Speaker 1:

April Masa consultant at the Massachusetts library system and I'd like to welcome you to books and literacy tips for babies. We did make a change to the presentation today, so I think most of you are aware of that. But previously this was going to be about babies and toddlers, but now we're focused just on babies. We will be holding the toddler version on April 1st from one to 2:00 PM. I'm going to put the registration link in our chat box, uh, so you can use that to register. Hopefully you'll be able to join us for that. Um, we'll also add it to the recording of this webinar that will go out, um, in about a day. I just wanted to let you know a few things before we get started. You are all muted. Uh, this means that we can't hear you if you have to sneeze or talk to a coworker or have a snack.

Speaker 1:So that's good. But we do want to hear from you, so if you have any questions, if you're having any tech problems, but you have presenter questions, which we will be taking throughout the webinar. You can put those in the question box that's on your control panel. Um, if you are having a little trouble hearing, do make sure your sound is up and the headphones are connected and close. Any open browser windows. Um, they sound obvious but they're just some tips that do tend to help. We do have two handouts in the control panel. Uh, one is the PDF of the presentation, so do go ahead and you can click on those to download them. We'll also be taking a couple of polls today so you can keep your eye out for those. As I mentioned, this webinar is being recorded and in about a day you will receive an email with the link to the recording with any other followup materials and a certificate of attendance. So let's get started. All right, thank you April and welcome to all.

Speaker 2:

I'm happy to be with you. I'm here in central Pennsylvania

Speaker 1:

as April mentioned. We're going to just talk about babies today.

Speaker 2:

Just felt it was a lot of information to do, uh, both on the same day. Then we're going to start out by first defining what early literacy is. I'm sure a lot of you know what it is,

Speaker 1:but

Speaker 2:I want to give the definition anyhow because it's something I think it's important to remind parents and caregivers. Early literacy is what young children know about reading and writing before they can actually read and write and this would include things, how to hold a book, how to turn the pages,

Speaker 1:which side of the book is up

Speaker 2:

out of hold, a crayon, the names of some letters, et cetera. Now, I think it's important for parents to realize that or caregivers. I think I'm going to use the word caregivers from now on. I think it's important for caregivers to recognize that because whenever we're talking about [inaudible] story times and we're going to incorporate some early literacy tips, I think it's important that we don't miss lead them, that we're doing something to help the child learn how we're not teaching reading. What we're doing is actually helping the parent to lay the foundation so then when they arrive at school, the foundation will be in place to learn to read. What I'm doing. Um, every child Raider retraining for, uh, caregivers, I'd like to hold up my hand and say, okay, here is the foundation of a house. If we don't have a foundation under our house, it's not going to stand.

Speaker 2:So what we're doing with these early literacy tips or skills is it, we're laying the foundation so when the house is actually built, which is happens when they arrive at school, when the house is built, that foundation is in place. And I just think that's important. [inaudible] across to families. Okay. We're going to briefly talk about brain development. I know probably, again, some of you I guess in the past, so we're going to go through it kind of quickly, but babies are born learning and what they learn is to offer up to the caregiver. So there's the very famous nature versus nurture theory. That was prevalent many years ago when I was getting my second Masters degree in education. They still didn't know whether nature is more important or nurture, but as no now it's actually both. Go for it. Important. Well, the brain development of the child.

Speaker 2:Okay. So what we're looking at now is simply a slide of brain development and it's showing, um, the neurons and the synaptic connections. And you can see at one year old, the brain is really pretty fully developed. If you look at the 28 years, it's not as good as the picture you're seeing of the one year. And that's because as we get older, we have a natural weeding, reading like a reading library, books, weeding of synapses. That's natural for that to occur. But why this is important is because it shows how crucial these early years old or in the young child's life, no, I like this slide also because it's showing synaptic density. Like none of those, for lack of a better word, as black blobs or neurons and those little wiring connections, our synapses. And if you look at the difference between the two years in the adult, the two years, Oh, child actually has a more dense synaptic connections then what the adult does.

Speaker 2:So that's why these children are able to learn things so quickly. [inaudible] at such a young age. Well, there are also risk factors, trauma, neglect, depression, substance abuse, institutionalization and exposures to toxins and also even poverty. And that's why when some kids arrive at school and they've had this background, obviously they're going to have a more difficult time. Uh, learning in general, not just learning to read, but just learning in general. So that's our little brief brain development. Oh man. Okay. Well we're going to move on to now is developmental characteristics. And why I think this is important is because it helps us when we're choosing books for babies to understand what books are good and why, why we should pick those books. It's also important for story time because there are certain things that you can do in a preschool story time that just aren't developmentally appropriate for a baby.

Speaker 2:

So I think it's important we understand these characteristics and the way I divide them, I'm here are my presentation. I have the first six months, then six to 12 months, and then 12 to 24 so it's really broken down when I do the toddler one. It won't be broken down that by nightly, but okay. So the first six months. One thing I don't think I show here, but I want to mention, it's very important is that the first couple months of a baby's life, their vision is actually blurry or fuzzy, whatever, however you want to describe that. So it's not clear. It will develop that way later, anywhere between four to six months. So there's very, very first few months. That is why babies are attracted to patterns or high contrast of colors such as black and white. And if any of you remember the Tana Hoven books, which I think are still in print, some of them are the black and white books.

Speaker 2:That's why they were developed. She was very much on to what was important for a baby the very first few months. Oh. So during those early months, they can discriminate primary colors though, not really shades of colors. So that's why pastel colors are really not that good for babies. Which is kind of ironic because that is a lot of, for many years, a lot of what people would use for [inaudible]. Yes, it okay. It's actually better to have bright primary colors. And that's one thing we want to look at when we're looking at books. Babies are very fascinated by faces and features on faces because so often when we're holding them or diapering them or whatever, they're looking at our face. So all these moving features on faces are very appealing to them. They like music, they like singing, they like to touch and grasp and suck objects. Okay. Six to 12 months.

