By:  Erin Walker

I read about Little Free Libraries in a local newspaper and fell in love with the idea. The basic concept is that a Little Free Library belongs to the community, and anyone can take or donate a book. When you’re finished with the book you can return it to any LFL location around the world or pass it on to a friend.

The first decision was where to put it. People locate their LFLs near their church, school, home, or place of business. We decided to place ours in our front yard because our house is located at the entrance of our neighborhood and faces a street with lots of pedestrian traffic, so we thought our Little Free Library would be used by neighbors and passersby. Having it at our house also makes it easy to maintain, and it’s fun check out the latest activity!

Next, the design: there are so many possibilities for how to design your library! You can buy a pre-made one from littlefreelibrary.org, use their plans to make your own, or create your own unique design. My dad built ours from plans on the LFL website and painted it to look like our house.

Choosing books: some LFLs have a specific theme, like children’s books or hobby books, but we live in an eclectic neighborhood with young families, retirees, college professors, and lots of college students walking by, so we filled our LFL with a variety of books. We included novels, travel books, hobby books, children’s books, etc. We’ll keep an eye out for what kinds of books people seem to like and try to stock more of those types of books. We’re also planning to have a party to invite friends and neighbors to visit our LFL and bring a buck and a book to help keep it stocked.

Before placing the books in our LFL we imprinted each one with our special LFL seal (ordered from http://www.littlefreelibrary.org) so that when the books are passed on people can see where they came from. We couldn’t imprint the thick pages of children’s board books, so we just placed a sticker inside those.

We also placed a notebook in our LFL for people to write comments, suggestions, reviews, and requests.  Reading the notebook is a fun way to feel connected to the people who enjoy our LFL.

To teach people about our LFL we posted our LFL plaque and some basic instructions, and I printed fliers with more detailed instructions and placed them inside the library for those who wanted to know more.

We also registered it at LittleFreeLibrary.org so people can search for it.

During the installation several neighbors stopped by to ask what it was and offer to donate books.

A few hours later we went outside to admire our LFL and noticed that someone had already donated a book!  It’s exciting to walk outside and see what people have taken from and added to the library. I’m looking forward to when my son is old enough to choose books to donate to and borrow from the library. For now he just has fun opening and closing the door.

If you’re in the Baton Rouge area stop by or visit our Facebook page at Walker Little Free Library.

Erin Walker is a teacher, Industrial/Organizational Psychologist, and soon to be stay at home mom. She earned her B.S. in Psychology and Sociology from Louisiana State University and her M.A. and Ph.D. in Industrial/Organizational Psychology from University of South Florida. She’s taught at University of South Florida in Tampa, FL; Saint Joseph’s School in Shreveport, LA; and Catholic High School, Saint Joseph’s Academy, and Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, LA. She currently works as a Selection Consultant in the telecommunications industry. She lives with her husband, 15 month old son, and two dogs, and is expecting a baby girl in July. She very occasionally blogs at firstyoumakearoux.typepad.com.

Eeeek!  Tomorrow is Valentine’s Day!  Leave it to me to wait to the last minute to even think about what to do.  I decided a few years ago that I wanted to be intentional about the holiday – teaching my boys to be thoughtful and caring through acts of kindness – so we would always make our own cards and gifts for our classmates.  Well, that was a few years ago, and this is now… and phew!  2014 is flying by and February 14th has crept up on me.

My Pinterest-loving self is really annoyed with my lack-of-planning self for just allowing the boys to choose store-bought Iron Man hologram cards that they simply wrote “To: Friend, Love, James/Leyson” on 20-something of them.  But, boy!  My kids were soooooo excited about those holograms.  So, they win this year.

I did decide (at about 4pm today) that we were at least going to be intentional about what we exchange between our family members.  The kids made “mailboxes” out of manila envelopes for each of us.

I pulled out all of my scrapbook paper, glue, crayons, markers and scissors and let the kids go to town!  Leyson enjoyed playing with the scissors so much he pretty much made confetti the entire time, and my husband and I made bookmarks for all of the kids to go with their books that we bought them.

The kids kept running back and forth from the craft table to the mailboxes, delivering their own personal “letters” to Mom, Dad, Brother, Sister, Mimi and their visiting cousin and aunt.  I can’t wait to open these all tomorrow morning!

