Noemi Flores November 4, 2013 LIS 723 Non-fiction Program Assignment Welcome to Ancient Egypt!

This program was created to educate children between the ages of nine and twelve about ancient Egyptian culture and to whet their appetites for more Egyptian learning in the library! The specific topic ancient Egypt was chosen after conferring with teachers at the neighboring middle school. This program will coincide with the ancient history portion of the curriculum for the middle school students. This program has four stations, so at least four facilitators are needed. They dont all have to be librarians. Volunteers would be a great help, but there should be at least one youth librarian. It will take place in the library event room after school on Wednesday for one and a half hours. An estimate of twenty children is expected to attend, but if more arrive they will be accommodated. The Write Your Name in Hieroglyphics station will necessitate 1. a smallish poster board (but large enough to be used as a bedroom door sign) and 2. a variety of art materials i.e. crayons, markers, glitter, sequins, feathers, glue. What kind and how many are up to you. The child will use the hieroglyphics alphabet on their program as a guide to translate their name. They will draw it on the poster board and decorate it. The varied creations are always fun to see. The Make Your Very Own Pyramid station will necessitate 1. Poster board 2. Ruler 3. Pencil 4. Scissors 5. Paint or markers and 6. Scotch tape. The facilitator will guide the children in creating and decorating their own pyramid. The Make Your Very Own Papyrus Boat station will necessitate 1. 20 flexible drinking straws 2. Scissors 3. Duct tape 4. String/yarn and 5. Brown spray paint. The facilitator will guide the student in the creation of the papyrus boat. Lastly, one volunteer will be dressed as a sphinx and loaded with developmentally appropriate riddles and candy. All participants will receive candy for each riddle they answer whether or not they guess properly. There will be some riddle books available for them to look at and check out as well. This is an excellent opportunity to demonstrate the librarys strengths in a very visible, clear way. Knowing the library has resources is very different from seeing them in a display or listening to the beautiful music. So, this is the time to pull visually appealing and fascinating nonfiction resources about ancient Egypt, fun Egypt related fiction, Egyptian music etc. . As there is always a group of children aged nine to twelve at the library after school, there will not need to be much marketing. Its a simple thing to propel them toward the event room if they are tempted in the slightest. However, having an announcement made at school would help strengthen the relationship between the school and the library. Creating some large colorful signs would be appealing to and help draw in the children. This program will be fairly inexpensive since we are mostly utilizing resources/art supplies that we already own. We will need to purchase poster board, straws and candy. The price will probably be around $50. I consider this program a success in furthering the librarys mission. The librarys mission to enrich the community and build relationships through creative programming and an up to date collection has been served. The children are building community amongst themselves and between them and the librarians. The librarians and the teachers are building a relationship

between themselves. The children are being enriched in that they are learning about ancient Egypt and being provided with a variety of current, sound resources, while hopefully broadening their geographic and historic horizons.