In 2012, the Youth Services team at Skokie Public Library decided to create a summer reading initiative for middle school youth. We all know that pleasure reading takes a nosedive when kids hit middle school — something about all those junior high reading assignments — and we wanted to see if we could help to change that.
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Libraries know all about the “summer slide.” We’ve addressed summer learning loss with reading clubs and other educational programs for decades. As a matter of fact, some families have come to view libraries as a sort of summer school or educational camp during the longest, hottest days of the year. Whoever thinks summers are slow at a library has never visited a youth department in June, July or August!
Here at Skokie Public Library, we aim to offer a variety of learning experiences in every program cycle. That means we’ll have storytimes, performances, clubs and hands-on creation programs during every calendar period. When we want to allow kids to really dive into a topic, however, we try to think beyond our usual one-off programs. When we want kids to really explore, develop skills and make something, we offer multi-day boot camps.
At Skokie Public Library, we recently spent four months exploring different aspects of what it means to be human, as a host site of ALA's Exploring Human Origins exhibition. In one of our upper-elementary science programs, we focused specifically on the human brain and its memory capabilities. The program was literally sugar-coated, as you’ll see below.
Once a week in summer months, we have a program for kids in the small courtyard just outside of our youth department. The program, called Nature Play, is extremely popular with young children between the ages of 2 and 5 and their caregivers. It’s all about letting kids get outside with supplies and providing activities for exploring natural elements (like sand, water and dirt) — and, of course, getting a bit dirty in the process.
This summer the Skokie Public Library offered a drop-in program entitled Meet at the Lodge every weekday for youth entering grades 3 through 5. Meet at the Lodge was timed to be in conjunction with the free summer lunch program we offer through the federally funded summer lunch program; our goal was to offer a convenient and free opportunity for kids to have a mini-camp experience from 12 to 2:30 p.m. every day (lunch lasted 60 minutes, Meet at the Lodge lasted 90).