Baby Storytime!

The highlight of my day was taking TC to baby story time today at the library! We are so blessed to have a wonderful public library right down the street from our house! And if you are a new follower here or need a little reminder I am a library geek!

I LOVE the library! 

I love everything about the library! Books, books, and more books, dvds, books on cd, story times, the children's computers, and our awesome librarians. 

Our library calls baby story time "Babies and Books" with a 20 minute lap sit session filled with songs, rhymes and sign language. This was TC's first time to Babies and Books. He has been to the preschooler story times many times with his big brothers. But today was all about him! He loved it! He sat or stood holding my fingers a lot during the songs and stories. He also showed off his crawling abilities. All the mommies sat on the floor with their babies in their laps and the sweet librarians encouraged us to sign, sing, and read with our babies. We sang a few songs, read a board book to our babies, and then the babies were mesmorized my an awesome bubble machine afterwards. It was so much fun!

Another thing I love about our library that they encourage early literacy skills at each story time session. As a former 1st grade teacher I know the importance of each of these skills, but it is always a good reminder. Here are six pre reading skills to remember:


Six Pre-Reading Skills

1. Vocabulary: Knowing the names of things. 
2. Print Motivation: Being interested in and enjoying books.
3. Narrative Skills: Being able to describe things and tell stories.
4. Print Awareness: Noticing print and knowing how to handle a book.
5. Letter Knowledge: Knowing letters are different from each other and knowing their names.
6. Phonological Awareness: Being able to hear and play with the smaller sounds in words.

So if you have a precious baby at home too like me, I want to encourage you to read to your baby! I know at times it is hard for me to remember the importance of it in the midst of teaching my bigger boys, managing our home, and just living life. But it is so important to sit with our babies to share new words, new signs, point to the pictures and the words, and just enjoy books .

Happy Reading!
Linked to some of these awesome parties this week!