Pete the Cat Field Trip for Second Graders: A Guest Post by Brytani Fraser

Brytani Fraser is a first-year librarian in western NC where she provides programs for all ages in two small branches and advocates for small-town and rural libraries.

 Bryce Don't Play is going as Brytani's blog, The Neighborhood Librarian, for Halloween but adding GIFs because, well.  Here's her guest post:

I've used Sara’s ideas for field trip scripts a few times now and I give them an enthusiastic thumbs up. Since my library is small and my visitors are often in the Prek-2^nd grade range, the one that gets the most use is The Pete the Cat plan. Just today, I had 110 second graders visit the library and used the Pete the Cat adventure once again. Allow me to regale you with this real life instance of a scripted, themed tour saving my sanity.

My library is under 3,000 square feet, but I have the advantage of being able to use a large, public room right outside our doors. When a second grade teacher contacted me about bringing the entire second grade from her school, I came up with a plan to split her group and run them through the library like this:

-50-60 kids in groups A and B

-Group A plays in the park for 25 mins

-Group B comes for song and book in program area

-Group B splits into B1 and B2

-B1 goes for tour of library while B2 colors blank shirt template (to go with Pete’s shirt)

-B1 and B2 switch and repeat

-Group A returns to library and Group B goes to park to play

-Group A does the same as Group B

Having the theme and script (tested twice before) allowed me to focus simply on the timeline and scaling for such a large group. Everything was themed around Pete the Cat and His Four Groovy Buttons with four stations in the library providing colored, round stickers for buttons. This made our little library more fun to navigate. Or would have.

Today, the second graders arrived 20 minutes late with no call ahead and informed me that they still had to be out in 40 minutes. Because I know groups of traveling kids have the tendency to run late (especially when there are previous stops), I’d prepared for this. In the 20 minutes before they arrived, I had wheeled a cart with a projector down to an empty room on the second floor of our building (this room is not the library’s, but our city lets us use it in a pinch). I was prepared with Scholastic videos and a few books to amuse the kids who now wouldn't have time to transition between the park and the library. To cut down further on our time, I got rid of the button stickers for our stops in the library, which take a couple minutes to pass out to everyone for each stop.

There was still a little scrambling, but having a plan that I’d practiced before was an incredible help to me because I knew going in where I could cut back to save time if I needed to. (Hint: You almost always need to.)

So there you have it. Sara is amazing. Do everything she tells you. The end.

Brytani can go ahead and flatter me but I'm still not on her blog roll NOT THAT IT MATTERS or anything. I'm TOTALLY COOL with it. [EDIT: Okay she explained so I guess I have to find someone else to have a rumored imaginary online war with. POSSIBLY YOU?]

If you'd like to guest for me, email me at brycekozla at gmail dot com and I'll get you started!