I am often asked the question, how do you come up with ideas for learning centers in your library?
\nInspiration can come from a variety of places. Think about places where families gather, flip through educational and parenting magazines and catalogs, read professional journals that highlight libraries who have learning centers, look at learning centers at daycares and schools. You never know where a great idea is waiting to be discovered.
\nBeg, borrow and steal! There are many centers that we have in our branch that came from something I saw in a children\u2019s museum or a brand new library and I knew I could not afford to do it on a large scale but I stole the idea and made it work for my library. There are other centers that started off with a statement from a coworker \u201cWhat if we could \u2026\u201d\u009d Then they are centers that are exactly like one I read about in a professional journal. It is ok to borrow ideas. It is ok to steal a concept and make it your own. It is ok to ask a fellow librarian for their resource list or templates. You don\u2019t have to reinvent the wheel. Do your research and make the ideas your find work for your space.
\nSome of my favorite sources for ideas \u2014
\nChildren and Libraries
\nLakeshore Learning Catalog
\nALA and PLA Conference sessions
\nHeadstart visits
\nConstructive Play Things Catalog<\/p>\n
Where do you go for inspiration?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I am often asked the question, how do you come up with ideas for learning centers in your library? Inspiration can come from a variety of places. Think about places where families gather, flip through educational and parenting magazines and catalogs, read professional journals that highlight libraries who have learning centers, look at learning centers at daycares and schools. You never know where a great idea is waiting to be discovered. Beg, borrow and steal! There are many centers that we have in our branch that came from something I saw in a children\u2019s museum or a brand new library and I knew I could not afford to do it on a large scale but I stole the idea and made it work for my library. There are other centers that started off with a statement from a coworker \u201cWhat if we could \u2026\u201d\u009d Then they are centers that are…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":140,"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":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4555","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4555","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\/140"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4555"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4555\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4555"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4555"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4555"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}