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Toddlers learn at train event
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Neighbors | Elise McKeown Skolnick.Librarian Kathe Orr led songs and finger plays at Tales and Talk for 2's and 3's Sept. 18.
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Neighbors | Elise McKeown Skolnick.Books about trains were available for story time participants to sign out following the Austintown library program.
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Neighbors | Elise McKeown Skolnick.Michael-Kellan Clark (right) and his mother, Magda Clark, worked on a picture of a train at the Austintown librarySept. 18.
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Neighbors | Elise McKeown Skolnick.Sarah Brown helped her children, Bailey (left) and Ethan, with their train pictures at the Austintown library.
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Neighbors | Elise McKeown Skolnick.Children watched as librarian Kathe Orr pulled a toy mouse out of the rhyme bag at story time at the Austintown library.
By ELISE McKEOWN SKOLNICK
Baby Brilliant: Tales and Talk for 2s and 3s at the Austintown library was all about trains Sept. 18.
The Baby Brilliant program offers developmentally appropriate books, songs, rhymes, finger plays and other activities for children ages 2-3, helping them to become successful readers.
Toddlers and their caregivers filled the children’s room at the library for the program. Toys were available for the children to play with – inside the room and in the main part of the library while they waited for the event to begin.
Librarian Kathe Orr started the program by telling the children the theme for the day was trains.
She placed a green “T” on a magnetic board, and explained the word train starts with a T. She asked the children what trains say and they yelled “choo choo.”
Orr read “Trains Go,” by Steve Light and other books about trains. She also led train-themed songs and finger plays, such as “The Peanut Song,” and the children had a chance to pretend to be trains. Orr gave each child a rattle to use to make train sounds.
“Doesn’t that sound like a train?” Orr asked. “You guys made good trains.”
The group also sang “If You’re Happy and You Know It.” Orr said it’s a favorite of the regular attendees. Following the reading and singing portion of the program, the children, with the help of their caregivers, completed a dot-to-dot drawing of a train and colored it.