Cats VS Dogs

This year we split our Summer Reading Program into two 5 week repeating storytime sessions (vs. the previous 8 week single session program). We had incredible numbers, people grasped the concept quickly, and it was no longer a cliquish event. There was less work for the Children’s Librarian in terms of planning five storytimes vs. eight, but we were all feeling the extra two weeks at the end.

I bring this up because this is the first time that our summer programming has run into August. At the beginning of the summer I assumed that we’d take August off like we’d previously done in terms of our monthly themes/decorating.

That all changed in early July when I realized that we had two big events happening in August: we were starting a new therapy dog storytime, and our first costume character was coming to the library. The character? Pete the Cat.

I had pinned this image from Pesky Library a while ago, so the basic idea was floating around in the recesses of my mind: Cats VS Dogs!

And I knew it was going to be a great theme as everything fell into place so smoothly. It was obvious that Pete the Cat would represent Team Cat. It took only a minute to realize who would represent Team Dog: Clifford the Big Red Dog! The red and blue color schemes were perfect!

So I made images to use in various ways throughout the month – click on any of them for a larger version for your own use

Brittany stepped up in a major way and took on the task of designing/executing the front windows. Brittany Mod Podged the tissue paper onto one side of white craft paper.

With how much natural sunlight we get in our library in the summer months, the color is perfectly visible through the non-tissue papered side. Its vibrancy is only a little muted.

To draw the lines and anything black on the design she used a basic black Sharpie.

Here are shots of it from the inside (which, believe it or not, is the plain white side of the paper):

I tried and tried to get a good shot of the exterior, but the downside of having awesome front windows is the amount of glare that happens – especially in pictures. But I think that you get the general idea of how dramatic it is for kids when they approach.

It wasn’t until these awesome windows were completed that I realized the somewhat funny dynamic between these two characters: Clifford’s looking down at the children as they come inside – all affable dog. Pete? Looking as aloof as a cat can look! I love it.

One of my big projects resulted from the fact that we move one of our activity tables near our circulation desk to serve as the grand prize book table for the entire month of August. This leaves us with a big empty concrete area near the back of our space. I can’t even tell you how my mind come up with this idea: let’s put life-sized Clifford paw prints back there!

It took Brittany doing some math based on Clifford having the build of a Great Dane. She figured that the pad of the 25′ tall dog would be 2′ around. So I took several sheets of poster board (had to add some extra to one edge to get it to approximately 2′ around), some red construction paper to bulk up the size of the toes, and made feet. It was incredibly fun to do!

You can see the sign on the side of the computer carrel in this picture.

Here’s the paw print that I made for that sign if you’d like to either do something similar, or just want a red paw print:

I was super happy that we had a pair of knee pads leftover from when we moved our children’s materials over to the Children’s Library for when I taped these down.

And I had to tape them like crazy since
1. kids would be hopping/bopping all over them, and
2. they had to hold up to being wet from either the nearby water fountain or our weekly floor mopping.

Once that was done, I posted a sign explaining to everyone what the paw prints were.

To continue the paw prints, and to also make a pretty easy display, I cut out (and hole punched) red and blue paw prints for our display area above our reading bench. There’s a cat side and a dog side, but any books that feature both dogs and cats go in the middle. This has been quite a popular display:

I’m looking for these images and will add as soon as (or if) I find them.

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[http://hafuboti.wpcomstaging.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/dog-side-logo.jpg

[http://hafuboti.wpcomstaging.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/cat-side-logo.jpg]

For our Great Wall-o-Pun, Brittany made a fabulous display featuring nonfiction cat and dog books. It’s been another highly checked-out display:

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I put together this month’s scavenger hunt with some help from my team. I was really stuck on challenging the kids with something new, while wanting to keep it as simple as possible for the staff. We ended up having kids look for dog tags in different shapes where kids would need to draw the shape of four different colored dog tags:

Any Cowboy Bebop fans out there? Yeah, I totally did that on purpose.

So far this has been quite popular, and there has been a lot of parents working with their children on this: YAY! We swap out the tags every Saturday to keep it fresh throughout the month. I printed the tags out on cardstock, covered the front with packing tape, and then used a small hole punch to make it look more tag-like.

Here’s a bunch of printables that you can use. I was sure to save different variations on the tags so that you can use whichever suits your needs. Click on any of the following to get a larger version of what you’d like:

In many posts I’ve mentioned that we give out stickers as prizes. In general, these are not prepackaged stickers. Instead, I use the spine label stickers for books and make custom stickers to match our theme. This time around, I made a dog/cat set so that the children can choose which team’s sticker that they’d like. It occurred to me that y’all might want to see what this looks like:

The kids absolutely love these stickers and are usually excited to see what the stickers will be each month.

Finally (<em>yes, it’s been a heck of a push heading into August</em>), I had the idea of using two money funnels to represent Team Dog and Team Cat. Initially I had planned on this being a fundraiser for our Friends group. But then my boss shared with me that she’d been in contact with the Pilger Public Library to see if we could do anything for them since they sustained some damage in the tornadoes earlier this year. They were happy with anything financial we could provide – so that’s what we turned the funnels into: a fundraiser for Pilger Public Library!

Here’s my dog/cat fundraiser funnels along with a very simple sign trying to explain what’s going on in kids’ terms:

This has been a HUGE hit. People have come into our library just to donate to one funnel or the other. Both parents and kids love choosing which funnel, and I’ve heard some <em>wonderful </em>conversations between parents and their children about helping others.

To help keep the fundraiser on people’s minds, and to let them know the status of this friendly competition, I turned our whiteboard into an update board:

And that’s been Cats VS Dogs month at our Children’s Library! WHEW!

I can only think of one other theme that’s had such a strong/positive reaction from kids and parents alike: LEGO month. But I feel like this month’s theme has really knocked it out of the park. I think that having the fundraiser to help another community in our state has given this a special feeling.

And finally, just in case you were wondering, Hafukiti wanted it to be clear that I’m totally Team Cat.

[http://hafuboti.wpcomstaging.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/cats-rule-yeah.jpg]

[https://hafuboti.wpcomstaging.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/cats-v-dogs.jpg?w=700″ alt=”Cats Vs. Dogs: a friendly competition between everyone’s favorite pets with Pete the Cat representing the cats, and Clifford the Dog representing, well, dogs]