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Featured Summer Events
Here are some featured events, but peruse all the 300+ events to plan your summer. Also check out what’s happening on the Adventuremobile around town.
READING: When you and your family are reading, you become a part of the adventure. Aren’t you curious about what’s out there to read?
EXPERIENCES are anything that gets you active and thinking. Let your curiosity run wild! Stretch yourself a little to experience activities that aren’t part of your normal routine. Be sure and add some of your own experience ideas. See examples below.
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Printable Trackers
Print a tracker if you’d like a paper version for your fridge. You must enter your reading time and experiences online to be eligible for the grand prize drawings.
English Tracker Rastreador en Español
Important Dates
Experience Examples
Infants/ToddlersKids/TeensAdults
- Sign up for Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library – your child will get a free book every month until they are 5 years old
- Make reading a routine like bath, book and bed
- Repeat reading the same book every single day
- When you read a book be sure to talk about the pictures
- Read a book with animal pictures and make animal sounds
- Draw and scribble with sidewalk chalk
- Play with play dough (Find recipes for homemade varieties in books and magazines.)
- Visit the Learn & Play Bus
- Attend Baby Bookworms, Musical Storytime or Toddler Time 1 at the library
- Visit the Kansas Children’s Discovery Center
- Play in a lawn sprinkler or swimming pool
- Take a walk outside and talk about the animals you see (birds, squirrels, lizards, ants)
- Make faces in the mirror together and talk about feelings like happy, sad, mad and silly
- Check out kids’ music from the library or download a few tunes using the library’s digital music on Hoopla
- Dance like no one’s watching – in the park, your living room or your backyard
- Cook from a recipe (find great cookbooks in the Kids Library)
- Read to a dog or cat (yours, a neighbor’s, a shelter dog or cat, or a Prairieland Dog at the library on Sunday afternoon in June)
- Help in the garden (yours or a community garden)
- Attend one of the 300+ events or classes at the library this summer
- Visit a local museum – Combat Air, Evel Knievel, Kansas Museum of History
- Visit the Sounds Like Art exhibit for kids at the library’s Alice C. Sabatini Gallery
- Go bowling
- Visit the Adventuremobile & join Curiosity Club
- Go to the Topeka Zoo
- Teens – you can volunteer at the library
- Learn about something new to satisfy your curiosity and share it with a friend
- Send a letter (with real paper, envelope and stamp) to family or friend
- Learn to play a new game (you can borrow some to play at the library)
- Operate a paddle boat or canoe at Lake Shawnee
- Attend the Fiesta Mexicana
- Volunteer
- Attend the Juneteenth Celebration
- Visit the library’s Cooking Neighborhood and cook a new recipe
- Attend library events
- Visit the Sounds Like Art kids exhibit in the library’s Alice C. Sabatini Gallery
- Learn to play a musical instrument
- Take an art class
- Learn a new skill from Lynda.com
- Build something you haven’t built before – maybe a birdhouse, planter or a chair
- Attend a poetry or story slam
- Walk on a trail (Shunga and the Governor’s Mansion are great trails)
- Attend a class at the Shawnee County Community Centers
- Write a letter (not an email, but a real handwritten letter)
- Visit a small town you’ve never visited (check out the Travel Neighborhood or a Sunflower Journeys video)
- Try a new food