Summer Reading 2026 Program Ideas

The following is a list of program ideas compiled by Beth Yates, Children’s Consultant at the Indiana State Library, as they were shared with her at summer reading trainings across the state in winter 2025-26.

 

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Resources for summer planning:

 

Program Ideas for All Ages/Any Age
  • Vermicomposting: Invite someone in to speak about using worms to compost! Some Waste Management Districts/Recycle centers offer educational outreach that might include composting.
  • Scavenger Hunts:  Using templates from CANVA, a riddle leads to each spot, they also sometimes hide laminated pieces related to the hunt throughout the library.  One library recommends cutting up the caller cards from a free Bingo game for hiding.
    • Variations:
      • Sherlock themed–give them investigation folders to make guesses in as they solved puzzles
      • Ghost themed–they had to find ghosts throughout the library with riddles on them
  • Tie Dye:  Patrons can bring their own shirts, or library can provide
    • Variations:
      • One library would like to do a water balloon fight where people where white shirts and the balloons are filled with water and skin friendly dye.
      • One library plans to tie dye tote bags.
  • DIY Diamond/Crystal Art Paintings:  Diamond painting involves applying tiny rhinestones to a patterned adhesive board to create mosaic art.  Kits can be purchased through Amazon and elsewhere online, you get the design, diamonds, and a tool to apply the jewels to the picture. Various scenes are available, and this is a super popular program at the library that shared the idea.  Best for tweens and older.
    • Variations:
      • For kids 6+–order dinosaur themed diamond art kits
      • Adults and teens can use the diamonds/crystals to bedazzle book covers or bookmarks
  • Color Dance: Invited local musician to play, sprayed kids and adults with powdered paint while they were dancing.  Pro tip: powdered paint can be blown off with a leaf blower!
  • Chalk on the Walk:  Section off the sidewalk in front of the library and invite participants to pick a square to decorate.  Could invite local artists to create a few more “professional” squares!  Offer water and popsicles to participants.
  • Cincinnati Opera House: For those in southeast Indiana, the Cincinnati Opera House may be willing to do a presentation about opera at your library.  Some will do it with a storytime, demonstrate singing, etc.
  • Breakout Room: Breakout Rooms are still very popular! Or, “break-in” to a box using a Breakout EDU box with multiple types of locks on it–they must solve mysteries to figure out the various combinations or where the keys are located. Can google for many different ideas, and Breakout EDU also has many.
  • D&D/TTRPG for Families:  Teach families to play together!  DnDBeyond.com has some useful tips for teaching kids.  Can make fantasy maps by scattering random small materials (beans, rice, etc.) on paper and outlining them to create landmasses and islands.
  • Interactive Movies:  Interactive movies involve watching a movie and leading the audience in certain activities at certain points of the movie (Examples: During the movie Elf, everyone shouts “I know him!” when Santa appears on screen; when there is a snowball fight on screen, everyone throws paper snowballs, etc.) Make sure library has proper license to show (there are a few companies that own various movies, if your library already has a license, verify that the movie you want to show falls under that license).  List of Interactive Movie Experience Scripts compiled by Minerva Public Library, OH.  Select any movie that is about an adventure to fit the theme!
  • Back-to-School Backpack Party: Hold a community event for kids to pick up backpacks filled with school supplies; consider partnering with schools or a local organization, and/or doing a supply drive through the summer at the library, to collect supplies for this.
  • Taste Tasting: Gather many flavors of Oreos (or any other food that is available in multiple flavors) and have a taste test!  Participants can vote on their favorites.  Could do more than one type of food to fill out the program.
    • Variation: Collect both the brand name and store version of a variety of treats (cookies, chips, pretzels, Kool-Aid, etc.) and have folks do a blind taste test, ranking their favorites.  Each type of food gets a table, with “A” on one side and “B” on the other side; participants taste each and rank, votes are tallied and winners are declared!
    • Variation:  Unearth Your Favorite Snack – series introducing snacks from around the world
  • Pick a Mystery Book: Wrap up books in butcher or wrapping paper and folks can select one to try!  You can mark them with genres or clues if you want folks to have more agency in their selections.
  • No Pressure Book Club:  Patrons are invited to bring a book they’ve recently read and enjoyed to tell others about it/recommend it.  Takes pressure off of everyone reading the same book.
  • Community Coloring Book:  Hold a program where participants are encouraged to draw black-outline pictures (or teach them how to do this in Canva), collect art (during or in the weeks after the program) and put them together to create a coloring book.
  • Cookie or Cupcake Decorating:  Purchase cookies or cupcakes from a local bakery or store (ask if they will give you a discount–sometimes places like Meijer will offer a discount if you explain they are for a library program), icing, and piping bags and tips.  You could then:
    • Ask a baker to lead everyone in a cake or cookie decorating lesson;
    • Do a “Nailed It” style competition where you present a fancy decorated item and everyone must replicate it the best they can;
    • Make Paint Palette Cookies–decorate with dots of icing “paint” and create a paintbrush from a pretzel rod
    • Or, just let them freely decorate and create!  Could offer a theme, perhaps different styles of art like a splattered Jackson Pollock cookies, or Monet palette knife buttercream cupcakes, etc.
  • Rock Painting:  Any age can paint rocks!  Older children and adults can make kindness rocks with sayings or words on them, younger children can just paint.  Put them in the library’s garden/landscaping or near the front door to welcome patrons. If you want to make them like kindness rocks, you could encourage people to leave them around your town for others to discover.
  • Game On!:  Play board games!  Could make it more of a “free play” by putting out a few games and letting people pick, or could focus on one or two and offer alternative activities for those waiting to play (craft, etc.).  Could easily be a family activity.

