43
Austintown library hosts Baby Brilliant event
Photo
Neighbors | Tim Cleveland.A young girl got moving during the song "Can't Wait to Celebrate" at the Austintown library's Baby Brilliant event.
Photo
Neighbors | Tim Cleveland.After the completion of the story time portion of the Baby Brilliant event at the Austintown library, the children made a polar bear craft.
Photo
Neighbors | Tim Cleveland.Austintown library children's librarian Nikki Puhalla (right) led the children in stomping their feet during the Baby Brilliant event.
By TIM CLEVELAND
As it has for many years, the Austintown library hosted a Baby Brilliant story time for children ages 4-5 on Nov. 5, giving them a head start on learning early literacy skills.
There are four different age groups for the story times at the Austintown library. The 4-5 year-old story time is done every Wednesday at 11:30 a.m., the 2-3 year-old is Wednesdays at 10 a.m., the 6-3 month-old is Tuesdays at 10 a.m. and the Gotta Move story time for ages 2-5 is every Thursday at 10 a.m.
“I’ve been here for three years; I assume it’s always been here,” Austintown library children’s librarian Nikki Puhalla said. “Every branch usually does something like this.”
Each story time event has a different theme.
“Our theme is bears, so we’re going to read a few books and do a couple action movement rhymes,” Puhalla said.
Puhalla led the children in the songs “Can’t Wait to Celebrate,” “I Can Wiggle My Bear Claws,” “Ten Bears in a Bed” and “Polar Bear Polar Bear.” She read from the books “More Bears!” and “My Bear Griz” during the 30-minute program.
Afterwards, the children did a craft in which they took a white piece of paper cut into the shape of a polar bear and glued it to a piece of blue paper. They added glitter spray and cotton balls to the paper.
Children doing the Baby Brilliant events can learn skills they will need when they start attending school.
Puhalla set up several objects and began removing them to help the children count down from 10. The dancing part of the program helped their gross motor skills.
“We just kind of hit upon a few kindergarten-readiness skills for the kids, and we point them out to the parents,” she said.