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| 2014 LEGO Expo Trophies |
My favorite library event is our LEGO Creation Expo. For the last two summers, we have hosted an expo as part of SRP. Kids enter a creation into of one of five judging categories based on
grade (K-1st, Gr. 2nd-3rd, Gr. 4th-6th, Teen, and Team/Family). I have three
local "celebrities" (a police officer, Chamber president, and an
architect) judge. Everyone who brings a creation gets a snack bag of brick candy.
The first year the Expo was a two hour event. Kids brought their creations right before the event, the judges judged, winners were crowned, pictures taken, everyone checked out the creations, and kids took them home. We had 32 creations entered and 80 people attend. One of my most proudest achievements as a children's librarian was the trophies I built out of LEGOs. (I loved LEGOs as a kid.) Families begged for us to do it again.
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| 2015 Winners of Team/Family category |
This past summer I planned the Expo as the closing event of summer reading program. We extended the viewing times. Over Friday afternoon and Saturday morning, we had 200 people check out the awesome creations of Oregon kids. I did not make LEGO trophies this year. Bricks are expensive and I didn't want to deplete the Library's supply. Winners were awarded a medal and LEGO key chain. I also displayed the winners in our display case. The display has been one of our most popular. We has a LEGO book display right next to the case that we constantly had to refill.
The Expo is an inexpensive STEAM program that brings people to the Library and promotes the collections. The best part is that the library kids are the stars.
3 comments:
This sounds such a fun & successful event - the numbers tell the tale! Everybody has LEGOs at home, right? But I couldn't ignore the question that popped into my head: what about kids who don't have them? As you said, LEGOs are expensive...
Geri, the first year I did host open build sessions. If kids wanted to participate but didn't have legos, they could build a creation with the library's legos. The legos did have to stay at the Library. No one came to those sessions. One family did but they thought you had to use the Tlibrary's legos. That is an option if the library has it own legos.
Cory, the trophies are first place or winner of their category.
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