Lamppost

Nonfiction Storytime, Part 3 

In my expe­ri­ence, you can ele­vate the learn­ing expe­ri­ence with non­fic­tion books through the devel­op­ment of activ­i­ties that con­nect with a spe­cif­ic top­ic or the theme of your program.

Nonfiction to the Rescue, Part 2 

By fea­tur­ing both non­fic­tion and fic­tion dur­ing sto­ry­time, you pro­vide chil­dren an oppor­tu­ni­ty to expe­ri­ence the con­trast between what is real and what is imag­i­na­tive. Both are impor­tant for a suc­cess­ful read­ing expe­ri­ence. Here are 18 of my favorite non­fic­tion books to use in sto­ry­time programs.

Nonfiction to the Rescue, Part 1 

As a children’s librar­i­an, a pri­ma­ry goal for me is to help chil­dren embrace imag­i­na­tion through books, from imag­in­ing we are super­heroes to going on a hunt to find a bear, fly­ing in the sky, explor­ing a new land, to div­ing deep in the ocean. For some time how­ev­er, includ­ing non­fic­tion titles in my pro­grams has been a top request from

Friendship 

One of the most beau­ti­ful qual­i­ties of a true friend­ship is to under­stand and to be under­stood.” (Lucius Annaeus Seneca) Grow­ing up it was dif­fi­cult for me to make friends. Some of the key phras­es I was told includ­ed: “it is a nat­ur­al process,” “the sky is full of many stars, but hav­ing one friend is larg­er than

The Many Travelers through
The Hundred Acre Wood 

Through­out my child­hood, my father and I trav­eled to the local library with a wag­on. He insist­ed that I fill the wag­on as high as we could with books. We went on hun­dreds of jour­neys with some of the most spe­cial char­ac­ters in children’s lit­er­a­ture. The adven­tures of Win­nie-the-Pooh and friends in The Hun­dred Acre Wood was and

Together from Afar 

Indi­vid­u­al­ly, we are one drop. Togeth­er, we are an ocean.” (Ryuno­suke Satoro) Tis the sea­son to be… It is hard to some­times under­stand how dif­fi­cult the hol­i­day sea­son will be this year. Although this is dif­fi­cult, tech­nol­o­gy has made it pos­si­ble for us all to con­nect and par­tic­i­pate in hol­i­day fun. For my arti­cle this month, I’ve

Hand in Hand 

I live and work in a train com­mu­ni­ty and often use trains as an anal­o­gy when I talk about sto­ry­time. Like a train, sto­ry­time offers an audi­ence a chance to hop on board to expe­ri­ence a new world with char­ac­ters. The char­ac­ters of a sto­ry can help us under­stand some of the expe­ri­ences the chil­dren lis­ten­ing to the sto­ry might be

Becoming a Purple Person 

I am excit­ed to start year two of Bookol­o­gy! I con­tem­plat­ed doing themes around COVID-19 and then I thought why not write about the impor­tance of being a pur­ple per­son? Some of you might be ask­ing your­self the fol­low­ing ques­tions: Does this relate to sci­ence? Do you become pur­ple by eat­ing egg­plants or beets? Do you paint yourself

Little Engines:
A Simple but Impactful Early Literacy Initiative 

In ear­ly fall of 2019, I com­plet­ed a grant appli­ca­tion through our local ear­ly child­hood board. I pro­posed a new ear­ly lit­er­a­cy pro­gram called Lit­tle Engines. Each month, we will have an ear­ly child­hood pro­fes­sion­al pro­vide a sto­ry­time pro­gram with activ­i­ties. These include lit­er­a­cy, nutri­tion, child­care, school readi­ness, music/recreation, creativity/arts, and STEAM. The library pro­vides fam­i­lies a tote bag that includes

Lights, Camera, Action:
Launching Virtual Storytime 

Although COVID-19 has been dif­fi­cult, libraries con­tin­ue their core mis­sion to pro­vide access to resources and ser­vices by improv­ing and increas­ing their dig­i­tal ser­vices. Sto­ry­time is a key ser­vice the pub­lic library pro­vides to sup­port ear­ly lit­er­a­cy, fam­i­ly engage­ment, and help­ing chil­dren find the joy of read­ing. Face-to-face inter­ac­tion helps to improve the con­nec­tion with fam­i­lies — however,

Creating Collage 

As we move into the spring sea­son, the les­son of hope from The Very Hun­gry Cater­pil­lar,a book that employs paper col­lage for its illus­tra­tions, inspired these activities.

What’s in the Basket? 

Invest­ing in ear­ly child­hood nutri­tion is a sure­fire strat­e­gy. The returns are incred­i­bly high.” —Anne Mulc­ahy I am the head of children’s ser­vices at Eric­son Pub­lic Library in Boone, Iowa. Accord­ing to Iowa Depart­ment of Edu­ca­tion, Boone has 1,901 stu­dents and 877 of those stu­dents are in a free or reduced lunch pro­gram (Kids Count, 2017). That is

Library EMT 

The best way to find your­self is to lose your­self in the ser­vice of oth­ers.” —Mahat­ma Gand­hi I went into the week­end pre­pared to take it easy from a long and busy week. I quick­ly shift­ed my focus to the hor­ror hap­pen­ing in Aus­tralia. I was watch­ing a video that showed a small frac­tion of the ani­mals and humans faced

On Your Mark, Get Set … You! 

The New Year is upon on us and libraries are busy with hol­i­day pro­grams cel­e­brat­ing all things win­ter, pro­vid­ing make-and-take pro­grams that inspire cre­ativ­i­ty, and hav­ing a warm place to read.

Snapshot: Wordless Books 

Word­less pic­ture books are great for many rea­sons. They empha­size the impor­tance of art, build on impor­tant lit­er­a­cy skills, help chil­dren become sto­ry­tellers, and they are a reli­able source for imagination.

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