{"id":16916,"date":"2017-11-21T12:01:09","date_gmt":"2017-11-21T17:01:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/?p=16916"},"modified":"2017-11-21T14:05:22","modified_gmt":"2017-11-21T19:05:22","slug":"early-literacy-gift-ideas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/2017\/11\/early-literacy-gift-ideas\/","title":{"rendered":"Early Literacy Gift Ideas on a Budget"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Do you want a child to have the gift of reading, singing, playing, writing and talking over the holidays? Of course the given is for a librarian to give books around the holidays, but you can take that a step farther. Here are some fun and cost efficient early literacy gift ideas.<!--more--><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Bubbles: <\/strong>Kids of all ages love bubbles. Blowing bubbles helps exercise facial muscles for speech and looking at bubbles helps promote eye tracking for babies. And watching kids play with bubbles can be fun for adults.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Pretend Play\u00a0<strong><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-16920 alignright\" style=\"font-weight: 400\" src=\"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/p3-300x169.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"243\" height=\"137\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/p3-300x169.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/p3-768x432.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/p3-650x366.jpg 650w, https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/p3-889x500.jpg 889w, https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/p3-160x90.jpg 160w, https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/p3.jpg 1063w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 243px) 100vw, 243px\" \/><\/strong>Props:\u00a0<\/strong>Play food, pretend tools, costumes, puppets and cars all encourage dramatic play, a key element of early literacy. Dramatic play is where kids can assign roles and act them out. This helps stimulate a child&#8217;s imagination while helping to build the child&#8217;s general knowledge and vocabulary. It also is a safe way for children to imitate what they see adults doing.<\/li>\n<li><b>Musical Instruments: <\/b>Bells, shakers, or mini tambourines\u00a0can be fun and help children learn rhythm and beat.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Puzzles: <\/strong>Beginner puzzles help children develop their motor skills and problem solving abilities. See and spell puzzles encourage word recognition and\u00a0 intro<strong><strong><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-16921 alignleft\" style=\"font-weight: 400\" src=\"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/p4-169x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"154\" height=\"273\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/p4-169x300.jpg 169w, https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/p4-366x650.jpg 366w, https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/p4-281x500.jpg 281w, https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/p4-51x90.jpg 51w, https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/p4.jpg 598w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 154px) 100vw, 154px\" \/><\/strong><\/strong>duce meaning with words<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-16919 alignleft\" src=\"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/p2-169x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"107\" height=\"190\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/p2-169x300.jpg 169w, https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/p2-366x650.jpg 366w, https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/p2-281x500.jpg 281w, https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/p2-51x90.jpg 51w, https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/p2.jpg 598w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 107px) 100vw, 107px\" \/>. As children get older, more difficult puzzles can be used to teach problem solving and teamwork.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Photo\u00a0<\/strong><strong>Albums: <\/strong>Babies love looking at photos and it&#8217;s even better if there are photos of people they know. This can be extremely helpful if children have out of town relatives, so they can recognize friends and family.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Busy bo<\/strong><strong>ard: <\/strong>Babies and toddlers love playing with items like keys, cell phones and power outlets. A busy board introduces a safe way of learning these concepts and playing with the &#8220;no-no&#8221; items.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Beginner board games. <\/strong>Many companies have first games for kids, or junior versions of popular board games. Playing games in a group helps build social skills.<\/li>\n<li><strong><br \/>\n<\/strong>What are\u00a0some other early literacy gift ideas? Let me know in the comments!<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Do you want a child to have the gift of reading, singing, playing, writing and talking over the holidays? Of course the given is for a librarian to give books around the holidays, but you can take that a step farther. Here are some fun and cost efficient early literacy gift ideas.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":280,"featured_media":16920,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":"","_members_access_role":[],"_members_access_error":""},"categories":[1174,96],"tags":[378,245,876,456],"class_list":["post-16916","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blogger-emily-mroczek-bayci","category-early-literacy","tag-budget","tag-early-literacy-2","tag-gifts","tag-holidays"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16916","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/280"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16916"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16916\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16920"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16916"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16916"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16916"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}