 

Program Ideas for Early Childhood

NOTE:  Don’t miss the All/Any Ages section–many of those ideas would also work for preschoolers and could make great family programs!

  • Cardboard Cars: Use spare cardboard boxes and let young children decorate them with paper plates for wheels and steering wheel, plus paint, markers, or other craft materials to decorate. Especially fun if you are planning a movie or movie series–can be used for a “drive-in movie” complete with a popcorn snack!
  • Musical Chairs with Books: When the music stops, there’s a book in each chair, and that’s the book they read/check-out!  Could be part of a full program or storytime.
  • Bubbles, Ball Pit, & Bounce House Party:  One library will use small ball pits/bounce house for a free-play program for toddlers.
  • Bluey Storytime: Use resources from the Bluey website and general internet to throw a Blue themed program. Include games like “keepy uppy,” make Bluey and Bingo headbands, offer snacks, read Bluey stories, and decorate with a Bluey theme!
  • Puzzle Piece Mural: Use large blank puzzle pieces (can buy on Amazon) and have children decorate them. Put them together to form a mural that can be posted in the library!  Can also do this with older kids.
Program Ideas for School Age Children

NOTE:  Don’t miss the All/Any Ages section–many of those ideas would also work for school age kids!

  • Fossil Fest:  Excavate fossils (from Amazon), carnivore or herbivore poop? (chocolate pudding with things inside representing plants or animals–give them a key so they know what’s what), draw or trace fossils, build a dino with marshmallows, straws, etc.
  • Dinosaur Challenge:  Stations inspired by dinosaurs.  Dino yoga, dino relay, nest building, make prehistoric ooze (slime), design a dinosaur (pre-cut dino body parts that can be mixed-and-matched), use cyanotype paper and local flora or fauna to make “fossils”–set a leaf, etc. on top of the paper, expose it to the sun–the area blocked remains one color and the area exposed is another color.
  • Treasure Trove Dig: Make a dig mixture out of water, sand, and plaster. Hide a treasure in the middle of a ball of this mixture (could be a gem, toy dino, fossil, etc.); let the balls dry, then kids can dig out the treasure!
  • Owl-Tastic Fun:  Read first two chapters of The Wildwood Baker, decorate cookies for library staff (or selves), played “Defy Gravity” (keep a feather in the air with only your breath) and “Acorn Pass Race” (relay race passing an acorn down the line using only dixie cups), owl scavenger hunt.
  • Super Mario Party:  Mario themed food, crafts, photobooth, bingo with prizes, video games.  Themed food included golden coin cookies, “fireballs,” power-up juice; craft included mushroom magnets.
  • Music & Mosaics:  Dye a variety of beans and then use them to create mosaic landscapes using cardboard as the background and gluing them on.  Play music in the background; either tell the kids to use the music as inspiration, or play “guess the genre” while kids work.
  • Lights Off: Turn the lights out in the children’s department, give each kid a flashlight so they can pick out and read books, encourage people to wear pajamas and use quiet voices.
  • Transylvania Tea Party:  Tea party set up, black/purple/red vampire color scheme, play Hotel Transylvania movie, make “amulets,” use bat decorations, plastic teeth, etc.
  • Bookmark Design Contest: Invite elementary aged kids to design a bookmark that the library will print. Consider dividing into younger (Grades K-2) and older (Grades 3-5) to make it a little more fair. Library staff can judge. Recommend the application includes a template for the dimensions of the bookmark so everyone works in same limits.
  • Book Buddies: Pair a teen with a child and the child reads to the teen for 20 minutes.  This could be a designated hour when several teens are available and kids sign up for slots (like a reading to dogs program)!
