I’ve been doing messy, chaotic preschool programs for quite a while (our building services people probably curse my name), but I hadn’t ventured into the world of complete mess for my infant/toddler group. Something about it scared me. Maybe because at that age they put literally everything and anything into their mouths and many of the recipes I had were taste safe, but I could imagine my little ones taking handful after handful.
Then I found La La Librariana’s blog. It gave me courage to try it out. I decided to try it out and trust my adult patrons to do as they’re supposed to do. It went fantastically! Here’s some information on the first session of TUT (what I’ve nicknamed the program).
My Goals for the Program:
- Children ages 0-3 will demonstrate increased interest and awareness of books, rhymes, or songs during or after the program.
- Caregivers will increase their knowledge of Every Child Ready to Read’s five daily practices and engage in them with their children.
- Attendees will learn important social behaviors and general world knowledge for further education.
Activities to Achieve My Goals:
- Interactive, diverse, and engaging books, rhymes, and/or songs will be shared at each station.
- At least one quick and simple early literacy tip will be connected to each activity in the room.
- Group social etiquette expectations will be enforced and we will talk about age appropriate group behavior.
Program Stations:
Nature Sticky Wall: We taped up contact paper to our wall and collected a variety of leaves, flowers, twigs, etc for kids to explore. Early Literacy Tip: TALK. Touch and feel the different textures of nature. See how many different ways you can describe them to your child. Can your child think of any other descriptors?
Iced Nature: We froze giant blocks of nature (pinecones, flowers, grass, twigs, etc.) and let the kids go at it. After a little bit, we added a bowl of room temperature water that the kids could pour over the ice and watch it melt slowly. Early Literacy Tip: WRITE. Tracing letters and shapes is the gateway to reading and writing! See if you and your child can brave the chilly ice to trace the pieces of nature!
Edible Playdough: This was such a fun and unexpected station! We provided homemade edible playdough and some fun tools such as cookie cutters, rollers, etc. The unexpected bit was that some of the nature pieces from the sticky wall migrated over to the playdough station and cool nature sculptures were created! Early Literacy Tip: PLAY. Did you know play is an important part of literacy? It helps children learn to connect their world to what they know. See what you can make with the dough!
Kinetic Sand Pit: We did a play on kinetic sand by mixing together a bit of oil with flour (to make it technically edible). We provided shovels, rakes, cups, and sifters for the kids to experiment with. Note: The oil made for a slippery floor and stuck to shoes a bit. It might not be one I retry for those reasons! However, I recommend investing in a baby pool or two. They come in really handy! Early Literacy Tip: SING. Rhymes and songs are perfect to help kids play with words! See if you can do this rhyme together!
Sand castle on the beach, I built you big and strong! A wave washed in upon the sand, and whoops! You were gone!
I especially love this rhyme for the station because it has play built right in! The kids and caregivers can act it out 🙂
Rest and Read: Our last station was a reading station. A little nook with bean bags and mats so kids and caregivers could take a break from all the other chaos. I was afraid this station wouldn’t get any use, but it definitely did! Early Literacy Tip: READ. Take a break and read! Point out pictures and words and make sure to ask open-ended questions!
Evaluation and What I Learned:
I am SO glad I did this program! It was a ton of fun and not nearly as messy as I thought (aside from the flour/oil mixture). I’m writing this up months and months after the actual program because quarantine from the Covid 19 pandemic has finally given me a lot of spare time. In the next one I’ll be posting, I went much, much messier and more edible. The caregivers did a fairly good job of making sure nothing too crazy happened and kept non-edibles out of their mouths, but I still felt uncomfortable with the amount of potential disaster.
Librarian Ginny 