This morning I attended a Preschool Partnerships meeting at NSLS. There were about 20 librarians there from libraries all over the north suburbs and we were all sharing ideas about our early literacy programs. The amount of early literacy programming really varied between libraries and my library is just starting to get into the early literacy gig. We had an ECRR trainer come in September and do a staff training and we've been handing out information about early literacy skills and making book displays featuring skills for about a month now.
In January, we're hosting the first in what I hope will become a series of Preschool Educator Workshops. We'll be doing a training on ECRR and the six early literacy skills. It will be chock full of book suggestions, reading demonstrations, songs, and practical tips they can use in their classrooms (I hope). I'll have more to report on after January 29.
In the meantime, I got plenty of awesome suggestions from the meeting this morning. One library did a program for preschool teachers where they could come in and make felt stories that they could take home with them and use in their classroom. I don't know too many specifics, but I believe the library supplied the felt, craft supplies, and patterns. There were four patterns available and teachers could pick two to make and take. The library also supplied copies of the story and demonstrated how to use the sets to tell the story. I think this is something our early childhood educators would get really into and I'm hoping that if our first Preschool Educator Workshop goes well, this might be next up.
My other favorite idea was adding these Search and Find Rhyming Bags to an early literacy center or activity table. They are super cute and I think our kids would go gaga for them. They also make Alphabet Bags (also super cute). I spent a happy hour on desk browsing Lakeshore's online catalog. :)
So, yes. Lots of great ideas about early literacy. Meetings like this are invigorating and inspiring... but also exhausting because we have so much stuff going on. This is our last week of registered storytime and hopefully life will get a lot less hectic once that's over. Until then, we shall carry on... Jim Gill's this Saturday! YAY!