So, yes, I realize this post is kinda really last minute (I apologize)… but this is still a great activity that you can do tomorrow or sometime this weekend!  Happy Valentine’s Day… even if it is a little rushed!  🙂

It never fails… sticky notes never last long in my house.  I JUST bought new ones too!  But since my 1 year old already took them all apart, I figured I would put them to immediate use with my 4 year old.

We played a little game today that you can play with your little one once he/she has mastered letters of the alphabet and the sounds that each letter makes; also, he/she must have a basic understanding of blending/segmenting sounds (/b/ /a/ /t/ = bat) and rhyming/word families (bat, cat, sat, mat).

Materials needed:  sticky notes, marker/pen

Version #1:  Write letters on each sticky note.  Your child must find things around the room that start with the letters on the sticky note and post it on that object!

(I learned that it is super cruel to hand my son the letter “q” when there is no quilt in sight.)

I also learned not to give my child the letter F.  He immediately said “FAT!  I’m gonna stick this on your belly!”

My, my.  Kids are just too darn cute for their own good ::sigh::.

Version 2:  Play “I Spy”… “I spy something that starts with /n/.” Let your child come up with some too!

Y’all, “nap mat” was a tricky one!  Props to the kiddo!  He’ll get his Ns right one day 😉

Version #3:  For the child who has not mastered letter sounds:  You write the letters on the sticky notes and post them on the objects while your child hides his/her eyes.  Put the letter T on the TV, the letter B on a box, etc.  When he/she opens his/her eyes, call out a sound and he/she has to find the letter that is on an object.  (You can play hot/cold if he/she can’t find it right away).  When he/she finds it, you say, “Great job!  You found the /t/ for TV!  Say it with me /t/ /t/ TV!”

Version #4:  Instead of searching for the BEGINNING sound, search for the END sound of a word!  “What object ends in /l/?  That’s right, you found the doll!”

Version #5:  Rhyming:  Hold up a letter (ex. “B”) and say, “I’m looking for something that rhymes with “fox” but starts with /b/.”

Version #6:  Early reader, basic understanding of blending sounds in CVC (consonant/vowel/consonant words such as “cat”).  Write down simple words such as “mat,” “cup,” “box,” “doll,”  “TV” (my kids love when I throw that easy one in there ;-)) and your child has to sound out the word and stick it on the object.

Version #7:  Onset/Rime:  The “onset” is the first letter in the word and the “rime” is the part of the word that links it to other words in the same family (the part that makes it rhyme with other words with the same rime… get it?).  Write the “rime” of the word and your child has to write in the onset, and then go stick it on the object.  “What object ends in “-ook”?  Your child looks around the room, sees a “book,” writes in the first letter, and sticks it on the book.

Version #8:  Vowels:  search for the vowel in the middle of the word.  “Which object has the /o/ sound in the middle of the word?”  bOx, robOt, pOt, clOck, sOck

Version #9:  Vowels extended:  Go on a hunt to find 5 things that contain each of the 5 vowels.  Find 5 things with an /a/ sound as in cat, 5 with an /e/ sound as in bend, 5 with an /i/ sound as in pig, 5 with an /o/ sound as in lot, 5 with an /u/ sound as in under.

Version #10:  Syllables:  Choose an object and count the number of syllables in is name.  Put that number of sticky notes on that object.  Ex:  window:  win/dow = 2 sticky notes.  You can do this with the number of sounds in a word too!  Ex:  doll:  /d/ /o/ /l/ = 3 sticky notes.

Now, we’re experiencing an extremely rare “snow day” here in South Louisiana, so these are perfect games to play with your little ones while stuck inside, because, who doesn’t have sticky notes lying around?  Oh wait, ME!  Because we used them all up today!

I’m sure we will be pulling out all of the randomness that is in the “junk drawer” tomorrow to keep the kids happily entertained… or if the power stays on, it’ll probably be a junk food, pajama, and movie day in our house!  You just gotta have those sometimes!

My 6 year old came out of “quiet time” (mommy’s few moments of uninterrupted sanity) carrying this book Diary of a Wimpy Kid.

     “Mom!  I discovered that I have a diary!”

Haha I laughed to myself because he just unknowingly called himself a wimpy kid.

Anyway, he sat down and started reading from page one.  My husband and I looked at each other asking if the other had read it and if we should be allowing him to read it – we had no idea what the book is about.

