Literacy Launchpad

I'm back from my trip to Chicago to meet my new niece. She's so little, and so sweet. It was a great trip.

One of the highlights from my trip, other than meeting my new niece, was taking my other niece (3 yrs. old) to the library. Since I don't have children of my own yet, it was especially fun to go with my niece and show her some of my favorite stories.

We tried going to the library on Friday, but they were already closed when we got there. So we came back on Saturday. My niece started out at the computer, then moved on to the puzzles, and then we started reading some books. First I pulled out a a big book version of Mrs. McNosh Hangs Up Her Wash. My niece laughed at all the good parts. Then I found Not A Box, and she loved that one too. I suggested to her how fun it would be if we had a box that we could play pretend with, and as soon as we got home she asked my mom for a box! Luckily my mom had one, and she climbed right inside and pretended it was a car. How cute is that?

After she had let me choose a few books, my niece went hunting for books on the shelf by herself. She came back with a Caillou book and a Barney book, and so we read those too.

The library closed an hour after we got there, so we didn't have a long time to read, but we still had fun. Ten minutes before they closed my niece found a big book version of The Tiny Seed. We had to read it fast, but it was a great finish to the trip!

Neither of us had a library card for this particular library we visited, so we couldn't check any books out. We put our books away and headed out to our car. My niece stopped me once we got outside. She remembered seeing the "closed" sign the day before, and so she wanted to know what the various signs outside the library said. I pointed out the "open" sign to her and explained that they would flip it to say "closed" when they locked the library doors for the night. She wanted to stay and watch them do that, and so we did. We got some strange looks from all the people leaving the library though, as we sat there intently looking at the "open" sign.

I love that my niece is so fascinated with words. She definitely understands that words have meaning, and is curious to learn what their meaning is. She will ask you to read any and all kinds of signs to her. It's great! She's going to be reading before we know it!