Kids

Early Literacy Activities: SING

Do you find yourself tapping your toe to the beat? Dancing in the car? Just “can’t stop the feelin’?” Well, little ones do too! Besides supporting language growth, music is great for working on large and fine motor skills, among other things. From the first time they’re rocked to a lullaby, to standing and dancing on their own, babies and toddlers are experiencing language and movement together.

Babies being rocked and sung to are hearing words, strengthening the loving and secure connection with their caregiver, and feeling the movement of his or her own body.

Program Updates: LEGO Club

It might be a while before we can host our once-a-month Lego Club again, but you can use whatever you’ve got at home to recreate some of the fun! Sometimes the fun of Legos is building whatever it is that your set makes - but once you’ve done a few of those, it can be fun to go rogue! If you’ve got sets lying around that haven't been touched since they were built, think about breaking them apart (don't lose the pieces! Try using an old pencil case to keep tabs on all the parts) and using your imagination to create something entirely new.

Family Fun: Video Game Tournament

We’re all about books around here…but that doesn’t mean we don’t enjoy a good screen time break every now and then! Now that you can pick up materials from the library, check out our video game selection.

Early Literacy Activities: TALK

Talk, talk, talk… once your child starts talking, you start wishing they would stop! But since talking is such a foundational part of human communication – including literacy (reading) – the best thing you can do is… well, talk it up! We’ve written about how to talk with your baby or toddler, but what do you talk about? Easy… any and everything!

AFL Book Checkouts

Hey, have you heard the good news??! The library’s not open yet… but you can check out books to keep your at-home storytime and learning fun going! We all need to follow a few rules to make it work properly; this explains the procedure for Contactless Curbside Pickup.

Featured Author: Todd Parr

This month, our spotlight is on picture book author Todd Parr! Todd’s books are very simple and in many ways each book is alike – but all are completely irresistible! Todd uses bright two-dimensional illustrations to spread positive messages on a variety of topics.

Early Literacy Activities: PLAY

Here’s the great thing about babies, toddlers, and preschoolers, and playing - it’s what they do! There’s no learning curve involved on “how” to play; give a baby a toy, and they will feel it, turn it, maybe even taste it. They’re like little scientists in the making!

Program Updates: Spring Reading Challenge

In case you missed it – we’re running a Spring Reading Challenge to get you through these last few weeks before our SUMMER programming starts! Soon you’ll be able to pick up books we’ve got here in the library, or you can always keep working on those ebooks that we have available through Hoopla, Overdrive, and Libby.

Family Fun: Tell Your Story

We’re living through a global pandemic – a situation which almost no one still living has experienced before. Many people are keeping “COVID Journals” to record their thoughts, feelings, challenges, and small triumphs as we carry on, day by day. (Have you seen these coloring pages?

Early Literacy Activities: WRITE

It can be hard to see how you might introduce your baby or toddler to writing. The fine motor skills required are well beyond their grasp (pun intended)! However, the underlying knowledge behind writing is about knowing shapes. Letters are made of mountains, bumps, and lines. So are shapes!

Repeated exposure to new material will reinforce any concept. Some easy activities that will put your baby on the path to writing might include:

Ames Free Library

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