The PLA Blog » early literacy

PLA Kits for Young Readers Sale

Kathleen Hughes — Tue, 09 Aug 2011 20:24:07 +0000

Save up to 50% on kits for young readers. Help parents foster reading at home by offering these engaging kits at your library. Each publication below is 40% off through August 31, 2011. Combine it with your 10% ALA discount and … you get 50% off! Just use the promotion code “sale11″ when you place your order.

75 of the Best Books for Young Readers
Sale price: $27.50 (members), $33.00 (nonmembers)
Available in packets of 25. Item #2009-0002
An illustrated poster lists some of the very best board books and picture books to read children from birth through preschool. Includes stickers to add to poster as books are read.

100 of the Best Books to Read in Kindergarten
Sale price: $37.50 (members), $45.00 (nonmembers)
Available in packets of 25. Item #2009-0001
This kit includes two illustrated, interactive posters (100 Best Books to Read in Kindergarten and 100 More Books to Read in Kindergarten), a parent guide, and bookmarks.

Nursery Rhymes, Songs, and Fingerplays
Sale price: $32.00 (members), $38.00 (nonmembers)
Available in packs of 50. Item #701
A delightful collection of more than 80 of the best rhyming verses for children.

Order online here or call (866) 746-7252. Remember to use “sale11″ to take advantage of this special promotion.

Active Learning Environments for Children

Kathleen Hughes — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 17:37:47 +0000

If you are looking to expand your library’s educational services by creating interactive learning environments for children of all ages, then you won’t want to miss this PLA 2010 preconference program. This program will be held on March 23, 2010, from 8:30 a.m. – 5:30 p.m.

Interactive learning environments promote skills in areas such as literacy and kindergarten readiness, science, and the arts. In this program, you’ll learn about successful models already operating in several public library systems which range in scope from small, inexpensive, portable units to permanent, sophisticated destinations. Presenters also will share their experiences from planning through completion, and lessons learned through operation. By the end of this preconference, participants will:

*understand how interactive children’s learning environments are a valuable complement to contemporary public library services;
*recognize the broad range of possibilities in developing, creating, and operating interactive learning environments for children of all ages to experience with their parents and caregivers; and
*know how to identify goals for an interactive learning environment and the necessary steps to achieve it.

Get more information and register for this preconference at www.placonference.org.

Designing Children’s Spaces w/ Early Literacy In Mind

Rachel Mainz — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 22:09:32 +0000

I attended this preconference on Tuesday and absolutely LOVED most of the ideas presented. It was well organized and the day seemed to fly by! This presentation gave me bunches of ideas for use in my library. I work for the Henderson Public Libraries in Henderson, NV as a Youth Services Librarian. Next year we will be opening a branch and my current building is possibly moving to a new building, so there will be lots of chances to integrate these ideas into the new buildings.

If you have money to spend, the ideas presented by Kim van der Veen from Burgeon Group or Peg Sullivan from Highsmith, were very intriguing. In fact, most of them made me think, I want that! I know when I get back to work, I’ll be chattering the ear off of my co-workers.

I am however not going to wait, there were plenty of ideas presented by Dana Bjerke, Joanna Redmann, and Kelly Wussow that were simple, low cost, and non-permanent. I have pictures of some of the ideas.

Way to go ladies, lots of great information!

Rachel

Children’s Spaces, Family Places preconference

Erica Sternin — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 00:14:04 +0000

You never know what the actual take-aways from a conference will be. For example, the last time I attended PLA (in Charlotte) I attended a session about serving coffee in the library. The speakers presented everything from the FOL serving coffee from a book truck to, I think it was Chicago PL (? the conference was a long time ago) that rented space on their ground floor to a coffee shop like Starbucks or Tullys and a portion of the sales went into the operating budget. I went home talking about coffee in the library. We never actually got a coffee cart, but we did manage to get rid of the “No Food and Drinks in the Library” signs!

What Children’s SpacesFamily Places has in common with the session I remember from Charlotte is that ideas were presented at the macro level and the micro level.

One of my two favorite parts of today’s session was the presentation by Kim van der Veen from Burgeon Group. She showed us the incredible creations and installations that their firm has done to support Early Learning in library environments. Her talk was utterly inspiring!

AND there are a lot of us who don’t have that kind of money, or aren’t involved in a building project, and still want to create a language-rich Early Literacy environment in our plain-old ordinary libraries. For us, the presentation by Dana Bjerke, Joanna Redman and Kelly Wussow from Hennepin County Library was utterly inspiring also. What a bunch of librarians can do with “cold laminate” and paper! I’d never even heard of cold laminate before today. Now I’m ready to go out and make cold laminate creations!