (y’all remember those, right?)
Finally, we also experimented with 3D coloring through an app called Quiver. You simply download the app and print out coloring pages from the website. When you turn on the app, the camera will automatically recognize the coloring page and 3d features will be activated. This adorable penguin winks and waves, plus you can access a game by pressing the blue snowflake icon at the bottom of the screen. 