Speaker 2:The children are very curious. They like to watch but not necessarily interact with other children. They rely on their senses a lot today. Touching, smelling, you know, grasping, tasting objects. Now one thing I think I forgot to mention that brain development, which was probably the most crucial thing, so I'm kind of sorry I forgot to mention it, is that those synaptic connections actually develop. We need to have a lot of synaptic connections. The, the more synaptic connections a baby has, the actually the brighter they are. So synaptic connections are important. [inaudible] what has them the synaptic connections to form. Mmm. All their exposure babies have to sensory experiences. So touching, feeling, tasting, smelling. Whichever one I missed. Uh, those, those sensory experiences are vital for synaptic connections. Uh, so we want to think about that when we're doing our programming and think about what we can do to add more sensory type experiences. Okay. Also, they understand many simple words they're starting to understand directions [inaudible] and they like to, um, [inaudible] imitate simple sounds and emotions.

Speaker 2:Well, super six to 12 months, they enjoy, um, healing songs over and over again. And that is important for us to do in story time. You know, so often, um, we think we have to, use all new rhymes and all new songs every week. It's really better to do that repetition. That also helps with that brain development. It doesn't have to be the exact same songs in lines every time, but to have some repeated is very important. They love to move and suede to music. Oh, the hand feet, finger and lap games that we do. I think they're even every bit as important, if not more important in the number of books we share. You know we want to do a lot of those lap games and different types of rhymes. Around age one is when a child begins to develop objects permanence, and I'm sure you all know what that means, but just in case you don't object.

Speaker 2:

Permanence is when an object that exists is still there. Even when it's covered. Like when you play peekaboo and you cover your [inaudible] hands over your eyes around age one when they start understanding that your eyes are under the hands, they find it amazingly funny. Not sure why, but they do and that's when they start to develop object permanence and they enjoy peekaboo . Now if you think about flap books for babies, black books are really nothing more than peekaboo books because when you lift up the flap, it's like peek aboo, you know you're lifted up and you put it down again. So that's why around age one, those lap books [inaudible] are vital for the object permanence and they also, enjoy them so much because they're starting to understand that concept really. Okay, 24 months, they're very, the children are very active, very curious. That's why if you have a baby story time where you have some babies that are under 12 months and others that are somewhere from 12 to 24, that's when you get your, your Wigler's and your one to toddle around because they're going to become very active, very curious.

Speaker 2:

They're rather unpredictable. They're dependent on their a caregiver, but they also sort of want to [inaudible] [inaudible] you know, like toddle away or wiggle away. Um, they, you can also start naming basic body parts and some of them will start being able to Mmm. Make some animal sounds, uh, also 12 to 24 months. They like to say no. They are very assertive, egocentric, like to seek attention. And here's the most important thing on this slide and it's a key to baby story times. They have very limited attention span and that's why in the story times you want to have a series of activities that are kind of moving along. You don't want to have long drawn out. Rhymes or long songs because that limited attention span. We need to move on to something else. They like to watch other children, but they won't necessarily interact with them.

Speaker 2:

And if you think you're going to put down a, a pal of chunky crayons between, between two babes and say, okay, you two can share these, that's not going to go over good because one, of them will pick up the red crayon and the other one want the red grant. Not really very good at sharing at this age. Okay. Continuing on from 12 to two 24 months. Mmm. Sort of along the line was sharing. They also, I engage in solitary play. That means if you think that you're going to get up and get them, the ones who can stand, get them to hold hands and do ring, ring around the Rosie. I'm not gonna tell you that it's not going to happen, but probably is not going to happen. If we're going to do ring around the res, it'd be best for the, for the parent to hold onto them.

Speaker 2:They just do not, they're not at the stage where they want to interact with each other very much. Uh, we mentioned about how the crayons, they should be those large chunky crayons, but when they hold on to them, they're going to be using their whole arm, the color. You know, sometimes, and I'll probably talk about this later, but I just like putting down, I'll take down sheets of paper, like to the floor and they can, you know, call around with his Chucky crayons or just color over their whole arm. They enjoy music. I recommend using a lot of songs and story time. [inaudible]. Mmm. And again, uh, some people will have the soft blocks, uh, but they can play with, uh, or things that they can stack. Hey, what we're going to talk about next is books for babies, what's good and what's not.

Speaker 2:

And I'm going to ask April in the meantime to start running our poll that's coming up about, um, baby story time. She can run that well and you can answer that while we're talking about for babies. Okay. So what's good and what's not good? Well I get in a lot of trouble for saying this sometimes, but pop bunny is probably one of the worst books you could give a baby. And it is probably the number one baby gift that people give, now when that book was first written was back in the 50s. I'm sure a lot of you weren't even born then. Mmm [inaudible] it was way ahead of its time. I give her a lot of the woman who wrote it, I give her tons of credit for that, but we know so much more now than what we knew then and Oh dear. Um, it looks like my Nepal. Do you want me to show the results? Uh, yes. And I, I think it also lost the picture.

Speaker 1:Okay. Yeah. We'll have to, we'll start your PowerPoint again, but it looked like most of our attendees, um, do a baby story time 89%. Um, and then for those who aren't yet, maybe, um, if they're interested in this, we'll,

Speaker 2:we'll help them out. And for those of you who are doing it, I, gosh, I hope you can, um, get some kind of ideas from this also. Now I'm still not seeing the seat. The current slide up. Okay.

Speaker 1:

It's back now. Yes. Books for babies. What's good? What's not is backup.

Speaker 2:

Okay, good. Good. Okay, good. All right. So we've talked about the path the bunny. Okay. So what we know that's not good about that? The bunny is, um, if I smell colors, uh, and a lot of times, you know, it's being used with the newborn baby. It has a spiral bar. The old boat addition, I think they've made a newer edition, but the old edition had like a spiral body breaks, which is going to go in their mouth. It has a little lift, the flat piece of cloth that would, would definitely be swallowed or cover their windpipe. Um, it just has a lot of things about it that are really not safe for a baby. And I always, Oh, people, you know, there's so many other alternatives out there. Right. Why not recommend some of the good books? Duluth. The books are for babies.

