by Leah Langby | Aug 12, 2020 | Keeping Up With Kids
The year after I finished college, I worked part time at a community-based literacy program in southeast Washington DC. As part of my internship, I coordinated a book donation project and distributed children’s books to kids at the nearby housing project. I...
by Leah Langby | Aug 4, 2020 | Keeping Up With Kids
I’ve been finding for myself (and hearing from others both in and out of libraries) that one of the most stressful things about COVID-19 is the endless need to make decisions. And then often needing to second-guess those decisions, or make new decisions based...
by Leah Langby | Jul 31, 2020 | Keeping Up With Kids
Stacey from Augusta reminded me about the upcoming Wisconsin Science Festival, October 15-18. This is a great opportunity to share science-related programming with your community and be part of a state-wide effort. And they are all set to help support a...
by Leah Langby | Jul 30, 2020 | Keeping Up With Kids
When answering a question today I realized I have not made enough fanfare about the fantastic new resource from the Association for Library Service to Children: The Virtual Storytime Services Guide. So much good information, good ideas, best practices, tools. Wow. ...
by Leah Langby | Jul 22, 2020 | Keeping Up With Kids
Representative John Lewis died over the weekend. My heart gets full with gratitude when I think of him, all the work he did for our nation. He was a United States Representative from Georgia for more than three decades, and before that he was a leader in the Civil...
by Leah Langby | Jul 16, 2020 | Keeping Up With Kids
I somehow missed the first article in the School Library Journal series about taking COVID 19 as an opportunity to re-think youth services, but I read the second one and it really resonated with me. There has been so much STUFF to think about right now, with trying...
by Leah Langby | Jul 15, 2020 | Keeping Up With Kids
Homeschooling looks lots of different ways. Here’s a homeschooler who built a cob oven (out of clay and sand–a multi-day project), built a fire inside it, and is approaching it with swim goggles for protection from smoke in the eyes. Next...
by Leah Langby | Jul 10, 2020 | Keeping Up With Kids
Many of you hopefully remember Jessica Bratt, who presented a great webinar for the Wild Wisconsin Winter Web Conference in 2019 titled Let’s Talk About Race, about how to successfully talk about race in a positive way in storytime with very young children and...
by Leah Langby | Jul 6, 2020 | Keeping Up With Kids
Thanks to Valerie from Ladysmith for sharing this wonderful guest blog post about creating a StoryWalk® for Ladysmith. I had the idea a couple of years ago when I first saw a library with a StoryWalk®. They were using lawn signs, which are great, but I wanted...
by Leah Langby | Jun 25, 2020 | Keeping Up With Kids
Thanks to Maureen for passing information about this worthwhile and interesting learning opportunity! If your summer is less busy than you planned, maybe this Institute would be worth looking into! 24th Annual Wisconsin American Indian Studies Summer Institute Dates:...
by Leah Langby | Jun 23, 2020 | Keeping Up With Kids
Oh, my, I do love book award celebrations! Hearing from authors and illustrators and narrators I admire never ceases to excite me. So this year, the fact that the ALA Book Awards are going virtual so that anyone will be able to take advantage of them (FOR FREE!) is...
by Leah Langby | Jun 22, 2020 | Keeping Up With Kids
It is ALWAYS time to be thinking about how to make our environments and our services accessible and welcoming to kids and teens who have disabilities. This is something I find that I can always use a reminder of, even though I’ve been trying to think about it...
