This week, I visited 4 classes at a local early childhood center. Y'all know I love outreach. It's fun to get out of the library, to see where the kids spend their days. We're modeling for teachers some methods of sharing books with their students and we're making connections with the kids so they'll know there's a friendly face at the library. I wanted to include an activity that would encourage the kids to come back to the library with their families. Enter: felt library cards!
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Miss T had made these for one of her Toddler Time programs and they were the perfect thing to bring with me. I told the kids I had one last activity and I would need their help. I showed them one of the cards and asked who had a library card ("Or maybe your mom or dad or grandma or grandpa has a library card?"). I explained that if they don't have a library card, they can come to the library any time and get one for free, and with their library card they can check out books and movies and CDs to borrow. This was something familiar to some of the kids, which was great.
I passed out different colored cards to the kids and sang a song:
(To the tune of "Mary Had a Little Lamb", but you can do it to pretty much any tune you want!)
If you have a blue card, a blue card, a blue card,
If you have a blue card, bring it up to me!
(Repeat with different colors.)
[You can also do "Put it on the board" or "Put it in the basket/bag" depending on how you're equipped. The classrooms I visited didn't have feltboards at ready and I hadn't thought to bring my own, so I asked the kids to bring the cards up to me. In one class I had a few special needs kids who weren't as mobile as the other kids, so I asked them to "Hold your cards up high!" and went around and collected them.]
Miss T made these cards by photocopying the front of one of our library cards, laminating them, and hot-glueing them to a colored piece of felt.
Here's hoping that talking about library cards today will encourage some kids to come visit us at the library!
And hey, it's Flannel Friday! Cate at Storytiming is hosting this week's roundup.
What do you do at outreach visits to encourage families to visit the library?