Speaker 2:Okay, so we want coffee. Yeah. Or Boardbooks with rounded edges. And I'm really amazed how many publishers do baby books pointed edges. Oh, they should definitely have the rounded edges. Uh, we're looking at books with the bright primary colors or high contrast, familiar objects. One object per page drives me crazy sometimes when I see these baby books are published. Like Durbin Kindersley had these books that were specifically for babies that had like 20 objects per page. Um, again, you know, that's a lot of throw at them. Uh, especially when the first couple of months when their vision's still, you know, forming. Oh we want books with um, various the faces, which is really good. But to show diversity books with different textures to touch and feel. Because again, if you think about the sensory experience leads is that room Wharton for brain synapse connections. This touch and feel is very important. And

Speaker 2:as our interactive books course you want to share nursery rhymes, law by songs as important to doing story [inaudible] and then books your like if you can be enthusiastic. Okay. Okay. Okay. We're going to

break the book. Yeah. And just a little bit further, I'm going to talk about what books are different. Birth to one and then, um, okay. 24 months. So birthday one. We want those high contrast, primary colors, touch and feel Facebook's point and say if you don't want to point and say book is that's coming up shortly. And then books, um, that are done in rhyme or songs when we get to the young toddlers, 12 to 24 months, this was when the peekaboo books are very important. Again, take a boo object permanence, develops around age one, they're going to be very, very intrigued by those peekaboo books, which are the lifts, the flat books, also the point and say interactive and all those wonderful touch and feel things are important.

Speaker 2:

Continuing along for the 12 to 24 months, uh, books that, you know, Ryan books, uh, books with baby songs, books about animals and the animal sounds, books about everyday life and activities and easy concepts not to teach them those concepts, but to expose them to those concepts. Okay. So I'm going to just give you a couple of examples of some things that I think they're really good and I'll tell you why I think they're really good. Uh, the first one, which seems to be slowly loading there it is. A baby faces by Margaret Miller. All those Margaret Miller books with baby faces I think are really Mmm, really good. They showed diversity. Mmm. I just, I just think they're really excellent. Um, some of you might know those books. Global babies. I, I have a little problem with that global baby book and maybe it's just me, but they're showing babies and costumes, like costumes that are unique to the country, which is not necessarily what those babies will be dressed in and every day where, and I think it's a little misleading, but that's my thing.

Speaker 2:

Maybe it doesn't bother you. It kind of bothers me. I'm not as fond of that series. I really like Margaret Miller's better. Okay. Another book talk about, um, is actually published now by Melissa Doug. Those people who make a wonderful toys. Um, and again, it's slowly loading here. Hopefully it'll come up shortly. I'll just keep talking about it. Hope you will come up. It's um, it's, they're called soft shape books. um the one I was showing you his farm and I have it in front of me right now. Um, so like if you see that cow there and it's kind of her explained, but if you see that cow, he actually, well actually the cow does not help out but, and the next page we have what sound does a chicken make and you can actually, there's a, it's like a puzzle piece, but it's soft boom and it pops out and you pop it out underneath the words cluck clucker there and then you put, you put the piece back in the book.

Speaker 2:

Now I really like these, there's several in this series. Again, they were published by someone else and then that publisher, I don't know if they went out of business or what happened, but Melissa Doug actually bought them. They came out, um, last year, 2019. Um, and I just think they're ideal for the very young babies. Um, I also think you could circulate them. Some people might disagree with me on that. I would put them in a, um, a bag when it was hang up bags. And so hopefully all the pieces that they would stay in it. Um, again, there's so much wonderful a touch and feel and lifting up and down, which gives interactivity. There's just a lot of pluses. I think to their soft shape books. Another thing, book. Okay. Coming up. Well there's several new series. There's animals and there's food. Um, and again, there's a lot of touch and feel aspect on this.

Speaker 2:

If you see the, uh, the, the page I show you that's open there with peas, you can, those letters are actually like res relief I guess you would say. And they could touch and feel those. So you see the word peas and then we see the peas on the plate. Um, and this is what you call it, point and say book. We're going to point to the object and ask what it is, PS. But the other nice thing is they add a couple other words on the thing. If a parent wants to extend the book, yeah, we got four. Can we got, Oh, well your thing says plate, but actually a book, it says dinner plate. [inaudible] yeah. So again, if you know what he adds a couple extra words, you know, you could extend it a little bit. Okay. Yeah, there's another type of book that I'm not sure if you've seen it or not.

Speaker 2:

Some people don't like the circulate flat books, which I call peekaboo books that are this vital around year one up to year two. Uh, I always circulated them in libraries I worked at and I was a practicing librarian. Uh, and I know not everyone can do this, but what we did was we, would put tape on the hinge of the flap down, flat over the hinge of the flat before the books circulated. And it was amazing how much longer those books would circle. It was just incredible. But here's another option. And these have just come out, uh, I want to say 2019, but it could have been the end of 2018 for this. There's a whole series of these books by nosy Crow was the publisher and these are actually felt laps. So the flap you're seeing there with a bunny, where's the rabbit? Um, that is a piece of orange felt that's over over him.

Speaker 2:

And the thinking is that it's going to be more durable than what a paper flap is. So that might be something you might want to try if you're a little leery about some of the soft books. So I really hope you do, sir. I think are important. Okay. For young children, again, a lot of the things I'm showing you are actually different theories of books and also by nosy Crow publisher. By the way, nosy Crow does a lot of really nice, not only for babies but also, well, um, and I, I might get into this and the taller one, um, they have redone some of the, uh, common folk tales, but they're in a very simple format with bright colors. So they do a lot of really, I'm not saying everything they publish is fabulous, but a lot of stuff they publish is, and this is the, can you say it to series?

Speaker 2:And they're very large flaps. The lift are very sturdy on the page. Again, they're bright colors. Um, it's animal sounds. Uh, it's just everything that's perfect for the very young child. Here's just another one I'm showing you by, um, nosy Crow, which is coming up shortly. There it is. Tractor. Look, there's a tractor. Uh, he's searching for why he's looking for the hands. So this is kind of like a, a seek and find book. And when a child is getting closer to age two and they find the hand right away, they'll be so proud of themselves that they can see it on every page. Okay. This a next book that's coming up. It was one that I always give as a baby gift. It is my absolute favorite baby book ever. I'm not sure why. I just love it. And it's done in different formats.

