The Library

I love to read. I always have. I hope that I always will.

I remember learning to read to with Mercer Mayer's "Little Critter" books. And being so angry when my young cousin scribbled through my precious book.

I remember my first chapter book was a Greatly Illustrated Classic "Moby Dick". I remember picking that from the toy store in the mall and reading it as we walked around the mall.

I even remember being in second grade, laying in my bed all day reading, not one but TWO "Baby Sitter's Little Sister" books. My mom wasn't as impressed as I was with my accomplishment, I think she wished I'd go outside and play.

So naturally, I would love to garner the love of reading in the lives of my girls. What better way than to make a weekly trip to the library.

But boy, the library sure has improved since I was a kid. We've made it a weekly trip throughout the summer. The girls pick out a few books and then get to play.

There are puzzles.

A lego table.

And Interactive computers.

The girls love it.

Last week, due to some scheduling conflicts we had to change our library day from Thursday to Friday. And incurred a $1.10 overdue charge, but I digress.

We stumbled upon the story hour. The kids section of the library is really neat. There is a large ship like structure that serves as the space for the story hour. We had come after the event had gotten started so we stuck with our routine of picking books and playing, but I watched as the kids enjoyed singing songs and being read books about shapes an colors.



When the group time was done the kids separated to different small tables to do some educational games.

They sorted different stickers by shape.

They arranged number magnets in order.

Then counted animals printed on cards and used a clothespin to identify the number they counted. And played with super strong magnets.

Of course they had to make pretend carrots and have a snack with them. 

I was really impressed with the activities and decided we needed to participate in the entire event the following week. So we did.

The girls loved the rhythm sticks, books, and parachute they played with. This week's theme was all about sound.

They had set up a really interesting, yet not completely thought out game. An egg carton with plastic eggs was set on the table. Inside the carton, two of the eggs contained the same type of material. Be that rice, jingle bells, pom poms, beads etc. The purpose was to shake the eggs and match the two that sounded the same, ie the ones with the same materials inside.

Very neat, in theory.

But leave it to my Ellie to, well, be my Ellie. I meant to take a picture of her showing me the "orange" egg. (We've been working on colors so she was very excited about naming the color correctly). I didn't realize until I uploaded the pictures that I had this great action shot, of destruction.

It was a neat game, but I'd encourage the eggs to be taped closed in the future.

Following the cleaning up, we moved on to make our own sound shakers from water bottles. Another terrible mess, but the kids enjoyed it immensely.

There are all kinds of other activities and demonstrations set up at the library through the summer. Ours even offers free lunch to children every day. We haven't participated, but its a great resource for those who may need it. With all the free things they offer, we can't pass up our weekly outing to the library. And just maybe this will help foster a love of reading to my girls. One can only hope.