• Activities

    Sensory-Friendly Story Time Theme: Snakes

    I love having the opportunity to outreach to the Early Intervention classrooms in our community.  I got the chance to visit four classrooms yesterday – reaching out to 50 children and 31 adults.  The classroom children have a range of disabilities from visual impairments, to developmental disabilities, to the autism…

  • Activities

    Story Time Theme: Pennsylvania One Book, Every Young Child

    Pennsylvania is trying to encourage early literacy by providing copies of the same book to libraries, child care centers, and families across the state every April with a program called Pennsylvania One Book, Every Young Child.  This year’s book was Stripes of All Types by Susan Stockdale.  At our library,…

  • Activities

    Story Time Theme: Socks

    Our next story time session has begun and with it, a new schedule which  means I’m doing back-to-back toddler story times on Tuesday morning.  Because it’s the first day of the month I also had to run statistics reports this morning, so needless to say, I’ve been very busy!  The…

  • Activities

    Story Time Theme: Nursery Rhymes

    Nursery rhymes seem to have been left by the wayside for the next generation of children.  Nursery rhymes have existed for centuries for a very specific reason – they are a great tool to help children learn early literacy skills.  So with that in mind, I created a story time…

  • Activities

    Story Time Theme – Tools

    This week’s story time featured tools!  And the kids really enjoyed it!  I was looking for something that would be a little more boy oriented, but tools are just as important for girls to know too!  And we had a great time learning about hammers, screwdrivers, chisels, and more.  Old MacDonald Had a Workshop was a great…

  • Activities

    Yoga Story Time Programming Ideas

    I began yoga story time about two years ago and it’s been one of the most rewarding story time experiences I’ve ever had.  The kids respond really well to the movements and love copying the poses as I do them.  This also allows children time to be active in between…

  • Activities

    Story Time Theme – Love

    I had to offer a Valentine’s Day themed storytime this week for my kids.  Some of my favorite picture books are all about love and snuggles and the kids did really well today!  This was the first time I got to see my Monday story time group (finally!) and although…

  • Lifestyle

    2014 CLEL Bell Award Winner Announcement

    Yesterday, February 5, 2014 the winners of the CLEL Bell Picture Book Awards for Early Literacy were announced.  If you didn’t even know this award existed, have no fear!  CLEL stand for Colorado Libraries for Early Literacy and it’s mission is,  “All children deserve the joy of reading and the skills in…

  • Activities

    Story Time Theme: Winter & Snow

    I was able to get to work today!!!  It probably snowed about 8 inches yesterday with more snow expected tomorrow and a Nor’easter expected to tear through our area on Sunday.  I’m tired of the snow, but couldn’t help but have a snow themed story time for my kids in…

  • Activities

    Storytime Theme: Shapes

    Identifying shapes is so important to a child’s development, it’s the beginning of understanding letters and words and an important early literacy skill.  My first storytime of the session focused on shapes, but in a much more abstract way than identifying squares, circles, triangles, and more.  The kids did a…