Dream Big Summer Education: The Bat
The purpose of our Dream Big Summer Education program was to show children how they can have fun learning at the library and to encourage them to read throughout the summer.
By show of hands we determined: 95% of the participants had fun at the library; 70% of the participants learned something new; 60% of the participants wanted to learn more about the subject; 80% of the participants wanted to come back to the library for more programs. Anecdotal responses included:
"Favorite part was seeing the live bat." "I really learned a lot!" Favorite part was... "When we got to see the bats"; "When we got to feel the bats." Originally, we had a goal of a 10% increase for our summer reading registration. The total number of summer reading program registrations will not be known until mid-August but for the first day of registration we had a total of 114 kids/teens sign up which was an increase over the first day of registration in 2011. We were able to increase and update our collection on bats. First we purchased Stellaluna which was recommended by the presenter and then we purchased a recently published non-fiction book on bats geared towards juvenile readers.
Traverse des Sioux Library System and Gaylord Public Library.
Partner Organization(s) Contribution/Role in the Program: Gaylord Library will organize, promote and advertise the presentation.