Tuesday, June 14, 2011

Library Trip

"Lili-nana! Wake up! We're going to the BIG Liberry!" shouted Micah this morning.

We go to the liberry library weekly at least. We don't have Netflix...we use the library. We rarely buy books...we use the library. I love it because it meets all my criteria:
•It's free.
•It occupies them for a good hour.
•Both the kids love it, as do I.
•It's educational and (bonus!) the fun continues afterwords for the week.



Today the kids got to sign up for the summer reading program. It was a different library than they're used to going to, so new toys to play with! Between the trains and riding the "elegator" (elevator), the playtime was just as great as the reading time!


I love watching the kids' different approaches to picking out books. Liliana runs into the room and starts grabbing books...as many as she can carry and whatever ones catch her eye first. She hauls them all over to the nearest seat and starts looking at them until she gets bored and then she repeats. She's definitely an impulsive library shopper.


Micah is much more selective. He's only interested in it if it's about Legos or Star Wars. Occasionally something else catches his eye, but he'll flip through it before deciding whether he wants to commit. He's very thoughtful about his choices. Today we found a book that had BOTH Legos and Star Wars...he looked at it the whole way home.


Here are some things we do that help us make our library time more organized:

•If there are any books that I know I want to get ahead of time, I reserve them. That way the library staff have them pulled out for me and I don't have to try to watch the kids while finding them. Even if they are children's books and we'll be in that section the whole time, you never know when something will go wrong and I'd have to leave without having time to look for mine.

•The kids don't have limits for books, but I do make sure that every book we bring home is readable. I don't want it taking up space in our house if it's too hard for them. Right now they can handle about a paragraph of text per page...anything longer and they start getting antsy.

•We do have a limit of one movie each, plus one movie I pick for a family movie night.

•I've been working through a checklist of 101 books every child should have read to them before entering Kindergarten with the kids. That way,amidst the princess and Dora books, I'm sure they're getting some classics as well. Here are some links to similar ones. Print it off, keep it in your library bag and cross a few off each time.
Top 100 Children's Books
National Education Association's list
New York Public Library

•A friend of mine saves money by bringing with her kids book order forms from school and choosing library books from there. I love this idea!

•The library "receipt" immediately goes on the fridge when we get home. The day before we go to the library, I pull all the books I can easily find, cross them off our receipt and put them in our bag. Then I have a full day to go through and search for any remaining hiding books and we aren't panicking while the kids are waiting by the door.

Jeremy's such a good sport, carrying our big haul!

One thing I haven't figured out and would LOVE some suggestions for is what to do with the classroom books they bring home from school. Since they look like regular at-home books, they often get mixed in with other books and then we're scrambling to find them later. Please leave any tips you have in the comments!!

4 comments:

  1. to keep the books together, have a certain shelf of a bookcase just for public library books, and another just for school library books. And/or a separate tote bag for each place. Books must always go back to their special area. To help keep them separate till the kids notice the difference in bar codes, perhaps you could put a blue strip of paper in the books that go to school and a red strip in the public library books.

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  2. You can try putting painters tape on the binding of books you own. If it doesn't have tape it needs to be returned.

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  3. Awesome ideas! Thank you!! We were planning on coming to the thing tomorrow...I had on my iCal 5:30...but it's 6:30?

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  4. Hey Sandy...I keep all library books in a reusable "fun" canvas tote, that stays visible so the girls can find it easily. I've also used baskets before, usually it's in the same place at all times. School books are kept in their backpacks and only brought out to read. That seems to be what the librarians at school teach them to do. Now, with MG and Lydia reading chapter books, they are allowed to keep them by the nightstands in their rooms, because those books are more involved.

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