Caledonia Public Library

231 East Main Street | Caledonia, MN

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Petting Zoo

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As part of my internship, I design my own programs for the summer. One each month, so 3 in all. On June 27th, I had my first event of the summer. As a 4-Her myself, I know a lot of people with different farm animals around the county. So, I decided to ask different people to bring in their animals for the event. There was a steer calf, a miniature horse, two sheep, two rabbits, and a goat.

All animals were well trained so the kids could easily pet them without worrying about getting hurt. The event was even more successful than I ever expected. Around 300 kids and adults alike came to Gazebo Park for the event! That was the most ever for events at the library! Thank you to everyone who provided animals for the event and to the city for letting us use the park!

The Lorax

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The second event I helped plan for my internship was the Book-to-Movie Club. The first story we focused on was The Lorax. The first week there were 6 kids that came and heard The Lorax book. They also did various activities afterwards that had to do with the story. They made a Lorax craft, built truffula trees out of legos, answered questions about the story, and planted their own plants. Then the following week the SAC program brought around 30 kids to the movie week. Everyone gathered around the screen and watched the movie. Overall it was a successful couple of weeks for the library!

Meet the 2019 Summer Intern: Jenna Scanlan

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Hello all! My name is Jenna Scanlan and this summer I am the intern at the library!  First of all a little about me. I just graduated from Caledonia High School in May and next year will be continuing my education at Western Technical College for nursing. This position will really help me, because I want to eventually become a pediatric nurse. So this really helps me know how to care for children. I live on a farm in Brownsville with my two siblings and parents.
Some of my hobbies include reading, showing beef cattle, and spending time with family.
Summer Intern Jenna Scanlan
Some activities I have planned for this year are a farm petting zoo, a Disney trivia night, and several book to movie club events, an interactive movie, among other activities I plan on helping out with. I look forward to meeting so many new people during this opportunity.

Slime Night

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We had slime night on Wednesday and sadly, it was my last event as an intern at the library. About thirty kids came to the event which was definitely the largest group of kids at any of the events that I attended. We had two different slime recipes for everyone to choose between. One was glue, water, and detergent, and the other recipe was glue, baking soda, and contact solution. When they were done, they could put food coloring, shaving cream, baby oil, essential oils, flour, or sequins into their slime. After their slime was made, the kids decorated their slime cups. There were three contests to enter their finished slime into: the prettiest slime, the grossest slime, and the best sounding slime. A lot of the slimes turned out really well, and I think that the kids had a lot of fun.

           I had a lot of fun interning at the library this summer. My favorite part was planning activities and decorating for them. I really enjoyed working with the SAC kids at the passport club. I think that this has been a really great experience for me and will be benificial to my future jobs and eventually my career. I enjoyed working with all of the library staff and and the kids who came to the events. I am thankful for the opportunity this internship gave to get work experience and hope that future interns at the library will have as great of a summer as I had.

And the best slime is… ( The panel of judges has to decide)

Everyone is busy creating the best slime they can.

As you can see, the room was crowded, since the “Slime Night” was a popular event.

Escape Room

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On Friday, we held an escape room at the library. This was the first activity that I planned during my internship, and it turned out great. The escape room theme was crazy librarian, so there were cat pictures hung everywhere, and her desk was a mess.

“Escape Room” participants working on solving a puzzle.

How it worked was we gave the kids one hour to open a locked box with a prize inside. To get the key for the box, they had to use the clues in three smaller locked boxes. And then everyone had to look around the library and her desk for the combinations to the three small boxes. It was hard to judge how hard some things would be for them to figure out, so we gave them three chances to ask for a clue from Ashley and me. When they couldn’t solve the puzzle, they would split up so a few would look around for the next puzzle and a few would keep working on it. Sometimes, the group would bypass the first puzzle and find the next one without the clue that the first one would have provided. They were so close to getting the prize out of the box within the hour. They only went 30 seconds over so we let them have the candy anyway.

The Crazy Librarian’s to-do list for the day.

July 26th-China

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The SAC kids visited China this week. We started by making a KWL (what do we know, what do we want to know, and what did we learn) chart. Then we read Project Panda, a story about a boy visiting China and finding a lost panda. After that, we watched a video about pandas and their diet. The video and the book helped us fill in the W for what we want to know. Next, we watched a video of a picture book called Sam and the Lucky Money. It told the story of Sam and how he spent the lucky money his grandparents gave him for New Year.
When we were done reading, the kids took turns making spicy noodles, a panda craft, and looking at a picture book. To end the very last passport club, we went outside and played catch the dragon’s tail. It is a traditional Chinese game played by many children in China where the kids line up and the person in the front of the line tries to tag the last person in line. The kids in the middle curve the line to stop the front from tagging the back. We split them into groups and they ran around until the club was over.