Library Visit

I took the children to our branch library, two miles from our house, for the first time. What a load of fun! It is embarrassing how amazed I was at the library since my mother worked at a university library for nearly 10 years, my stepfather worked at the same library for 20-30 years (how long, Neil?), I worked as a researcher in a library for about five years, and I considered obtaining a graduate degree in library science. I should know what a great resource a library is!

The nearest branch library is quite small, but even a small library contains many books! The children's section contains four rows, I think, like the one pictured above.

There was a little area for children to play quietly as well.

Spontaneously I signed up John for the toddler's story time once weekly on Thursdays. We'll try that for the month of June and see how he likes it.

I've been wanting to start exposing John to foreign languages (specifically Latin and Spanish) during this time when his brain is so prime to learn languages without effort. Even having foreign language children's books lying around is helpful. To my delight, the library had an entire section of Spanish language children's books! I checked out several, three of which are already his favorites in English. I wondered how he would react when I read them. Typical of a two-year-old (and not a three-year-old who has learned to wonder "why?"), John sat there completely accepting of my reading in Spanish: didn't comment at all, but also didn't lose interest. The next day when Chris was reading "Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?" in Spanish, on each page John would correct, "No, that's a bear! That's a bird! That's a cat!" We had never even announced that we were reading in a foreign language or tried to explain what "another language" is, he just knew he wanted to "correct" Chris after he'd read each page. So interesting!

That reminds me that I've been wanting to post to the blog about John's recent "Helen Keller" moments in language. At two-and-a-half, he now understands that words are a code, I am reading the words on the page, the words always mean the same thing. He will point to a word and ask me what it says, then point to each word in succession. If he asks about "TICK TOCK," I can explain to him that they have only one letter difference. He points to signs or writing and says with wonder, "Those are ABCs!" The other day he kept saying, "John L-A-R" and I was sort of ignoring him, thinking he was babbling to himself. Then Chris corrected him by spelling our surname, which, I realized, was what John was trying to spell! We certainly are not drilling the boy, but he has these fun foam letters that stick to the wet bath tub, so while he's in there Daddy casually plays word games with him. Brain development is just astonishing to me, that John can realize what language is, that writing exists, that it is a code without anyone having formally taught him anything. We read a lot (a couple dozen books per day?), that's all!

The library also contained a wonderful children's DVD collection. I checked out one on airplanes (not yet watched), one on insects (interesting, but not gripping to John, and slightly scary), and one on construction vehicles. John is enamoured with the construction vehicles DVD. It's all real filming, long scenes of a vehicle simply driving around and doing its thing, with one song at the beginning and one at the end. John can now tell you many vehicle names ("It's an excavator!"). Here he is "dancing" in his seat to the music.

Back at home I read the brochure on library services. I felt like such a rube exclaiming with amazement that one can request books, CDs, and DVDs from any other branch for free and the library will even call or email to announce that the item has arrived! One can renew a check-out online! One can return materials to any branch library! Golly gee . . .