2nd Annual Stuffed Animal Sleepover Party

For the second year, Orland kids and their bedtime pals had a fun time at the Stuffed Animal Sleepover Party on June 14th. We had so much fun last year that we decided to do it again. This activity is the kick-off event for the Summer Library Program.

We welcomed the animals to the party by making tags for them that said:  "Hi! My name is _____ and I belong to ______." Each critter got a tag so we would know which one belonged to whom for the overnight stay.

 

The kids sat on a couple big picnic quilts for the puppet show. We did two short puppet plays, one based on I Will Surprise My Friend, by Mo Willems, and the other based on Sitting Down to Eat, a song by Bill Harley.

Our craft activity was making jointed teddy bears or bunnies. These were cut out of cardstock with an Accucut die, and put together with brads. Embellishments as desired.

The teddy bears were trickier to put together than I realized, and some of the younger children needed quite a bit of help. I had plenty of kits and plenty of brads. I did have a shortage of hole punches. They had to make a small hole for the very small brads that we were using, so that meant that half my hole punches didn't qualify. One hole punch per table wasn't enough.
 

After the craft we laid out the quilts and the kids tucked their animals in and said goodnight to their little buddies.  Goodnight, critters!
 

The critters had a great time overnight in the library, as you can see. They read books, did puzzles, got on computers, played in the antique card catalog, and hung out with their friends.

In the morning, the bedtime buddies all sat patiently on the couch until picked up by their friends. Every child got a photo of what his buddy was doing in the library at night.