I haven’t done a link round-up in awhile! Here are some cool things I’ve seen on the interwebs lately.
Professional Development
The Colorado State Library is offering a free 4-part series on services for kids in grades K – 3. The first two have aired already and can be viewed online. Mark your calendars for part 3 and 4!
Claudia at Never Shushed shared three new professional development books I can’t wait to read. Might add them to my professional development booklist.
Scholastic released their Kids & Family Reading Report and Thrive by Three wrote a great post examining the “Decline by Nine.”
Books and More
100 Scope Notes shared The 2019 Unicorn Report which compliments my 2019 Picture Books post about mythical and magical creatures.
I am in love with raucous read-alouds by Jean Little Library and will definitely be consulting for my upcoming school visits.
The ALSC 2019 Summer Reading Lists are here! I scope these out every year to help me choose books to take on my summer reading visits.
Rain City Librarian shared an excellent list of board book must-haves that can be used as a reader’s advisory tool or baby book collection starter kit.
Programming
I started a conversation about repetition in storytime and was delighted to see Get Curious, Get Creative @ Your Library share how she incorporates repetition in her storytime for 2s and 3s.
If you’re scared to use a parachute with toddlers, then definitely give Library Laura’s Parachute Play program a read through.
I love Karissa and reading her How I Levelled Up My Toddler Storytime post made me love her even more. So many great tips!
A thoughtful post about the environmental impact of kids’ crafts by Inventors of Tomorrow. How do you try to minimize your environmental impact in terms of programming for kids?
Storytime Katie has me itching to use a stretchy band in storytime now. Thanks, Katie!
See anything cool on the internet these past few months? Let me know in the comments!
I really like the link about the environmental impact of kids’ crafts. I’m running my library’s Summer Reading Program for the first time this year, and I’ve challenged myself to do it as waste-free as possible. This means we’ll be doing hardly any crafts–and those that we DO create will be easy to deconstruct to reuse the materials (for example, beaded coding strings). Most of our SRP events will focus on experiences. We have music and dance teachers coming in to run workshops, for example. We’ll be using a geo-board and
Lego and KEVA blocks with weekly building challenges, or setting off baking soda rockets (my library is fortunate enough to have a large outdoor space). Wherever possible, I’ve tried to reconfigure traditional paper projects (such as word scrambles) into hands-on activities (using our giant foam letters, for example). In addition to not creating objects that will be thrown away, I also try to consider the environmental impact of the manufacturing process–which means minimizing the new materials I use. I was fortunate enough to be given old display pegboards by a local hardware store, which I’ve converted into giant geo-boards.
I’d love to hear what others are doing to green their children’s programming!
Wow, you have so many great ideas already! If you’re interested in writing this up as a formal blog post with tips and tricks on how to reduce waste as a children’s librarian, I would love to feature you! Just give me a shout at jbrary@gmail.com 🙂