Speaker 2:

You could actually buy it in a larger format that's more like a standard picture book size. So in baby story time they can see it. Oh, you know, it's just really good for that. Uh, where's baby's belly button again? It's a, it's a lift the flap that's perfect for object permanence. Uh, when I give this as a gift, I have parents come to me and they say, guess what book that you gave my child that they really like right now? And I said, is it, where is baby's belly button? And they said, how'd you know that? Well, because your child's

about age one, they're getting object permanence and they're going to love that book. Okay. This is, I think everyone knows it. Okay. It's just Ton's of um wonderful baby books. I love this little book. I'm not sure why just think its really cute [inaudible] I hasn't tapped in the side so that when babies can start, you know, lifting and turning, they can lift those little tabs.

Speaker 2:

Very simple colors. Very cute. Monday is fun day. My undies are red. Tuesday is blue day. I wear my undies on my head. Wednesday's on these bears wearing green. Thursday are these purple ones are clean. And again, you turn the pages by the tab Friday undies yellow, like the sun Saturday undies oranges, number one. Sunday undies blue, red and white, whatever the color on these are. Dynamite I just think it's a cute little book. By the way, as April mentioned, you can download A handout shown on my slides. So if there's a baby book here that you didn't know about and you might want to add in the future, if you download that handout, um, you'll be able to uh, see the [inaudible] see the books and all the information I'm giving you today. Okay. This is Rebecca. This is April again. While you are talking about the books, actually someone did want to know the author of the P's book or the one that was about food.

Speaker 2:Do you know off hand who that was? I have in front of me. Thank goodness it's, I don't have open but I have this one. It's Rilla. Ah, I know that's an unusual name. It's R I L L A Rilla Alexander. Well it's funny. My Chronicle and it was 2019 also. Oh excellent. Thank you. And again, there's one very similar to it that's called animals. Now they have other books that they have done. Oh baby animals, wild animals, vehicles, homes form and one called little critters. But the one that's like the one I showed you, the food one, there's only one that's a delicacy kind of too. We haven't, that's the one called animals. Thank you. April. Okay, so this, well Becca Emily's series, it's been around a long time, but I just, I still love it. It's, I think it's one of the most perfect point and say books.

Speaker 2:

Um, it's done in English and Spanish. The first page, and I'm sorry to show the inside of this and I think I do have a slide in the inside of this. I'm not sure why I didn't put that up there. Um, it, it has on the left hand side, it's a complete [inaudible] red page and it has the word [inaudible] red written in black very clearly. And in the right hand side is an Apple. So when, if, and when do you use these book in the story time? These point and say book. She need to demo how to share them. Like you don't want to just say red Apple, blue Scott. I tell the parents you know, or the caregivers too, put it in a simple sentence like the Apple. This Apple is red. I use apples to make Apple sauce, so it's just another way to give the child or expose them to a little bit more language.

Speaker 2:I want to show you this next book just because it's sometimes it's hard to find these bilingual things. I just showed you the Ember lay. This is um, also in Mandarin Chinese I don't to and she's done several books. Bill yang. Oh the next one I want to show you again, I could not find an inside to show you this, but just try to visualize it. This is not a normal flat book. You open it up, you have the left hand side of the page and then you have the right hand side of the page. That right hand side, the whole age lifts up so that it folds out. So it's almost like you're three pages side by side. The reason I wanted to mention that is because it's another one because it's so much larger. It's good to share in a story time. I love all of me is cute.

Speaker 2:

It's done in rhyme. And it talks about all the different parts of our body. You know, I love my eyes. I love my cheeks. I love my chubby cheeks. I love my scaredy squeaks. I love my legs that run. I love my licking tongue. Um, it's just cute. Cause its done in rhyme and talks about baby parts. Now another thing I wanted to mention, um, cause I find out sometimes libraries are not aware of these books by child's play. Years ago. Child's play, used to be a company that just sold toys or whatever. I think it was like home parties, almost like Tupperware. Uh, however, now or well, not now. I mean for a number of years now. They've been publishing what I think are some of the best, baby books. Um, and they're just fabulous. Um, there's tons of em, but this is, I'm a little teapot.

Speaker 2:I know they did want to touch shoulders, knees and toes and um, I can't remember all of them now, but anyhow, um, it's, it's really nice because it's a little, I'm, I'm a little teapot. Uh, the children had to remind me a little bit of, Oh, an oxen, Barry's children. Uh, they're not cluttered pages. It's like one little line per page, just kind of perfect for baby. And you know, if you're sharing this in a, in a story time, then you know, of course you could do the, the song afterwards. They're just perfect I think for babies. This is, um, another series. Oh yeah. I think she was, I love to sleep and I love to eat. And uh, this is done in English, French and Spanish. I know, I'm, I know particularly, I don't know where else, but I know in California there's a lot of French schools and so I think it was probably a lot of people that want to see that French.

Speaker 2:Now a nice thing about this book is there's a lot of interesting touch and feel surfaces on this. So again, we're talking about sensory experiences and they're not anything that's gonna fall off like in Pat the bunny. I mean, they're very secure objects, I guess you would say. So that's another series I like that is done in several languages. I'm noticing this one's a little fuzzy. Uh, apologize for that. Noodle loves the farm is completely touch and feel. And again, you know, like on the first page is a horse and he has hair in his mane. If I try to pull on that, I really can't get it out off, you know, so you want to make sure if you have any touch and feel things, yeah, they're not going to come off the book and in baby's hand. Because if they are, then they're goin to go in baby's mouth.

Speaker 2:

Well, this noodle theory is also, there was, um, a whole bunch of noodle goes here and noodle goes there. Again. If you notice that they're in the right hand corner, it's another, a nosy Crow book. They've done a lot of wonderful things and uh, on, so this last one I'm going to show you now, dummy yucky. Uh, it's just, it's just such a classic. Um, Leslie Petrocelli has done a lot of good books for both babies and toddlers. Uh, but this one is literally a cult favorite. If you would go to YouTube and put in yummy, yucky by Leslie Petrocelli, you will see tons of caregivers and parents reading to their babies, uh, and reading this book and seeing how much they love it is just, I'm telling you it's a, it's a cult favorite. Mmm. its soup is yummy. Soap is yucky eggs are yummy. Ear wax yucky.

