In the summer time due to schedules changing for parents and kids being home from school, our library switches to a lot more passive programming. As such we will only run the Drop-in Storytimes on Mondays and Thursdays from 7-7:30 PM, Tuesdays from 11-11:30 AM, and Saturdays from 10-10:30 AM. Wednesdays will have the continuation of the only registered Storytime which will be the Steam Storytimes from 12-12:45 PM.
Storytimes in the Park
Fridays from 10-10:45 we will have Storytimes in the Park, which are the exact same as Drop-in Storytimes except we drive out to local parks and host them outside in the nice weather! This is our big community outreach program to go to local parks in the area on a nice Friday morning to bring the Storytimes close to our patrons that may not be able to make it to the library for storytime. These Storytimes generally produce great turnouts from the local neighborhoods close to the park and we get new faces that we don’t get to see at the library on a normal basis!
The big early literacy push besides having Storytimes every day we are open (we don’t open on Sundays in the summer) is through our Summer Reading Program. Our library offers a special summer reading program for children birth-2 that is called Baby Bingo! Baby Bingo is a bingo board and each square is filled with an activity that promotes the advancement of the six skills while incorporating the 5 practices. If the baby completes their bingo sheet by the end of the Summer, they get a rubber ducky toy, and a brand new board book. It is a terrific incentive for parents to interact with their young children over the summer and make sure that their is no slide when it comes to their progress. The rest of the children get to join the kids program which is 2 years old through 5th grade. They are encouraged to read with their parents and to fill out the program sheet with the activities and time logs. At the end of summer they will receive a free Culver’s Ice Cream Coupon for finishing half and if they finish the whole thing they get an additional prize of picking out any book from our large cart of books that we get for the finishers. The Summer Reading Program is still contentious for many in the Library community on its actual importance but at Warren Newport Public Library it offers us an opportunity to keep the young children reading and advancing their skills over break as these are critical years for learning.
Librarianship 