Kids 6th grade and younger joined the fun with our Fizz! Boom! Read! Summer Reading program.

We had 56 kids participating, six story hours, one pool party, and 15 kids with perfect attendance!

We talked about SCIENCE and did EXPERIMENTS!   **   We oohed & aahhed with Lyn Fenwick and her amazing pop-up books created by paper engineers.  **   We made stylish paper plate hats & learned about measuring with Leona Breeden from Smoky Hills Public Television.  **   We became firefly experts with Pam Martin from the Kansas Wetlands Education Center.   **   We actually Fizzed and Boomed and Read with Carrie Newdigger and her Science Magic presentation.   **   And, we had a Splashing good time at our Summer Reading Finale & pool party!

 We are so thankful to the Dollar General Literacy Program for their $1,500 Summer Reading Grant.  This enabled us to provide Mustang backpacks, earbuds, pencil pouches, activity booklets & color-changing pencils for every participant.  We also used part of the funds for instructional aids and to supplement our collection of children’s books, especially those relating to science.  Since 1993, the Dollar General Literacy Foundation has awarded more than $97 million in grants in 40 states to nonprofit organizations and schools that have helped more than 5.8 million individuals learn to read, prepare for the high school equivalency test, or learn the English language. This is the fifth year we have received a Summer Reading Grant from Dollar General, and their support has made all the difference in the programming we can offer our youngest, brightest patrons.  We are incredibly thankful for their commitment to literacy!

We are also thankful to wonderful volunteers (like Eileen, Debbie, Lexi, Jacob, Lisa & Jennifer), library board members (who provided all the yummy cookies for our snacks!), guest speakers (listed above), the Pratt Walmart (for $80 to help provide snacks & prizes for our end of program Pool Party!), the State Library (for $120 worth of prize books to pass out to all participants), and to the South Central Library System for their support.

Our 2014 Summer Reading Program is over, but we hope the POSITIVE REACTIONS we saw will continue to grow!  Keep READING, Kids!  See you next year! 🙂

*Note:  This year was our first year to have a Summer Reading Program for adults and teens.  The Stafford County Reading Challenge was a big success with 8 teens & 9 adults participating and playing reading BINGO.  Click here to read more.