Speaker 2:Am I favorite page burgers are yummy boogers. Ooh. Yucky. So it's, it's just a great book. Um, my whole career, um, it was mostly in Ohio and I arrange it by conferences for children's librarians that we have Leslie Petrocelli come one time and she's the most delightful person ever. And um, I ask her about because yummy, yucky is just going to, uh, a cult favorite forever. I asked her how she got the idea her

child has grown now, I think her child might even be in college, but when she did this book or he's, he's definitely up there in age, but when she did this book, Mmm. He said that he would put everything, absolutely everything in his mouth. And she felt like her whole life, all she was doing was running after a child saying, no, no, that's yucky. Oh, that's yummy. You can have that.

Speaker 2:

That's, yum, no that's yucky. And so that's how she got the idea of doing the book and it's just, uh, in my mind, just such a classic, okay. Moving on to the story times baby story times are truly not like any other story time you do and it's sent some, many of you do them. I assume you know that. Um, again, I, I hope there's something you'll get out of what I'm talking about today. Since so many of you do this, uh, I'm gonna to talk, um, and maybe I'll go through the tip sheet a little bit faster since a lot of you. Um, already do these and kind of have probably your own way of doing it. I think an important thing to remember is this is a program that is really more for the parent than the baby. You know you need to model that parent how to share books, rhymes and songs with their child at home and you want to encourage them to do that.

Speaker 2:

That should be your primary concern. I think people who are afraid of doing baby story times because they have done preschool and they cry baby and they see the baby's warning all around and crawling on the floor that they feel like they're a failure. There's, there's no group of babies that are going to sit there and watch you with wrap attention. You have to kind of dismiss that and let the parents rope them in. This program is really, you're trying to show parents how to do this stuff at home. Um, size of the group. I always kind of was careful about limiting that because you don't want to block babies from seeing. Usually we do a semicircle. I knew some libraries have risers so they could accommodate more, but you might have to take a few less people than what you would for like a preschool. I think it's important to use many wines and songs.

Speaker 2:

I think, I mean, I know some people use themes. I don't think themes are the least bit necessary. Babies are not going to understand things at that very young age. Mmm. Well maybe the ones closer to one but not the very young ones. And so I don't think it's so important for themes. I think it's more important to just share a lot of these labs, um, lap games and songs, um, without the theme that's not that important. Uh, it's not a simplified toddler. A story time when I was teaching at Kent state university, I was adjunct professor for graduate library students. I think that was the hardest thing I had had with, um, with my students is they would have books and things that just really were more or two and a half or three year olds. They just couldn't get the idea. They wanted to do like a simplified toddler story time.

Speaker 2:And it really wasn't developmentally appropriate, which is what DAP is. If you see DAP there, it wasn't developmentally appropriate for babies. I think it's important to repeat lines. Umm. Sometimes I will do most of the things twice. I would do a rhyme and then we will repeat up to the first time it's apparent, see how we're doing it. And then the second time it's easier for them to join in. We always clap after every rhyme. I'd love to know if you all do that. I think, um, it, you know, it's just babies love to cat. They love to clap. Um, and then the take home sheet, I want to talk about that just a little bit briefly because I know [inaudible] can be, well I know some libraries that say the take home sheets are just not successful for them. Parents, you know, lead them in the library or whatever.

Speaker 2:

So just that's another thought. Might be a what some libraries are doing. For example. I know, I'm pretty sure that, well [inaudible] yes, they do do this. A Brooklyn, um, they have, um, well they're on a ring. They're like wines now. They had the money to do it in a rain. You could still do it. It was on a ring so the parents could put it in their purse and take it with them or wherever they wanted to go. But you know, even if you did a booklet, but they did a whole series of rhymes and songs and then they just use different ones, um, every week. So in other words it would be like having a little booklet that you would give them. If you have a series of programs you would give them at the beginning and they have more of a tendency to take that with them and hopefully hopefully use it at home to practice.

Speaker 2:Okay. So what to expect for the few of you who might not have done a baby story time. Again, I already mentioned this baby, my mat, pay attention. You might be squirming, crawling, crying. We have that problem with caregivers not participating. I think it's very important to set the guidelines at the beginning that this is a free time for them too and you want them to join in on umm. Oh rhymes and songs and how important that is for them to continue to do that at home. Okay. The phone issue, we could spend a half an hour in deaths and unfortunately we don't have it. Why both of tackle the cell phone thing is so many ways. I've heard of libraries that Chuck the cell phones at the door, so parents are allowed to have them. Oh, I've heard all different scenarios. Um, there are other people say, no, no, no, it's not a good idea because they like to take pictures of what you're doing so that they can imitate at home.

Speaker 2:

And other people say, Oh no, no, that's not a good idea. Because if you know, they might get somebody else's child in the picture and they don't want their child in the picture. Oh, it goes on forever. So since we don't have time to talk about this in depth, I will tell you that a SLJ on, that'd be on February 25th, Rachel Payne and Jessica really? R A. L. L. I. R. A. L. L. I actually, it was February 20th, February 20th, 2020 so it was two 20 2020 did an article called parents glued to their devices during story time, how to encourage active participation in library programs. And they hit every phone issue I think that she can about think of. So you might want to look that up again. It was in school library journal, I'm showing it was online, an online article February 20. It was probably in the, in the journal too, but I found it online February 20th, 2020 Rachel Payne, P A Y N E parents glued to their devices during story time questions.

Speaker 2:

You might have a look at that. Um, okay. Moving along. Anchor everything. Yes. You're going to have some babies Crow up and try to grab your books or whatever, you know. So try to anchor things. Just keep going, keep smiling. You're modeling, you're doing it. Great job by being a model. Yeah. Okay. I'm sure that those of you you've done baby store types have your own successful what I call template. It's the little pattern I followed from week to week in a in a baby story time. This is what worked well with me. If you haven't done it a story telling, you might want to try this. A little template. Uh, we have our opener. I repeat the same song every week. And i say opening song, again, repetition of the same thing is important. I would share a board book and I'm going to come back to the sharing books in a moment.

