• Lists

    2015 CYBILS WINNERS

    Definitely take time to check out the amazing list of CYBILS winners for 2015!  This was the first time I’ve been a part of an award committee and although it was a lot of work, it was great working with librarians, teachers, and bloggers who all care as much as…

  • Activities

    E-Tots – Digital Literacy for our Littlest Patrons

    I just finished up a quick program this morning using the library iPads to highlight some fun and educational apps for toddlers and preschoolers. We called it E-Tots – Digital Literacy for our Littlest Patrons.  I don’t have any of my own kids, so I know that many parents use…

  • Activities

    Sensory-Friendly Storytime Theme: Robots

    I just finished my fourth storytime of the day and I am beat!  Today’s Sensory Friendly Storytime Theme: Robots! These storytimes are provided at classrooms for preschool-age children who have a disability.  The disabilities range from vision, language, autism spectrum, learning disabilities, mobility disabilities, and others.  It can be exhausting…

  • Activities

    e-Tots, Educational and Fun!

    I have mixed feelings about using technology with little ones.  I love having Skype so that I can see my baby nephew who lives on the other side of the state, but it seems as though apps have taken over as “babysitters” in many cases.  But, if parents are using…

  • Activities

    Sensory-Friendly Storytime Theme: Sheep

    This month for outreach I focused on sheep… for no particular reason, except there are some really cute sheep books available! For this group of kids, I end up seeing eight classrooms that are combined into four storytimes with a range of ages and disabilities.  And the group changes throughout…

  • Lifestyle

    Improving Adult Literacy

    Engadget, a technology blog, had an article yesterday about improving adult literacy.  XPRISE is teaming up with the Barbara Bush Foundation for Family Literacy in a competition for developers to create applications to promote reading and writing for adults.  The article states that there are 36 million adults living in the…

  • Lifestyle

    E-Reading with Toddlers – Screen Time or Storytime?

    This is not necessarily a new article, but I just found it and thought it was interesting enough to share.  The New York Times published an article last October discussing whether or not using e-readers and tablets constitutes reading together (storytime) or is it just screen time (which the AAP…

  • Reviews

    Book Review: Born Reading

    Born Reading: Bringing Up Bookworms in the Digital Age – From Picture Books to eBooks and Everything in Between by Jason Boog is a great read for new and expecting parents that gives simple ways to encourage young children to learn to love books and reading. And I’m really enjoying…

  • Activities

    Sensory-Friendly Storytime Theme: Animals

    I am lucky to visit a few of the Montgomery County Intermediate Classrooms within our community  If you are unfamiliar with this service, these are classrooms for children who have either been diagnosed on the Autism Spectrum and/or have other disabilities that make it difficult for them to attend a “mainstream” preschool…

  • Activities

    Storytime Theme: Jungle

    We haven’t planned many weekend programs for our library, I work so much during the week, I’m hesitant to work some more on the weekend!  But, I do work a couple of Saturdays throughout the year.  We’re beginning to think about offering more on the weekends so we did a…