Anne's Recipe for Soft Toy Sleepover Success

Ingredients:

Take 1 staff member scrolling work-related social media

Add 1 manager, who humours the above

Add hours of social media scrolling — aka research

Fast-forward SEVEN soft toy sleepovers.

AND ONE T REX OF A PROBLEM! What in the world of all that’s holy do I do next year?!?!!!

Peter the T Rex skeleton with Edna the chicken puppet.

It started innocently enough. There I was, scrolling the late-Storytime Underground Facebook group, and there was a mention of a Soft Toy Sleepover.

I did some more reading.

I asked my manager if we could give it a go.

She said yes — and that she’d help.

So we set the date. And my manager was sick. So queue me — running storytime, staying late (i.e. until after the sun set) taking photos, putting together individual booklets for each toy (there were only a few then), printing them….

And… making a rod for my own back. (Not to mention, going to the pub next door while waiting for it to get dark… taking photos, alone, while tipsy after one bottle of vodka mixer and no food all day.)

Alcohol and soft toy sleepovers don't mix.

Roll on seven years of soft toy sleepovers, and I offer my pearls of wisdom:

If you don’t want to be at work until 11pm, schedule your sleepover for winter, so you don’t have to wait until it gets dark to take suitable photos (if you have windows in your building).
If you want to print out a booklet for each toy AND post a video to Facebook / other social media — find a programme that does both.
- Old school, I know, but I use PowerPoint — I’ve used the same template for years. I can print the booklet in colour AND save as an MP4 to upload.
- On that note: my video playlist.
PS: DO NOT fall into the trap of doing an individualised booklet for each child — if the programme takes off, you will not be able to sustain this (and will feel bad because you can’t).

Tips, continued:

Find TALL and willing helpers!
Limit the number of devices taking photos — otherwise you’ll just have too many photos to choose from. (And, if you’re anything like me, will feel bad not including photos taken by others.)
DO NOT try to outdo yourself each year. Trust me. (How am I supposed to beat a T REX!)
Set achievable timeframes. E.g. if the sleepover is on a Friday night, the toys can be picked up on the Saturday (maybe with ONE photo of the night) — then give yourself a week to put the booklets together / post on social media.
DO what works for YOU, your community, your abilities.
Take lots of group photos — but make sure every toy is in at least one.
Keep things simple — otherwise you’ll burn out. I started with a whole page of ‘tell us about your toy’ — and ended up in the supermarket at 7am trying to find something I could use to be ‘moss’ or ‘insects’ or whatever the child had included in their toy’s favourite food. In 2022, with the big road trip, I had the children fill out a permission to travel form, based on ones schools use. 2023 might be a mix of both forms.