Speaker 2:The three or four what I call lap rhymes. Then do another song, another book. Are there three or four more rhymes depending on, on attention span. Another song, my closer was also a song that repeated

weekly and then we had share time or what I call unstructured a time afterwards. Now back to the book. Umm. There's a lot of different ways people do with the books. Sometimes they'll share one book, uh, the holding up, which is standard for story time. Other times if libraries that can afford it have had multiple copies of different things and they would give each parent a copy of the book so that while they're reading it in front the parent could be sharing it with their baby. Right. You know, with a baby on their lap. So again, there's a couple of different ways you can do that. Probably depends on your funding and whether you can buy that many multiple copies or whatever. Okay. One of the handouts I gave you today, so I'm not going to talk about a baby. The actual sample program, any is because you actually have a handout just with a sample program. I had a thing where I did finger rhymes. Umm. Toe foot rhymes, bounce lift rhymes and tickle touch rhymes. And I varied them because you didn't want to do like for bounce and lift and row. So if you look at my sample program, you can see what I'm talking about when I talked about the different. types of rhymes I think.

Speaker 1:

Okay.

Speaker 2:

Just my little oddity. I don't know anyone else that does that, but it worked very well for me. So that'll show on this sample now. Um, if you could run that other poll. Um,

Speaker 1:April, I think that one seems like I lose my slide, but I'll try again. Okay. Well we also had a, so we also had another question. Um, uh, it was if, uh, would you use a touch and field book in a story time? And if so, how would you do that? Exactly. Okay, let me,

Speaker 2:Hmm. Oh my for, let's see. I'm sure I share noodle loves the horses. Okay. If you cannot have multiple copies like we've talked about, then I would just share it. Noodle loves up. I would just share the actual story and I might touch the touch and feel things while I'm doing it. Uh, and then I would just, I'd probably just explain to the parent, this book has nice little touch and feel things. So if you check a book like this out later, this will be a great book for your child to have the experience of touching the floor in the book is as a sensory experience of importance. So I've just kind of explained to the parent, you know, afterwards about how this has nice little touch and feel. And because this still has a text, they're still kind of like a story to it.

Speaker 2:

Well you can also like Ms. Page says noodle loves the sheep and that's all that says. It says noodle loves the sheep. Why wait Mike? Well my hand over the little touchy feely part of the sheep and say, Ooh, the sheep fur feels so nice and soft or whatever. You know, maybe I would even express what I'm feeling there. I hope that answers the question. All right, thanks. Um, and I'm gonna show the poll results. I think most people had voted and um, Fred, so this was if you run a baby story time, do you have unstructured play time? And 82% said yes. Yeah. And then 18% do not. So, so thanks for participating. Yes. Thank you. Yeah. Okay. Um, let me get back to the slide again. Come on. [inaudible] well, it's shown them mine. I think there are comms okay. About this a little bit. Okay.

Speaker 2:

One of the things, one of the problems we have with baby story times is parents want a yak, yak, yak, sometimes Dorian and not participate, which is going to be a real problem. That's why I try to establish a guideline from the beginning. But I think if you have that unstructured time afterwards, it gives more time for the parents to interact with each other. And talk about things they want to talk about like, your child's earache or whatever. So I'm just, okay. What I consider the unstructured time. So you have this little 15, 20 minutes, whatever you have for babies. Right. Okay. And then followed by a little unstructured time. And so what I do there is I do a combination of these things or maybe when we got music, when we play one or whatever. So the things I do though in that what I call that unstructured time is music.

Speaker 2:Well are you in order activities? Like want to give you a little example of that? Oh, here are some things that I think, and again, this isn't a handout, you know, so if I go through some of this a little quicker, you can go back and read it in the handout. But uh, basically what I do is I would have actual instruments are made for babies. Yes. You can buy instruments. I'm not talking about the standard rhythm band instruments that you have for preschool. These are actually made specifically for babies and for babies hands. Um, I tried to include a picture of my stuff there. Ah, so you could get a little bit of an idea. I know West music makes some, I'm sure there's others people, other people that make them all [Inaudible], but in this unstructured, well, I mean old baby, you know, play some of these instruments play some music.

Speaker 2:Mmm. There are, I know you can't probably see it in the picture, but there are some egg shakers that are better than those round eggs. Umm. And I, I don't know how to tell you which one it is, but they're more, they're more of a cylinder than an egg shape, which I think is better for babies for when it comes to those kinds of shakers. umm. Small drums will you see, you can see some of the stuff there, which good. Um, you can also, music activities, have the parent hold the baby dance with a baby, rock the baby, play peekaboo scarves. You can have them move them scars to the music. There's so much to do with music activities and babies. Okay. Play activities. I have set out these types of things, I guess you'd call it like little play stations that they would do afterwards.

Speaker 2:

Bubbles plastic balls in a way waiting point. You have surprised how much they love that. I know it sounds silly, but they love it. Uh, sliced pool noodles. I'm on like a crazy woman. I last year I was doing a workshop, um, for some state, I can't remember where the matter and we were going to actually make some of these, um, I guess you'd say somebody's baby, uh, play things and I went to every dollar store I could go to. [inaudible] my whole area and you have, I've kind of like a shot a short blade to 'em cut them [inaudible] if you don't have, um, if you can't afford softbox or Duplos, I'm telling you I got my pool noodles for like a buck, at the devour store and you get the broke powerful ones and they are just tons of fun for them to play with.

Speaker 2:I know it sounds silly, but it's, it really works. Okay. [inaudible] activities. If you look at that picture on the left, I'm serious. You would be surprised. So much. Kids love this. I buy, I bought, again, this is all dollars. I had to do this. [inaudible] was the for the state. It was all stuff you can do. It was a dollar store. Okay. And we'll, yeah, because you could do a baby. So this was [inaudible], these were Velcro rollers.

They're bird sizes and it's like felt bored and [inaudible] they move them around. It's like making like a little, it's like a little puzzle where, I don't know, it sounds crazy but was a lot of fun. And then the thing on the right, I just had, I bought different pieces of India and I bought them at the dollar store too. Just inexpensive pieces of soft or um, you can get sandpaper did different.

