PLA Blog

On Thursday I went to four great sessions. Since I’m a children’s librarian, I focused mainly on children’s programming.

My first session was “Grab Them! Books with Real Guy Appeal” presented by Kathleen Baxter from Minneapolis. She created a bibliography of 64 different non-fiction titles that appeal to boys, ranging from topics like toilets (What You Never Knew About Tubs, Toilets, and Showers by Patricia Lauber), history (John, Paul, George, and Ben by Lane Smith), and animals (Why Do Dogs Have Wet Noses? by Stanley Coren). I would list them all, but that would be a lot of typing! The books gave me some great starting points for a Grossology program (always popular with the boys!).

My second session was “Leave No Baby or Toddler Behind” presented by Sharon Deeds, DeKalb County (Ga.) Public Library, and Deb Allen and Pamela Martin-Diaz, both from Allen County (Ind.) Public Library. Since Suzy has already written a great summary of this session, I won’t repeat her entry (read her thoughts here). I will mention, though, that it gave me some great ideas that hopefully we can use for our summer reading programs.

After lunch, I went to my third session, “Beyond Bilingual Storytimes” presented by Ruth Hennessey Mitchel from Corvallis-Benton County (Ore.) Public Library. I am not bilingual myself, but other branches in my library system have bilingual storytimes, and I figured I could get a few ideas. The speaker discussed outreach to Latinos, and ideas about how to do so, such as cross-promotion with other agencies, going to cultural celebrations and promoting the library, and visiting local comunity centers. She also discussed El día de los niños/El día de los libros, a celebration of children, family and reading, held on April 30. Some of her ideas were Spanish storytimes, paper crafts and music, Latino family movie night, and a fiesta. For more information on El día de los niños/El día de los libros, visit ALA’s El día site or author Pat Mora’s site for more information. Ms. Mitchell used a quote from an Arapaho proverb during her presentation that is important to remember in library service: “Where there is true hospitality, not many words are needed.”

My fourth and final session was “Trit Trot to Boston: The Whys and Hows of Using Nursery Rhymes in Early Literacy Programs for Babies and Toddlers”, presented by Tess Prendergast and Jane Cobb, both of Vancouver (B.C.) Public Library, Kathryn Lee, Burnaby (B.C.) Public Library, Betsy Diamant-Cohen, Enoch Pratt Free Library. They discussed using nursery rhymes in storytime, and we even sang some during the session!
Other topics discussed during the session:

• Choral reading (singing the book); suggested titles: Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?, The Very Busy Spider, and The Baby Goes Beep
• Mother Goose on the Loose (created by Betsy Diamant-Cohen): storytimes consist of rhyme, repetition (with a little surprise), movement, art and music
• Ways to learn songs: Listen (to the story), Like (the story, so you), Learn (the story)
• Teach “in the moment”: if a baby cries during storytime, all sing a lullaby to comfort the child (same with wriggly baby, just do a movement song to shake those sillies out!).
• Parent-Child Mother Goose Program, a program for at-risk parents and children started in Toronto(for more information, visit the website)

They also discussed encouraging children to participate in the story (using flannelboard, musical instruments, etc.), and always using positive words (fantastic! super duper! outstanding!) so the children will feel good about participating.

I wasn’t able to attend any Friday sessions since I had to be back to work on Saturday. However, for the short time I was in Boston, I had so much fun in the city and at the conference. This was my first PLA Conference; I’ve been to two Annual Conferences and one Midwinter before, and each conference is a little different. I really enjoyed how everything was enclosed by the convention center, and it was just a short trip down the elevator at my hotel to reach the conference. I will defintely try to attend next PLA Conference in 2008!

Tags: conferences, PLA, PLA2006

This entry was posted on Monday, March 27th, 2006 at 12:36 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.