{"id":31242,"date":"2024-07-02T18:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-07-02T22:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/?p=31242"},"modified":"2024-07-02T16:48:37","modified_gmt":"2024-07-02T20:48:37","slug":"get-up-and-dance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/2024\/07\/get-up-and-dance\/","title":{"rendered":"Get Up and Dance!"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

There are so many new and exciting ideas for programming and services circulating here at #alaac24, but I\u2019m also grateful for the reminders about important elements we should all be building into our existing programs. How do we engage a young audience, hold their attention, and make the most of the limited time we have together to make each program into a valuable learning opportunity? One panel titled SING, TALK, READ: Engaging the Brain, Body, and Senses through Nonfiction Picture Books<\/em> included great suggestions for ways to incorporate music, movement, and nonfiction texts into storytimes.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ask questions\u2014and give children space to respond. <\/strong>Through thoughtfully curated programs, we, as librarians, can encourage open conversations about identity, celebrate the diversity of our communities, and spark conversations. An important reminder for all of us who host storytimes is to engage our young audiences with critical thinking questions before and after readings. We can begin discussions about identity and the world around us by using picture book texts as a jumping off point. As noted during the presentation, \u201chaving accurate and appropriate language to describe themselves and others empowers children. So does naming things that are unfair, and coming up with solutions together. Storytime is an opportunity to not only model how to do this, but to give parents and caregivers permission to do it.\u201d Ideally, use open-ended questions such as “what do you love about your skin?” or “What can you do when you notice that something is unfair?\u201d We all know what chaos can ensue when asking a large group of preschoolers or kindergarten students to answer a question. I appreciated the strategies suggested for how the audience could answer those questions, such as to turn and talk to the person next to them, to tell their grown up, or to shout out their answers all at once.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Get up and dance! <\/strong>We all need to move. Movement improves concentration, and even small movements can help us stay more alert. Using small movements during storytimes can be an effective way to keep audiences engaged and help them retain more of the information covered. Using nonfiction texts such as Whose Bones?: An Animal Guessing Game <\/em>and asking participants to try the movements is one easy way to build more movement into our programs for young children. And don\u2019t forget the power of a dance break.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Recommended Resources<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Anti-Bias Education for Young Children and Ourselves<\/a><\/em> by Louise Derman-Sparks and Julie Olsen Edwards, with Catherine Goins\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What a Map Can Do<\/a><\/em> by Gabrielle Balkan and Alberto Lot<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Extended Mind: The Power of Thinking Outside the Brain<\/a><\/em> by Annie Murphy Paul<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Whose Bones?: An Animal Guessing Game<\/a><\/em> by Gabrielle Balkan and Sam Brewster<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

Conference Blogger Celeste Rhoads<\/strong>\u00a0(she\/her\/hers) is originally from John Steinbeck\u2019s hometown of Salinas, California, where she read on the beach, in trees, on road trips, and everywhere in between. She moved to Paris in 2005, and immediately found a home at the\u00a0American Library in Paris<\/a>. As the Children\u2019s and Teens\u2019 Services Manager, she oversees the Library\u2019s collections, policies, and programs for ages 0\u201318. Celeste has a master\u2019s degree in Library Science from Rutgers University, where she focused on digital libraries, and children\u2019s literature. Celeste enjoys connecting people of all ages with great reads\u2014especially contemporary titles.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Please note that as a guest post, the views expressed here do not represent the official position of ALA or ALSC.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There are so many new and exciting ideas for programming and services circulating here at #alaac24, but I\u2019m also grateful for the reminders about important elements we should all be building into our existing programs. How do we engage a young audience, hold their attention, and make the most of the limited time we have together to make each program into a valuable learning opportunity? One panel titled SING, TALK, READ: Engaging the Brain, Body, and Senses through Nonfiction Picture Books included great suggestions for ways to incorporate music, movement, and nonfiction texts into storytimes.\u00a0 Ask questions\u2014and give children space to respond. Through thoughtfully curated programs, we, as librarians, can encourage open conversations about identity, celebrate the diversity of our communities, and spark conversations. An important reminder for all of us who host storytimes is to engage our young audiences with critical thinking questions before and after readings. We can…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":395,"featured_media":0,"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":[2746,134,151],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-31242","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ala-annual-2024","category-guest-blogger","category-live-blogging"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31242","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\/395"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31242"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31242\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31242"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31242"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31242"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}