Speaker 2:

I actually don't have a picture of the one that shows all different types of things, but there were all types of things to like [inaudible] [inaudible] what's this again? Sensory experiences. Okay. Moving along. This is I think our last section today as this is our last section of the day. Um, and what we're going to talk about now is, um, the every child ready to read project and the five practices. I hope you know about this. If not, I don't know that I can catch up that quickly, but this was the second edition of every child way to read project. And the five practices are talking and singing, reading and writing and playing. So what I want to do in our last remaining minutes here is talk about umm things that you can do in story time that help with these practices. I hope that makes sense. Like what can I do in a story time that'll, that'll help them the talking or with writing.

Speaker 2:

And that's interesting when it comes to babies, the writing, um, or what, what are some of these things I can do? So what I'm going to show you next in these slides or, or kind of a combination of not only what I'm recommending, maybe in story time, but there are also early literacy tips that you can give to caregivers so that they can um. Do these things at home with their child, the talking, singing, read, write plates, ways to encourage them to um do early literacy things within these five practices. Gosh, I hope that makes sense. Let's just move on then we'll then maybe it'll make more sense. Okay. So what we're going to do, and talking is what I already told you about when we were talking about sharing a point and say book Addie like it was red Apple, blue sky. I recommend the caregivers add words and sentences to your point and say books.

Speaker 2:

Now when the child gets older and they're talking clear, you know, clearly, then you can use it more as a point in say and say, what's this? What color is it? Okay, but when they're not at that stage yet, what do you want to do is try to add more languages or add more language. Excuse me. I'll also label objects, gestures, and faces in your child's environment. Talk about face pictures. I know a lot of people will have, um, pictures of family, mainly pictures near where they are diapering the child. And they can talk about that when they're diapering them, diapering the child. And then for the very young babies, um, it's important to imitate baby sounds and their babbles. If you want more information on that, just do a search. And he, Barry brazeltin, the famous child psychologist, there's tons of YouTube stuff of him holding up babies and they make sounds and he, he makes the sound back at them.

Speaker 2:

He felt that was so important and that type of babbling back and forth between the parent and the child. It's like communication. It's a first stages of talking. The American library association, actually the children's division, um, the association for library service to children offered, which April and I are both on the board of directors, the face of our library services. Okay. We have a, um, product that is wonderful. It's called babies need words. And that is the website. Again, when you look at the handouts later, if you can't copy it down quick enough, you can get it off the handout later. But what it is, you can, this is all free. It's hard to find free things these days. You just download these, they're little posters. You

can make them the bookmarks, posters, wherever you want to make them into. And it gives all types of early literacy tips, but it's shows how important languages.

Speaker 2:

Okay. Moving on to singing and looking at my clock, I'm going to have to move a little bit faster. Okay. Singing, uh, we want to share some picture books I told you about the [inaudible] probably I'm a little teapot, head, shoulders, knees and toes. Lots and lots of nursery rhymes. Uh, encourage parents to make up songs while they're engaging in daily activities. That's a little tip you could give in. Um, in a story time if you're doing some kind of little, um, phone or rhyme about getting dressed, you know, encouraged them to make up songs while they're, you know, doing these daily acts liberties and using songs with motions and helping babies make the motions very important. Reading, We want to keep our reading experiences pleasurable and short stop if they're not interested, never use it as a punishment. Mmm. You know, I, a number of years ago I was in a grocery store and this, this little Todd young toddler, like one year when me 12, 13 months was reaching for everything in the basket and the parent went nuts and said, you know, when you get home, you know you're going to be in, you can go to your room.

Speaker 2:You're not going to get to watch. I forget what TV program was called. Yeah. Really became like a punishment. Uh, we want to keep all our reading experiences. Oh, pleasurable. I always like to explain to parents the chewing factor. By that I mean parents say, I can't read to my baby. They just want to chew in the book. Well, chewy, they're actually exploring the book. They're trying, they don't know what it is. They're trying to find out what it is and if they can't say, Hey, what is this? They're going to put it in their mouth to try to explore explore the object showing a clock book like you're seeing right there is actually, believe it or not. Early literacy experience. The thing, and it's going to be hard for me to talk talk you through this, but if you're holding a baby in your lap and reading to them.

Speaker 2:

Most times parents are holding that book 10 to 12 inches from their eyes cause that's where we hold a book to read it. So the baby's right in front of them. The book is 10 or 12 which is from the parent's eyes, which means the book is smacked right up against the baby's face. That is not comfortable and that's when they're going to reach out and try to touch it or bang it or throw it or do what the book really needs to be held out further. You have encouraged parents to do that, hold it out further, hold it out about 10 inches from the baby's eyes. That's where it should be eight to 10 and when you're doing that, they can't even touch it when its out that far. So that's just the little little hint there. Okay. Let's talk about writing. Cause you're gonna say, well they're not writing.

Speaker 2:Well no, but what we have to realize is in order to write they need to develop those small motor skills in their hands, so what do we do to help them with that? Feeling Shapes helps later with formation of letters play with like that child's doing there with edible playing dough paper of chubby crayons, touch and feel. All those types of things are going to help that child develop small motor skills for writing. And the last thing is plain. We talked about using lap ga, lap games, and bounce rhymes. I'm going to give you some sights here soon. Uh, choose developmentally appropriate toys. Go to the website for the national association for the education of young children. And they have what? Toys are perfect for every single age. So that's how you know what's developmentally appropriate, particularly if you have any

money to buy any educational toys, go to N A E Y C national association educational children find their developmental developmentally appropriate toy list.

