Low-Cost Easy Ideas
Not always is there a large pot of money to fund programming. With that in mind, here you'll find some suggestions by librarians for ways to incorporate nature into your offerings without much cost. These include some cool passive programming ideas. You'll find that the videos on this page are very brief, most a minute or less for quick viewing. If this page continues to grow, the low-cost easy ideas will be broken into subcategories.
We'll begin with suggestions from Environmental Resources Librarian, Melanie Buckingham. Melanie knows what it means to work on a small budget for a large event. In the first video below, she recounts how she brought together a large event on a budget of just $150.
Not always is there a large pot of money to fund programming. With that in mind, here you'll find some suggestions by librarians for ways to incorporate nature into your offerings without much cost. These include some cool passive programming ideas. You'll find that the videos on this page are very brief, most a minute or less for quick viewing. If this page continues to grow, the low-cost easy ideas will be broken into subcategories.
We'll begin with suggestions from Environmental Resources Librarian, Melanie Buckingham. Melanie knows what it means to work on a small budget for a large event. In the first video below, she recounts how she brought together a large event on a budget of just $150.
Here's an almost no-cost idea idea if you have an old mailbox you can paint and a little time to prepare some re-usable activity sheets! It's passive programming that involves active exploration!
Passive programming, once established, requires little time of staff and no or very low costs. This next suggestion in the passive programming category can be adapted for several age groups and for other topics such as gardening, animal observation, and so on.
The next low-cost idea will work for those libraries where there is at least some outside space surrounding the library.
Fran Benninger, Children's Librarian at Pamlico County Public Library, is always scouring the Web and other sources for craft ideas that tie in well to storytimes and programs where experts visit the library. After a program on raptors that I did with two groups of young patrons, we had more fun with the kids with Fran's nature craft project. The faces on the children in this video demonstrate their engagement and joy. This is what a library is all about!
I'll be sharing more ideas from other librarians soon. Please visit the Contact page and share your suggestions for low-cost easy ideas! They may be shared either in this space or on the Nature Librarians Blog.