“Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, and you feed him for a lifetime.” Although my uncle taught me how to fish when I was a child, I have yet to pass on that lesson to anyone else. Instead, I love sharing my enthusiasm for a variety of other topics with the wonderful teachers in our local preschools. These staff in-services have been another way for the library to strengthen our presence in the community, while exposing teachers to our collection and Internet resources.
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Topics:
Over the years, I have presented a variety of in-services: “Poetry for Preschoolers,” “Why? Science for Preschoolers,” “Math for Munchkins,” “Uniquely You”, and “Early Literacy 2.0” (ECRR 2). Although the topics so far have represented my personal interests and comfort zone, I try to create in-services that appeal to the teachers, while at the same time highlighting the resources of the library. As I continue to offer these in-services, the topics will expand into other areas of our collection.
Goals:
One of my primary goals is to expose the teachers to books, books and more books! Of course I feature picture books, but I also include early readers, juvenile easy non-fiction and biographies. A typical in-service bibliography will include about forty titles. I want the teachers to have many choices when they delve into a particular topic, no matter the age of the preschoolers they teach. Another goal is to give teachers activities and practical ideas for use in their classrooms. I utilize my own years as a teacher as well as lessons found online in order to meet this goal. A goal is for them to come away from each in-service with new or renewed excitement for these topics.
Structure:
Each in-service begins with an interactive, fun activity. Whether it’s having teachers try to cut an index card in such a way that they can walk through it (for “Math for Munchkins”) or create something out of a shoebox before reading them Not a Box by Antoinette Portis (the practice of play in Every Child Ready to Read 2), these opening activities encourage laughter and relaxed dialogue! Scattered throughout are many other times for the teachers to be more than just passive recipients. During “Uniquely You,” they dance to Jim Gill’s “Knuckles Knees” — think singing, laughter, and body awareness for kids and adults! In that same in-service, I teach them how to play the “Face Game” to enhance vocabulary and self-awareness: 7 brave teachers draw slips with various emotions and then make faces, while the other teachers have to guess the emotion. During the science in-service, teachers put their hands into a rubber glove and then into a bucket of ice; we time how long they can stand it! Then they put their hands into a glove surrounded by polar bear blubber (aka Crisco) and we repeat the experiment. Together we’ve created poetry, clapped out the syllables in our names, and made silly alliterative sentences. I create a PowerPoint that runs while I present books to use, activities to do, and the ways in which our library can support teachers in the classroom. The presentations last about 90 minutes and include time to ask questions, peruse the books and have fun. We really do have a blast together! At the end, teachers get a certificate of completion and fill out an evaluation of the presentation. I get a great sense of the ways in which they are truly on the front lines of early literacy, the struggles they face and the joys they encounter.
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The time I spend teaching the teachers is invaluable in strengthening our connection to the preschool community, and the effort dovetails nicely with our preschool outreach storytimes. I would love to hear of ways that you work with preschool teachers! Please join the conversation in the comments below.
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Our guest blogger today is Kary Henry. Kary loves her job as Youth Services Associate and Preschool Outreach Coordinator at Deerfield (IL) Public Library. Leading the 4-5 year old early literacy storytime is one of the highlights of her week, but every day is an adventure! Kary can be reached at khenry@deerfieldlibrary.org and @MissKaryReads on Twitter.
Please note that as a guest post, the views expressed here do not represent the official position of ALA or ALSC.
If you’d like to write a guest post for the ALSC Blog, please contact Mary Voors, ALSC Blog manager, at alscblog@gmail.com.
Jill H.
These are great workshop ideas! Here in Maryland, preschool teachers and childcare providers need to collect a certain number of “contact hours” of continuing education in order to renew their licenses- My library submitted paperwork to the state Dept of Education to give contact hour certificates for our Every Child Ready to Read workshops. We get high turnout because the teachers are always in need of hours! And they really appreciate that the training we offer is FREE and fits their schedules.
Kary
Jill, I’m thrilled to hear that you’re doing preschool training as well, especially on ECRR. The “free” aspect of the inservices I do is always a plus for preschools on tight budgets. It’s great that you were able to get certified by the state; Illinois has such a backlog that they have stopped accepting paperwork.