Children

Tape Town

Aug 27, 2024

$101-250

Byline

Maddy Barnes, Youth Services Librarian, Bull Run Library, Manassas, Va.

Tape Town turned our meeting room into a miniature village for little ones to explore. Children were issued “licenses” and cruised their toy cars along masking tape streets to various community sites.

Advanced Planning

Planning began about six months out. Now that the program has been seen to completion, it can easily be repeated in less time. I tackled the project myself with some help during set-up and breakdown. My goal was to give kids a chance to play grown-up in a new way by exploring how we go about our day-to-day lives. For most families who live in our area, that includes lots of driving.

I was inspired by several similar programs I found on industry blogs and tailored the event to fit our space and patrons. The biggest challenge was that the event fell during our fiscal year spending blackout, so supplies had to be purchased several months in advance and nothing else could be bought last minute.

Marketing

Posters, slides and social media posts were created to promote the program. We also had staff plug the event at other children’s programs.

Budgeting

The total cost to get the program going was about $150, but many components can be reused in future programs. Most of the costs were craft supplies (lots of tape), a mini thermal printer and large activity pieces like the pop-up tunnel. We also purchased some spare toy cars for kids who didn’t have their own. Many components were borrowed from other Prince William Public Library branches or reused from previous programs.

Day-of-event Activity

This program requires a good deal of setup so the room was booked beginning the previous day so I could get everything in place and leave it overnight. The main stations that made up the “town” were: the DMV, post office, construction site, library and car wash.

The DMV was the only station that required constant staffing. Participants were given driver’s license cards to fill out and could have their picture taken at the DMV station. We used a mini thermal printer with sticky-backed tape connected to my phone via an app to take the photos. These were not required to participate, but everybody wanted one!

The rest of the room was used to create the roads including the tunnel and balance beam. Masking tape was laid down in different patterns as roads and used to create parking lots at the stations. The balance beam stood in for a mountain range and “historical markers” were placed along the windows. I put slides on the room’s TV with weather reports, PSAs and a statement from the mayor. To complete the immersion, I wore a hard hat and hi-vis vest and acted as the town’s traffic safety commissioner.

Program Execution

There are always lessons to be learned after the first run of a program, but this went remarkably well. We had about 60 kids and grown-ups attend which gave people plenty of room to maneuver and explore. We passed out numbered entry tokens prior to the program and called people back in groups of 20 so we weren’t overwhelmed by making too many licenses at once.

Stations were not always used as intended, but the important thing was that everyone had fun. We even had someone in attendance celebrating his first birthday and the whole town sang Happy Birthday for him!

Advice

Do it! This was so much fun. It’s an easy program to tailor to different spaces and budgets by adding or subtracting stations. You could base it on your town or do whatever you have the budget and room for. If you do licenses with a thermal printer, have a backup in case your device won’t connect. If your programs tend to attract large crowds I recommend limiting attendance so everyone has room. Having the car wash outdoors would be better if weather permits.