For: Caregivers/Parents Ages: Birth-2 Years The love of books and reading starts when we are born. As care providers, parents, and teachers, we need to connect the experience of reading and learning with a ludic/game activity or experience. When you connect a learning or reading experience with a fun experience, your child will associate the […]
The 2018 Summer Reading theme is “Libraries Rock!” This theme gives us plenty of opportunities to create full brain activities through teachable moments. Music is considered a means of both expression and learning for children. As caregivers, parents, librarians, and teachers, we encounter young children that struggle with expressing their emotions and feelings through words. […]
You’ve probably heard that our brains have a left and a right side. The left side of the brain is the one responsible for organizing our thoughts and makes us think logically. The right side of our brain is the emotional half; we have it to thank for our feelings. What does this mean for […]
The best thing about summer reading is the weather. The longer and sunnier days make this the warmest season of the year. As a child, the most exciting part of the summer was getting to spend time with my family, friends, and neighbors. A very active and curious kid, my summers represented extra time to […]
“This post is one in a series about the five literacy practices of sing, play, read, talk, and write.” What is talk? For this post, the definition of talk will be: “The act of emitting sounds with the intention of communicating a specific desire, need or thought” Have you ever seen a baby babbling to […]
Getting Ready for Kindergarten using the “Colorado Day by Day Family Literacy Calendar“ And our Libraries Part 2: Language Development When we look for the definition of language in the dictionary, it tells us that language is the tool humans use for expressing thoughts, needs, desires, and also to communicate with others. The famous […]
We talk so much about the five early literacy practices: Read, Talk, Write, Sing and Play, and their importance to your child’s brain development in the areas of language, cognition, socio-emotional and fine-gross motor skills. But did you know that by reading aloud with your child, having a shared reading or participating in storytime at […]
“This post is one in a series about the five literacy practices of sing, play, read, talk, and write.” Play has been called “the work of children” and for good reason! It is through play that children learn to interact in their environment, discover their interests, and acquire speech, language, new vocabulary, and cognitive, motor, […]
In this country where I’m living now, or to be more specific, the state where I am now living, Colorado, I have developed a new hobby, thanks to my husband. I am talking about skiing! Even though I have only gone to ski two times, I already consider myself a “ski addict”. The second time […]
Getting Ready for Kinder using the “Colorado Day by Day Family Literacy Calendar” And our Libraries Part 1: Social Emotional Development Social development is a huge part of growing up, but what is Social Development? Social development involves learning the values, knowledge and skills that enable children to relate to others effectively. This kind […]
“Gallina=chicken, puerta=door, ventana=window y pluma=pen” Those are words of a traditional rhyme back in my country. Even though I didn’t know English when I learned that song, I was probably around 3 years old, I knew the letters of that song to perfection. Music is recognized as a universal feature of human cognition: every healthy […]
For those who don’t know me, my name is Pamela Mejia. I was born and lived all my life in the Dominican Republic until 2016, the year I got married to my husband from Colorado. We’ve been married 1 year and 7 months, the same amount of time I have lived in this state. Before […]
Para aquellos que no me conocen, mi nombre es Pamela Mejia, nací y viví toda mi vida hasta los 27 años en la Republica Dominicana. Año en que me case con mi actual esposo proveniente de Colorado. Llevamos 1 y 7 meses de casados, lo mismo que llevo viviendo en Colorado. Antes de vivir aquí, […]
Parents and caregivers are the first education providers during the 0-5 early critical years. Reading has been associated as an early indicator of academic success. Have you heard about: “The 1000 Books Before Kindergarten challenge”? It’s simple: read any book with your child, with the goal of reading 1,000 before kindergarten. The objectives of this […]
On Tuesday, December 12th, 10 – 11am, Growing Readers Together will be hosting a webinar with Ashleigh Kirk, Colorado Outreach Director for Bright By Three. Bright by Three’s mission is “to provide a bright beginning for all Colorado children by helping families support their children’s physical, emotional, and intellectual development during the critical first three years of […]
Bedtime is a great time for adult caregivers to read books and comfort children before going to sleep. In this last moment of the day, you can develop your child’s early literacy skills by holding a Bedtime Storytime. Read *Book Suggestions (Check availability at your closest library): • Dinosaur vs. Bedtime, by Bob Shea (Hyperion, […]
Cognitive development is the construction of thought processes, including remembering, problem-solving, language learning and decision-making (logical thinking), from childhood through adolescence to adulthood. Jean Piaget, a Swiss clinical psychologist known for his pioneering work in child development believed that children construct an understanding of the world around them, through experience making connections with what they […]
No matter which one you are doing this year, or even if you’re doing both, you can turn it into a fun learning experience. The children in your care will create memories they’ll never forget and their learning will be strengthened if you make your outing a positive experience. Activities to do before Talk to […]
Friday Grab Bag is a weekly Spotlight on Sharing series that highlights fun, unique, and interesting happenings in Colorado libraries. News from the Colorado State Library is at the bottom. Let’s open the Grab Bag! Make & Create As part of their “Be Ready, Make a Plan” series, Ignacio Community Library will offer Day Packs and […]
During our summer kits preparation time, Deborah from John C Fremont Library shared with us an innovative way to take pop-out story times out of the libraries. We already know that while kids are all excited and thrilled about summer time, librarians and informal child care providers are pulling their hair off to come up […]
If you are related to the fields of early literacy, libraries, education, child development, brain development, etc., you already know that reading to our kids helps to develop their brains and has a lasting impact in their learnings. Maybe you have read about it or studied it, but maybe you have also experienced it with […]