Constructive Playthings is having a sale on colored scarves: a package of 12 scarves on sale for $7.48! (Item XX-204). And cluster bells are on sale for $1.70 per bell (Item xx-263). If you need either of these items, these are great deals; order from 1-800-448-4115 or www.cptoys.com. (This is not a paid announcement - just a friendly tip!)

Developmental Tip Cards are Available!!!!!

At long last..... I am delighted to say that the developmental tip cards that I created along with Saroj Ghoting are finally available!

When presenting Mother Goose on the Loose training workshops, I often heard participants say that the most difficult thing for them was coming up with new developmental tips for parents and caregivers each week.

I envisioned a deck of developmental tip cards that could be used in any early literacy program. Related to school readiness, each card would have a brief tip relating to one of the domains of school readiness, written in easy language for adults of all levels to understand. On the flip side of the card would be suggestions for the presenter regarding activities that could go along with the tip; i.e. a song, story, craft activity, or suggested project for home that the presenter could either lead or mention.

I asked Saroj Nadkarni Ghoting if she would like to partner me in the writing of these cards, and ALA Editions agreed to be our publisher. We wrote a short manual describing the domains of school readiness and explaining how to use the tip cards. And the complete package arrived at my home in the mail yesterday! What a treat!!!! ALA Editions did a wonderful job of producing it, and I believe this is going to be extremely helpful to anyone who is running programs for adults with children ages 5 and under.

The Early Literacy Kit:
A Handbook and Tip Cards

For more information and to order book.

Also, I'm looking forward to my presentation at the New England Library Association this weekend!

Exciting week in Indiana

I have just returned from an exciting week in Indiana! For five days, I drove up, down, and around the state presenting Mother Goose on the Loose workshops. I visited Fort Wayne, Merrillsville, Lebanon, Jeffersonville and Evansville. Some of the groups were large and some were not so big, but in each place I was greeting with Midwest warmth and enthusiasm. Indiana is a beautiful state, and the librarians there are great!

In between Jeffersonville and Evansville, it was recommended that we stop at a restaurant off the highway called "The Overlook." What a gorgeous place! Windows overlook a hairpin turn of the meandering Ohio River; there is green everywhere and the sunsets are splendid!

I'm now back in Baltimore, and a colleague just sent me a link to a wonderful article on brain research and how children learn. It is from the New York Times, written by Alison Gopnik, and can be accessed at http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/16/opinion/16gopnik.html

MGOL lives on...

One of my friends sent me this link to a YouTube video about Mother Goose on the Loose at the Enoch Pratt Library. Even though I have left Pratt and am now working at Port Discovery, it's great to see the people I trained running such an enthusiastic program.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EDS5N-GgeyA

An article about Rachel MacNeilly's program in the San Francisco area,

http://www.webjunction.org/programming-and-outreach/-/articles/content/456616

NAFCC Conference

The National Association for Family Child Care Provider was last week. For the first time, I had a booth in the exhibits area, and more than 1/10 of the people at the conference stopped by. The session included a sample program. There was no space in our room for moving chairs or sitting on the floor, so 60 people squeezed into the hallway and we ran our sample program there. Not very wide, but very, very, long. It actually went well.