…for a Stuffed Animal Sleepover event!
Did you notice little children and stuffed animals in the library earlier this month? It’s no surprise! 8 children from ages 2 to 8 years old visited Andersen Library on April 5, 2024, to participate in the library’s ninth Annual Stuffed Animal Sleepover. The children from families of UW-Whitewater students, staff, faculty, and the Children’s Center participated in a craft followed by a story time.
Library student staff members took a lead role in planning and prepping activities. Orion Regenold’s robot face-in-the-hole boards were a hit with both the children and their stuffies!
Hannah Featherly pulled together craft supplies for children to make their own robot and prepared storytime props.
Parents, grandparents and caregivers along with student volunteers Georgia Mayfield and Jaelyn Krohn helped the children engineer their own robots.
With crafts complete, the children geared up for a robot story time with library student employees Hannah and Beau Boyd, and Jaelyn each leading a robot story from the UW collections.
- Spacebot, written and illustrated by Mike Twohy
- Clink, manufactured (!) by Kelly DiPucchio and Matthew Myers
- Beep! Beep! Go to sleep! by Todd Tarpley, illustrated by John Rocco.
Of course, there’s always a song or two to sing. What Would You Do If a Robot Came to Tea fit perfectly!
Before heading home, the children said goodbye to their stuffies for the evening. The stuffies stayed up all night exploring the library, reading more stories, making robot friends, and taking photos, with the assistance of student volunteer photographer Lilian Schildbach. The event volunteers created a photo memory booklet of the stuffies adventures which the children kept as mementos.
A big thank you to the volunteers that helped make the event a success! We are so grateful for the many student workers and staff members involved behind the scenes, blowing up balloons, creating props, moving furniture and tidying up.
If this sounds like fun for a little one you know, or if you are a UW-W student who would like to volunteer to help with this event in any way, keep your eyes peeled for next year’s event!
