Ready to Learn: How I'm involved

Early this spring, I was asked to participate in Iowa Public Television's Ready to Learn grant program at one of my libraries.  In a nutshell, for this strand of Ready to Learn, PBS has created new programs and games for children ages 2-8 to boost their math skills. (Be sure to check out Peg + Cat on PBS when it premieres during the fall of 2013--it is absolutely adorable!)  Many of the games are available for iPads and iPhones, and they are every bit as engaging as games that weren't designed to boost math skills.

As a public librarian, I was asked to think about how I could introduce children and their parents to these resources.  After several planning sessions with the grant coordinator from IPTV and others in the community who were participating--our local school district, the YWCA, and some daycare providers--we decided that the major focus at the library would be two things: gaming sessions at the library for children and their parents to introduce them to the games, (IPTV provided coupons for the families for the apps. that are not free) and incorporating some of the Ready to Learn math concepts into our preschool and toddler storytimes.  We were already incorporating these concepts into our storytimes, but not with any particular scheme in mind, so we decided to make these concepts the focus of a series of storytimes.  We were provided with Virtual Pre-K kits, developed by the Chicago Public Schools and PBS Kids, which contain activities that parents can do with their children at home to teach math skills using ordinary household items.  Each segment of the kit focuses on a specific set of math skills: counting, understanding the connection between a group of things and a number, identifying and naming shapes, etc.  After each of the storytimes, parents will leave with a list of activities from the Virtual Pre-K kit that they can do at home to extend the concepts beyond storytime.

This was the jumping off point for our Ready to Learn-inspired storytimes.  You can see my plans for these storytimes, including book lists and crafts, by clicking on the tag for Virtual Pre-K on the right side menu of this blog.