Day 5... The end is near

 The longer I am in Philadelphia, the harder it is for me to get up in the morning.  Diane is getting up bright and early each morning while I am struggling to get up by 7:30 am.  With first sessions starting at 8:15 am, I am kind of cutting it close.  I can only imagine how the people who are coming from Seattle or even Alaska are handling the early morning sessions.  Indiana is in the same time zone as Philadelphia and I am struggling!
     Anyways, back to business.  The first session I went to today was all about the importance of the word.  The  information presented in this program was very poignant.  I think the one thing that really stuck out for me was the amount of television and imputed a child should have before they are two years old.  I am sure you will be just as surprised as I was to hear that the answer is NONE.  That's right, a child should not be allowed to sit in front of a television or computer screen before they are two years old because it suppresses their language development skills.

     The other interesting factoid I took from this session is how important "play talk" is.  For those of you who attend my story times, you know that at the end of each class, I pull out a large box of toys and let the kids play.  For a while, I have been wondering how much the kids are really getting out of this.  However, this session today reaffirmed the fact that it is an essential part of literacy because it no longer becomes organized teaching, it becomes daily learning and understanding.
     After a short break for breakfast, I attended a session about early literacy and school readiness.  My library just recently started looking at this in terms of what AREN'T we doing.  I have been doing story times for almost three years and yet it wasn't until last school year that I even read my  state's standards.  What?  How am I supposed to prepare these young minds for school if I don't even know even know what my district expects from them?  I did take away a few great ideas from this session and I hope to be able to enact a couple when I return.  I'm not going to tell you what they are though... It's a surprise. 

     Next session was probably one I was most excited for which would also make sense as to why I was so disappointed by how it turned out.  The session was all about programs that would pack the library.  Although the information provided by the four speakers was amazing, the types of ideas they presented were something our library could never do.  These libraries built extra buildings, they held six week long festivities, and even created mobile exhibits.  I thought I would be getting lots of ideas on how to bring people into the library, however, the presenters focused on one or two events they had in which a lot of people attended and they had lots of community help.  The only thing that we have at the moment that is similar would be the Summer Reading Kickoff Carnival.  Although disappointed, I still learned about some grant opportunities that our library will definitely be looking in to.

This poster is from our Summer Reading Carnival in 2011.

     To say that I am glad I got to my last session early is an understatement.  Boy was this session FULL.  I guess everyone wants to know how to introduce story times for children that are on the Autism Spectrum.  This is an area that I believe our library should begin to focus on.  The special needs community definitely needs to have a place in the library.  With that said, I am all for integrating special needs children into "regular" story time.  However from what I learned today, sometimes the parents don't want this.  I got a lot of great ideas from this session that I can incorporate into my weekly story times.  I am also toying with the idea of starting a once a month special needs story time in the fall.  Depending on the interest, it's possible this program could become      bi-weekly or even weekly.  However, I will never know if a program like this is needed unless I put it out there.  Stay tuned to see how I work this needed program into our already busy schedule.  If there's a will (which there is), there's a way.

     Well, that's it for for day 5.  Guess what?  Tomorrow is the last day of PLA.  I can't believe it's almost over.  I feel like this week has flown by.  Tomorrow I will be attending two sessions.  One is about how to program for pregnant and parenting teens while the second is a session called "Teen Speak.". Although I work with little children,  our library has a large teen population and if there is any way I can figure out how to effectively communicate with the teens without ostracizing them, I am going to take it.  And the best part of tomorrow...  Listening to BETTY WHITE.  That's right... I will be listening to the Golden Girl herself.  I have no idea what she is going to be talking about, but who cares!  It's bound to be hilarious!    Tune in tomorrow to see what I learn and what Betty White has to say!

* *  I should note that none of these pictures are mine.  They are images that I have taken from Google images.  :)

Day 4... If you are reading this

Then you survived the Ides of March!!!

Now back to our post. :)


      Today started out as an early one again.  You know, I say that, but in actuality, I am getting more sleep here than I ever do at home.  The first session this morning was an 8:15 am Every Child Ready to Read workshop.

Now, I have attended a couple of these workshops and learned quite a bit, however this one had a special emphasis on the importance of creating a learning space for young children to not only enjoy, but to learn as well.  A lot of great ideas were discussed but the entire time I just kept thinking, my library already has that or my library is already doing that. 
     After sitting through that workshop, it made me appreciate the learning space my library has already created.  As many of you know, the Book Nook is a great place for your children to come and play.  It is not only a safe place, thanks largely in part to the large, cushioned books, but the puzzles and train table instill the importance of imagination , hand-eye coordination, basic early literacy skills, and cooperation.

 


  My next session for the day was all about introducing iPads into the library.  The main focus of the presentation was how staff can use the iPads to program, make presentations, and even provide reference in the stacks.  Some libraries have even gone as far as to create their own interface in order to allow check outs to be made from the iPad.  Amazing, right?  I was really interested in how people plan on using the iPad and I really look forward to figuring out how our library can use the iPad for future programming.

   
     After lunch with Diane, my next session was all about the library's need to collaborate with child care providers.  Now I must start by saying that I think my library is great with collaborating with day care providers when asked.  I, do, however think we need to be better about seeking out child care providers and delivering materials designed especially for them.  I really enjoyed hearing about book deposits, or bags that child care providers could check out which would contain books, music, finger plays, etc.  I think this is one of the simplest ideas we could enact at our library and I look forward to taking it home and seeing what everyone else this.

     The last session for the day was a round-table of librarians discussing story time ideas that are "outside of the box.". This was by far my favorite session of the day.  I loved listening to what other libraries are doing and trying to decide if anything they are doing is something our library would be interested in enacting.  I had two favorite  ideas from this session.  The first is to have an A to Z Story Time, or have story time at 26 different places with each week being a different letter of the alphabet.  So A might be at the airport while Z may be at the zoo.  LOVE this idea.

The second idea I think my kids would love would be more work for me, but oh well.  I think it would be really fun to start training my almost 2 year old dog to be a therapy dog.  Winnie, my pup, is a great little dog who loves people, especially children.  I think with a little, ok maybe a lot, of work, I might be able to bring Winnie to the library.   Sounds great in theory, but why not?

     Well, that seems to be it for today.  I did have a fabulous dinner at a small little Greek restaurant called Kanella.  Funny story, this restaurant was just being created when I lived in Philadelphia.  I met up with a couple of college friends  who moved to the city after graduation and we had a great time catching up and reminiscing about the good old days.

     I hope you had a great day as well.  Tune in tomorrow to get the dirt on early literacy and school readiness, programs that rock, and serving children that are on the Autism spectrum.  Thanks for checking in.


** I should note that none of these pictures are mine, except the one of my dog, Winnie.  They are images that I have taken from Google images.  :)