Boo — And I Mean It! (Junie B. Jones Event)

Last night we hosted a Junie B. Jones event at the library, because, let’s be real, we all love Junie B. Jones!  We had a great sign up with over 25 kids on the registration and waiting list, but sadly only 11 showed up for the program.  But we all had a great time!  We double-booked ourselves with a Pajama Story (for our young patrons) and Junie B. for our elementary school age kids, which we hosted in our building’s large meeting space.  So obviously when there’s a large room kids feel the need to run around in circles, so I joined them, which made a perfect way to gather everyone up for a read aloud.  I read the first chapter of Junie B. Jones, First Grader: Boo — And I Mean It!  Some of the kids had read this book already, while others hadn’t so it was good mix.
Then we created paper bag bat puppets which the kids decorated, cut, and glued together.  Just a note about the template, I actually printed two templates and then created my own.  The template only has one wing, so I cut out two and flipped one over so the bats would have a right wing and left wing.  It all fit on one piece of paper, which I then photocopied.  Also, the template doesn’t come with ears… some of my kids asked, so we encouraged them to make their own.  I am always shocked by how much difficulty some kids have using scissors, so anytime I get the chance, I encourage them to do the cutting for the craft.  The craft was also simple enough that most of the kids didn’t need any instruction on putting it together, which allowed for creativity and imagination.  I also gave them an illustration of Junie B. that could be colored in.  Although, a few kids had the time to give Junie B. a Halloween costume, most took their picture home to work on.
The program ran for about 45 minutes with a light snack and it ended right on time.  I had printed out some trivia to do with the kids, but we actually ran out of time!  The trade off was a good amount of time being spent on reading aloud.  The kids were answering questions, giving me their opinions and very engaged in the story.