Speaker 2:

Uh, we want things that appeal to baby senses, play with baby daily. And here I, quickly want to show you this, I think the two best sources for lap. Now you can go to books, you can go a lot of places, but my two favorite sources, um, is Jaybrary, which I'm sure a lot of you are familiar with, and I don't know if you know about this or not, but the King County library system has, tell me a story. You go in, they demo hundreds, I mean hundreds of rhymes and songs and there's a whole huge section for babies. Unfortunately on your handout, I forgot to, I know you're seeing the website there, but I forgot to put that I sent April the handout a number of days ago and I forgot to put it on there. So if you can quickly copy down that T should go up there. Did have content, but let me tell you this, if, if you don't have, if you don't write it down, let's do a Google search. King

Speaker 2:

tell me a story. King County library system, I guarantee it'll come up cause that's how I search every time. Every time. I don't remember the website, I just write, tell me a story. King County library system and it comes up. Uh, we only have about a couple minutes. I don't know if there's any questions that are coming in or not. April, can you let me know if there are, and while you're doing that, I'm just gonna throw up one more slide. Remember that on April 1st this is no April fools joke. It's gonna happen. I hope for real for one to two o'clock. We're going to talk about toddlers and I a little bit of a teaser. I will tell you, I think the word toddlers for two years, two year old Storytime if you want to know why, you'll have to tune in to find out. I'll give a good explanation of that. But uh, I have to go along with the library world and the library world wants to [inaudible] you know so though some people do, I know 18 months off, but I will explain why I don't like it terminology, but we will be doing the same thing. We'll be going through the developmental characteristics. Well story time and early literacy. [inaudible] any questions that you know of mail, April? Yes. Actually back to um the, when you have the slide with the pool noodles, it looked like there was some other materials there. Um,

Speaker 1:

you know, sort of like smaller tubes that fit in. Do you remember what those were that you used?

Speaker 2:

Oh, well I'm going back right now. I know if you're seeing it or not. Okay. So what do I have bigger? Because this also went up through and including two-year-olds. Um, I have some Shaneel but I also have the, um, I'll explain it on the lower left hand of that picture if you see It looks kind of pink and blue. Those pink and blue things, they actually don't laugh against this old dollar store stuff. There are things that women use to wrap. pure well make clothes like, um Oh, like the sock rollers. Yeah, sticks. But they're like soft foam and the good for sweating. The good for threading pool noodles. You can also use Shaneel. But for the Bay, again, this was goin up the [inaudible] a little bit higher, but it was babies. And when a Pyre, so a short night [inaudible] both it for the older kids I've used the Chanel, but for the babies I would use those only because I don't know what they're called, but the things that curl hair. That makes sense. Right. I've totally seen them, my hair's not

Speaker 1:

long enough for them. But I love this use for them. And it, I just love sort of in general like go to your dollar store and browse around and like think

Speaker 2:

kind of outside the box or like, you know, even though it's supposed to be for curling hair is could it be, you know, okay. For, for something else. Exactly. One thing I just want to quickly say, so I don't want to mislead anyone. You'll see Palm palms there. I would not use those with babies because again, they'll put them in their mouth. But what I was doing for this particular workshop, it was babies and then it was the tooth two-year-old. And so for the two year olds, um, they use pom-poms sometimes to stack in this pools. I will not do enough babies. Um, excellent. Do that real quick. And on the other page where you see the [inaudible]. Oh, you sound dumb. That is, there's bubbles. Yeah. The other thing there is a tissue box was whole kinds of scarves in it where they could just pull them out. I know that sounds dumb, but babies love doing that. And if you can see it, it's just like a tissue box of scores. So okay, any other questions? not at the moment but it is, it is a little after two

Speaker 1:So if people need to go, please feel free to go. We, like I said, we are recording this so we'll have the recording available. Um, sometime tomorrow usually goes out 24 hours after the webinar, but we also, um, have a archive of webinars on our Vimeo page. So, um, you know, people miss the last few minutes. That's okay. But I also want to be conscious of your time too Sue. Um, I know that's what i could do [inaudible] fathers in one session, I just felt like too much, though? eh thank you all. Yeah. Yeah. And if people, if we, there were a couple more questions, but if any more come in, um, we save them and we can, uh, email, email people directly. But one was, um, if there are any ideas for encouraging parents to take books out, uh, and she says the collection development for board books depends on cir circulation rates. So I'm always looking at ways to increase circulation.

Speaker 1:So that's specifically for the board books. Well, I don't know if they're already doing this because this sounds too simplistic possibly, but Mmm. You know, if you're doing baby story times, um, I definitely have during that unstructured time, I would usually put them in, um, very low baskets, if that makes sense. A whole collection of board books that the babies could grab them and I think that encouraged them to take out more board books, um, during the, um, you know, during after the story times. Um, I don't know. I think it's just important to have them somewhere where very young children can find them in your library, uh, and grab them. Um, and the only other thing I can think of is, you know, if you're not doing like a regular street talk, like if you say you can't do a story, that series of baby story times, I think there's a lot of value just to have a one time thing, believe it or not.

Speaker 1:And it may be not so much a structured story time, but just talk about some of the stuff, you know, and um, and then encourage them better check out books there that my three books is important. So you know, if you can't do a whole series of things, maybe just do some one shot deals and you can have some of these little play in music things go, you know, you could do some of that stuff with a more like a music of movement program. I think also, I think a lot of times we do think we have to get a kind of all in. And maybe so for those of you in the audience who haven't or aren't doing baby story time now, I love the idea of just sort of like a special event. Oh, I'll try it out and see. And like suicide bring baskets of those books that aren't going out.

Speaker 1:

Yeah. And when people will take it home and encourage them other questions? Um, well there is, if there was one more about the webinar and so I do want to let people know, um, if you, even though you signed up for today, if you want to do the toddler one, I am asking you to go ahead and register for it. So I did put the link in the chat box, um, so that you can register. Like I said, um, we record them. So if you, if you miss it or you can't come, um, you'll be able to watch it later. But either way I encourage people to register so that, um, so you get that recording and um,

Speaker 2:I did, I'm going to apologize. It's really my fault that we didn't do em both today. But I, you know, when I was, I just told April, I agreed to do both. When we first talked about this way over a month ago and then a week or so ago, I thought this is just too much for one hour and I didn't feel I could do the subject justice. So I apologize that we have it divided now, but I really thought it would

Speaker 1:

be better.

Speaker 2:

A better presentation and have em split.

Speaker 1:

No, and I appreciate that and I think, I think our audience does too because, um, after viewing it, I definitely can see how that would not have often in time. And speaking of time, I am gonna let everyone go. As I mentioned, any other questions that have come in, we'll save and, um, I can share those with Sue. And thank you again Sue so much for this webinar and thank you all for attending and, um, hope to see some of you here for the first. I hope some of you can come back on the first. I look forward to that. Okay, have a good rest of the week everyone. Bye. Bye.

Speaker 2:All right.