We received these lovely words from Gillian Guilmant-Smith over at the Vancouver Public Library’s Children’s library:

She and her 4 year old daughter proudly presented themselves to request the medal that had been earned. While situating themselves to take a picture with our frame, the mom commented, “The SRC activities were really good this year!”

I responded, “Oh, so you did the online activities?”

And she said, “Yes, we followed them and we printed out the coloring sheets. It was very good!”

We love to hear these stories, so please share in the comments with the feedback you’ve received as folks make their way back to libraries to pick up medals.

As the end of the 2020 KSRC comes, I’m left thinking of ideas for the final wrap up week!

Usually here at the Salmo Valley Public Library, we have a movie day and go to the local pool for a couple of hours. Seeing as we can’t do that, I’m wondering if anyone has any fun ideas for a wrap up! A zoom party is out of the question, as our turn out for zoom meetings hasn’t been great. Any ideas are appreciated!

Thanks!
Grace                                                                                                                                                                Salmo Valley Public Library                                                                                                                        Kids Summer Reading Club Coordinator

We’re in the final stretch for this year’s Summer Reading Club and wanted to highlight the wonderful interest and excitement we’ve received for our caption contests.

On average we receive about 150 submissions a week between the two age categories and they’ve been an absolute riot to read.

Here is an example from a few weeks ago

And the runner up captions included:

• “The first flower of the decade!” by Liam
  “Glad to see you are taking it all in.” by NatDog

To build off this momentum, we want to introduce a Staff Caption Contest! Submit your captions below by next Tuesday, August 11th until 11:59pm and we’ll set up a vote and announce a winner on August 20th. The contest will receive an official Explore Our Universe SRC t-shirt!

And the winning caption is…

Thank you to everyone who submitted their captions!

First though, we want to do a little brainstorming and we’d love your help! Are there any theme suggestions you’d like to have included in the mix? Add a comment or use the form below and we’ll add them to the list!

We’ll leave the brainstorm open till August 15th. The following week we’ll send out a short-list of themes and then it will be time to vote on the three “finalists”.

Suggestions so far:

• Empowered
• All Together Now (emotions/sharing/mental health)
• Fizz, Boom, Read (science/learning)
• Paws to Read (pets/animals)
• Dream Big – Read (growth/dreams/learning)
• Environment / Nature
• First nations theme – spirit animals (Activity ideas: kids creating their own family pole with meaningful spirit animals)
• Brainstorming – Just as you wrote in your email, and also a little play on Victoria Public Library’s recent marketing award.
• We All Belong (celebrate diversity/multiculturalism)
• “Underground”, Sub-theme ideas: Tunnels (Chunnel; railway construction; mining (Britannia Mine partnership?); gold rush), Animal homes (BC animals including Burrowing Owls; badgers; moles), Geology (caves; rocks and minerals; volcanoes; plate tectonics; earthquakes), Archaeology, Paleontology (who doesn’t like dinosaurs?), Utilities (sewers; wells; water mains; fire hydrants; electrical conduits; underground streams), Bugs (ants, worms, bacteria), Underground Railway, French underground resistance in WWII, Underground homes for people (e.g. Coober Pedy in Australia), Bunkers, Catacombs
• Resilience!
• Way back when (history);
• The future is now (discoveries, trends, growing up, imagining the future);
• Around the world in 7 weeks;
• Friendship
• Explore the Biomes: animals, vegetation, weather and conservation
  Tropical Rainforest
  Temperate Forest
  Desert
  Tundra
  Taiga
  Grassland
  Savanna
  Freshwater
  Marine
• Manga/Anime
• Ethnic/First Nations’ Canadian Heroes

Be sure to mark August 12th (2:30-3:00) in your calendar when Astronomer Rachel answers more questions just in time for the Perseids Meteor Shower!