Family Place – Parent/Child Workshop

Back in October of last year, I posted about going to training to become a Family Place Library.  After six months, numerous meetings, and spending our grant money, I’m happy to report our first Parent/Child Workshop went beautifully.  For those of you unfamiliar with the Family Place Libraries is a national model to create community centers out of libraries especially for parents with young children.  Each library has a designated space for young children to play, an up-to-date resource collection for parents, and offers the Parent/Child Workshop.

The Parent/Child Workshops is an 75-minute program that runs for 5 consecutive weeks, where parents and children are given time to play with developmentally appropriate toys.  The workshop also offers a short circle time where a story is read-aloud and children have to opportunity to participate in songs, dance, or fingerplays.  The final component is the resource professional – these are individuals that work in child development, nutrition, speech therapy, music and movement, etc.  For the firs week, the librarian is the resource professional talking with parents informally about the importance of early literacy skills and the programs we offer at the library.  Parents are given the opportunity to ask questions on an informal basis and professionals do not give a lecture but circulate among parents giving advice or information that parents need.

I think our first workshop went very well.  Parents and children had a great time playing for over an hour.  We read Bunny Fun by Sarah Weeks and shook our sillies out as well.  It was a great chance to really talk with parents about upcoming events and I think everyone had a great time!  I think next week will go even better!