Children's Library Pretend Play

As a child, I loved playing "library". To tell you the truth, I think it had something to do with those little library cards in pockets housed at the back of the books. I simply loved stamping them and changing the dates on the stamp and all that. Nowadays, the pockets, cards with return dates and stampers have pretty much disappeared from libraries. When my children accidentally find an empty pocket at the end of a book we borrowed from the library, they always ask me what it's for. :) Times are changing... As such, for our library pretend play station, there was sadly no stamper with cards and pockets (although I DID consider it). Instead, the entirety of that was replaced by a "simple" scanning device such as the one we use at our own library! :) The weather was gorgeous and warm this week by the way so we played outside. (I apologize in advance for the glare in the pictures!).

Reading Outside...A great idea on a warm day! Here, a book display at the story time table.

A library shelf featuring a child's astronomy section...and a record player...

Lots of books on planets in our library that day. Tried to pick
according to the kids' interests to make play time even more fun!

The computer area of our library...Very popular. My son had
forgotten all about his "laptop" actually! :)

Our library also featured a few DVDs to check out. We have
hundreds of family DVDs but bringing them all out would have
been insane so I made a selection: princesses and Thomas & Friends

The kids enjoying books "in the library"

Library check out system. Also had some free bookmarks
for grab, a poster advertising Story Time and a fundraiser!

The kids' handmade library cards and bookmarks

Our library fundraiser: gummy worms for bookworms! :)
These were very popular indeed! Bag topper: Simple As That

Story Time table: I'm sure you've guessed that our theme was Maisy Mouse? Both my kids love
the rodent so I dedicated the table to her.  I borrowed new books from our library too.

After story time was over (we read 3 new Maisy stories), I showed
"Create with Maisy" and invited the kids to do one of Maisy's crafts!
They were thrilled and we've been doing one a day ever since!

Library Pretend Play is pretty much a classic station but I felt this one required a bit more involvement on my part as I did read the stories. I do prefer when pretend play is really all about the kids doing the actions and using their imagination. Also, the kids didn't enjoy this set up as much as the grooming salon and shoe store we did previously. I think the warmth of the day (that redness on the cheeks ain't from rouge!) had to do with it but it might also have been due to the fact that there wasn't enough to "pretend about/with". Once they were done looking at the books (and they knew 90% of them), they wanted to move on to story and craft time. That was the best part for them for sure. Oh well. So what's next? Well, they are forecasting a heat wave for us so I think we might be heading to the car wash station next week but if the heat ceases or if the thunder clouds roll in, we'll pick another station from our line up of pretend play stations!

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This post is currently linked up to these great blogs and websites:

The Kids Co-Op, Show-and-Share Saturday, Link & Learn, TGIF, Share it Saturday, Mom's Library, The Sunday Showcase,  Tuesday Tots, Preschool Corner &5K, We Made That.