Dear all

Having not posted before, I thought I'd share with you a project which
Thurrock Libraries undertook to promote both reading and to raise awareness
among the public at large that libraries are fun. 


On Saturday 23rd November 44 children, parents, teachers and library staff
spent the night in Grays Library for the first ever 'Library Sleepover'
called "Flights of Fantasy".  The children arrived at 7.00 p.m. armed with
sleeping bags and teddies.  Keeping to an airport theme, the children
checked in, collected passports and handed in sleeping bags and pillows.
After the welcome and brief safety talk in 'the flight lounge', the next
three hours were spent in workshops.  The children made ghosts and masks,
put on shadow puppet plays and wrote poetry.  The treasure hunt in the
children's library went down a treat as did exploring the fun websites on
the internet. After bedtime drinks, Sandra Agard entertained us with
stories, funny and scary in the Thameside Theatre.  Then well past midnight
everyone settled down to sleep in the library until the morning.  Amazingly,
we had to encourage the children to wake up the next day.   Breakfast was
chocolate muffins, cereal bars, fruit juice and yoghurt. Finally everyone
went home with new library books to read and goody bags.  

During the event the children and adults wrote comments on a graffiti wall. ·     "We had a fantastic night.... our imagination went into overdrive"
·     'Good fun....lots to do......not much sleeping though!!!!'
·     'What fun!!!'
·     'When I came in I thought it was boring but I was wrong. It was
cool'

It was a fantastic evening, fun for everyone, staff as well as the children
and their accompanying adults.  We are all looking forward to doing it
again. If anyone would like further details about the project, especially if
they want to run a sleepover themselves, then my colleagues and I would be
very happy to discuss this with you.

Katherine
Katherine Dodd
Librarian
Thurrock Council
www.thurrock.gov.uk/libraries


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