Go Green Week: Passive Program for St. Patricks' Day

Recently at my library, most of us have embraced the idea of passive programming or unprogramming as Tiny Tips for Library Fun calls it! We have had a more successful turn out with all day activities that families can do at their leisure. My Frozen program last January was this format and we also had a similar program on January 31 that we called a Caledcott Celebration.

We also had a good share of snow days and we've turn those dreary days into 3 successful calamity day passives programs for kids and grown-ups with cabin fever. They included showing a movie and pairing it with activities.

Needless to say, we got the memo from our boss saying "Let keep doing programs this way." Let's not stress on weekly clubs and activities with sign ups that no one comes to. Or crazy popular programs with long wait lists and many no shows.

I will say these types of programs are much less stressful to me. I look forward to planning them versus being stuck in rotation to do a school-age program and feeling like it was more of a chore. I volunteered to do more of these in the spring when we sat down to discuss our program schedule.

Sorry do I sound too giddy about it?

Well it's a rainy Saturday here at the library and the two kids in my department right now are being tutored (lame!) In case anyone wants to stop by for all day fun, these are my offerings.

Rainbow Necklace Craft.
I pre-cut a bunch of shamrocks from green foam and punched a hole in them. Kids can string them on a necklace and use rainbow beads to decorate them...with a twist! The beads are Fruit Loops!

Sensory Bin
A very popular option at our library.

 

Before Picture: St. Patrick's Day bin. Rainbow rice, green buttons and gem and some odds and ends from the Dollar Tree

Dollar Tree Haul- Foam Shamrocks, fake gold coins, green gems, and yes, shot glasses 
(Shhh! They make great scoopers for little hands). Cost $4

After Picture!

Treasure Hunt
Time to recycle another scavenger hunt!  This time the kids have to find the objects and the hidden words inside them to spell out the message. 

"Leprechauns are sneaky but children are sneakier! We can trust them because....."

(They are always after me Lucky Charms)

Feel free to borrow any idea you have seen on this blog for your library or school programs! May they all be successful!