  • Wacky Warblers Karaoke: Project “Sing Along” versions of Disney movie songs and invite kids and families to sling along karaoke style.
  • National Potato Day:  Potato Day is August 19th.  One library did a potato derby, like a pinewood derby, where participants could pick up tires, axels, and a potato at the library week in advance and then designed their own car-potato.  They brought them in and competed in races.
  • Junior Chef:  Teach simple no-bake recipes to the kids (and their families if you wish).

 

Program Ideas for Tweens & Teens

NOTE:  Don’t miss the Adult and the All/Any Ages section–many of those ideas would also work for teens!

  • Kinderteens:  Storytime for teens–offer crafts, snacks, juice boxes, toys, a place to take a nap, and read a picture book to teens after school.
  • Reading Buddies: Partner HS volunteers with early elementary kids and have them read together.
  • Dinosaur Heads:  Use air dry clay to create a dinosaur head (this library previously created dragon heads this way).  Used Crayola air dry clay, cat eye glass gems, paint, sculpting tools; they modeled around the eyes they chose and painted once it had dried.
  • Water Gun Painting: Use cheap water guns from dollar store, load them up with liquid water color paints (could water down tempera paint), prop canvases a few feet away and let them paint!
  • Bad Art – “Nailed It” Style:  Patrons draw a classic painting name from a hat (Mona Lisa, Starry Night, Water Lilies, etc.–including a picture of the art is ideal) and then do their “best” to poorly imitate that painting–the uglier, the better!
  • Blacklight Paint & Sip:  Buy blacklights, set up canvases and neon paints and let them paint!  Could set up a sample but even just abstract shapes look cool.
  • Color Rave or Glow in the Dark Party:  Set up black lights, play dance music, offer glow in the dark face paint, glow sticks, and other activities at an after-hours program for teens!  Include treats like pizza!
  • Mini Canvas Painting: Purchase mini canvases and teens can paint freehand/abstract or use stencils.
  • Life Hacks 101/How to Adult: Program series featuring basic cooking skills, cleaning hacks, how to sew by hand, preserve food (canning, freezing), how to change a tire/basic car maintenance, etc.
  • Nerf Night: After hours program–divide the kids into two teams. Game is run like capture the flag/freeze tag combo.  Library provides Nerf ammo and attendees bring their own Nerf weapons. Kids try to collect items around the library; if frozen, a “medic” from each team can go unfreeze them.  One library does this for ages 8 and up, including some caregivers!
  • Franken Toys: Take old/broken/discarded toys (one librarian found a bunch at Goodwill), then let the kids take them apart (provide safety goggles, glue guns, basic tools–no hammers!) and put them back together in crazy ways!
  • Window Painting: Invite teens you trust to paint the windows of the library for summer.  Tempera Paint is good for this and can be scraped off/washed off with soap and water later.
  • Dungeons & Dragons/TTRPG:  Table top role-playing games like D&D can be excellent for teens.  Provides an outlet for them to get to know each other while having something to do (often helpful for introverts), allows them to explore, practice being leaders, and gives them agency and practice in making hard decisions–and it’s fun!  If you are very new to D&D, reach out to a game store to see if they can refer you to someone who can either act as Game Master or who can teach you how to do it.  The publisher, Wizards of the Coast, also provides some resources for working with kids.
  • Magic the Gathering:  Start a Magic the Gathering group at your library!  Teach them about the cards, scoring, and how to play  Magikids.org offers free supplies for libraries to use, they are very generous.
Program Ideas for Adults

