Yesterday was the first day of our Summer Reading Club. (Yes, yes, we start very early. Our public school system is moving towards a balanced schedule, which means their last day is tomorrow and they'll go back August 1 [not that I'm counting down already or anything.......]).
April and May are always the worst for me because the anticipation, the worrying over every detail, the not-knowing-how-it's-gonna-go is the worst. This year was maybe worse than most since we changed a bunch of things about our program - we changed the requirements, we're doing it online this year, and we have three new staff people who haven't done SRC before.
But we started yesterday and... I forgot how busy it gets. We had over 100 people registered by the time I left around 5 and some kids have already started to track their minutes. :)
This is our first year using Evanced's Summer Reader module and so far we're really liking it. We've got four laptops set up at a table near our Children's Desk so we can help people sign up. The only thing (so far) that I don't like about doing it online is that I feel like we're not talking with people and explaining the program as much as we have before. BUT maybe that's because the first day is the first day and we're not in our routine yet.
We've had some sign up online from home and I think that'll be bigger next year after people learn about it this year. We distribute information to all the school-age students and many of the preschools, but it seems like very few people actually read it. Or maybe we should have explained it better? I think people are just used to coming down to the library (hooray!), so that's how they're doing it.
We're wrapping up school visits this week and Miss Teresa and I are going to do booktalks for some fourth grade classes on Wednesday. Thursday will be the first day that the public schools are out. And then after Friday we get a nice, long Memorial Day weekend and the library won't be open on Sundays anymore (thank goodness).
Summer Reading Club? I am in it!