So, I go to the 2nd most knowledgeable place I know, Facebook (the first being Google).  And I posted a status update asking all of my oh-so-smart friends if this was ok for my 6 year old to read.  See, the reason I asked my friends first is because I know their credibility… and can ask them specific questions too.

I got a lot of great feedback for both “yes, it’s fine” and “no, it’s more for middle schoolers,” but the best thing was when one of my friends sent me this link to http://www.ThrivingFamily.com Book Reviews for Parents!

What an amazing resource!  This website provided a plot summary like most reviews do, but also offered brief descriptions on Christian beliefs referenced in the book, authority roles (descriptions and examples of the different roles the parents, teachers and all other adults play in the book), other belief systems referenced…

Greg thanks his “lucky stars” that he is on the other side of the gym from the girls because his wrestling outfit doesn’t completely cover him during wrestling matches in gym class.

…(how specific is that?), profanity/graphic violence, kissing/sex/homosexuality and awards that the book has received.

There is also a “discussion” section with over 50 questions to get your child talking about the book.

In addition, beneath the book review is a link to a website that has reviewed the movie too, since most often the movie version differs significantly from the book version.  The website, Plugged In, is another great resource that reviews movies, TV shows, music, and games for parents.  Both of these websites are publications of Focus on the Family.

It is so important for us as parents to have knowledge about what our kids are watching, listening to, and reading.  I love these two websites for making that aspect of parenting a little easier for us!

Oh, and if you’re wondering, we decided Diary of a Wimpy Kid is a little too mature for our 6-year old.  The Magic Treehouse series has been recommended by several moms, in addition to the Who Was… series, biographies of different historical figures, so we’ll be heading to the library soon!

My oldest son is home from school today so whoop whoop IT’S PAJAMA DAY!  But more importantly, WHY is he home from school?

Today we celebrate the life and accomplishments of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.  It is so easy for us to get caught up in teaching letters, numbers, patterns, and rhyming to our little ones… but we also need to remember to teach about history… especially a historical period that is pivotal in this country’s shift toward acceptance, freedom, and equality of all people.

That’s a pretty huge concept and a lot of information for our kids to grasp.  And they won’t grasp it all in one day!  But guess what?  Teaching about Martin Luther King Jr., black history, racial equality, segregation, and the infamous “I Have a Dream” speech does not have to only happen on the third Monday in January of each year.

I found this great video on YouTube that gives an age-appropriate biography of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.   I clicked pause a lot so I could explain a few things such as “segregation” and “freedom.”

My oldest son made a reference to the pictures we once showed him of my husband and my trip to Washington D.C. after he saw the Washington Monument in the video.  I had forgotten all about them!  So we pulled them out and I was able to show him a picture I took standing from the spot where MLK Jr. delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech.

Dr. King’s movement encouraged us to imagine a world where people were not set apart by their differences.  To kids, the biggest differences between people are all visual:  gender, hair color and length, height, kid versus adult and skin color; whereas, we adults also differentiate between cultures, language, religions and beliefs, lifestyles and socioeconomic statuses.

Today, we spent some time talking about our visual differences, specifically our different skin colors.  But, let’s not just talk about the different colors, let’s SEE the all of the different colors.  So of course, we busted out the paints!  I pulled out all of our different hues of brown paints from light khaki tan to milk chocolate to dark chocolate to raw umber.

All of them are products of mixing two colors:  white and our darkest brown.

We mixed together different combinations of the two colors:  1 scoop of white and 3 scoops of brown; 2 scoops of white and 2 scoops of brown; 3 scoops of white and one scoop of brown; and we mixed and mixed and mixed…

And then we painted the different colors on our hands to see which best matched our skin color.

We talked about how everyone’s skin color has a different combination of these two colors. “It’s kind of like God has his own color palate and is mixing these different paints together to make us all uniquely beautiful!”

Let’s celebrate our differences today and every day and teach our kids to do the same!

*** TEACHING TIP:  Make an effort to include historical and culturally-relevant books in your home library.

These are just a few of the books that I read in my classroom to my students, provided by a curriculum that encouraged culturally relevant teaching:

Here is a great resource to learn about different cultures all around the world:  Kid World Citizen!  The best way for kids to learn to accept differences is to learn to appreciate and celebrate differences.  On this website you can search by continent, country, food, animals, language, crafts and more!  I am seriously in AWE over Kid World Citizen… what an amazing resource!