NOTE:  Don’t miss the Teen/Tween and the All/Any Ages section–many of those ideas would also work for adults!

  • Jurassic Park Escape Room:  After dark escape room for adults – they have to find the password to access the computer to lock the doors & call for help.
  • American Game Show Night:  Recreate a popular game show in your library, like Jeopardy or Wheel of Fortune.  One library has done this as a “name that tune” trivia game.
  • Lit Lounge:  Hold a series of after hours adult reading programs–this library did it quarterly but it could also be done a few times in the summer.  Stay open late on a Friday.  They can read plus you can offer snacks, trivia, puzzles, etc.
  • Motorcycle Safety:  Invite local ABATE Motocycle Club to speak about motorcycle safety.
  • Needle Felting/Sewing/Quilting/Knitting/Embroidery/Crocheting Programs:  If you or one of your coworkers has one of these skills, or if you can find some one local who does–they often generate a lot of interest, especially if you are teaching the basics.  One librarian recommends “Hooked by Robin” YouTube channel and website for crocheting ideas.
  • Coffee/Chocolate/Cookies and Canvas:  Invite a local artist (or talented coworker) to lead others in painting a simple piece of art on canvas while enjoying treats.  There are a few of these on YouTube. Local artists may be able to provide supplies for a fee.
  • Yarn Bomb:  Group meets and decides on a tree/trees, public statue, light post, or other prominent community touchstone that they will cover with knitted squares or other knitted designs.  (Get permission from the Parks Dept or other relevant agency or object owner!) Individually they each knit a designated number of squares, then sew them together around the object one day so suddenly it has been “yarn bombed.”  Groups usually meet early in the year to start planning/make assignments and then work for a few months before the set date to “install” their designs.  Could also set up “how to knit” or similar sessions to get more folks involved.
  • True Crime Club:  Pick an unsolved murder/crime, put together a packet of info about the crime (victim, investigation info, suspect list, news articles), then send the info to those registered, along with any other websites or podcasts that might be useful.  Then, meet and discuss theories!
  • Back to Basics:  Series that teaches how to make things from scratch or how to complete other tasks that requires “old fashioned” skills.  Examples:  Make sourdough starter, churn butter, how to mend clothes.
  • Alcohol Ink Tiles: Create coasters using plain white tiles and alcohol inks.  Example: https://youtu.be/fFgKwbFWEy0?si=Mz1UITUFuzbl3Xxe
  • Let’s Swap!:  Organize a swap of some kind–examples include books, plants/plant starts, art supplies.  Invite folks to bring items they want to swap.  Helpful if you can offer some starting items, then attendees can add more options.  Consider inviting speakers if the topic would benefit from it–for instance, if doing plants, invite a master gardener.

 

The above ideas were shared by Indiana library staff at Unearth a Story trainings across the state in the winter of 2025-26.  Some ideas were combined or amended to better fit the format.  Please note that not every idea could be included.