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Storytime Features GIANT Map of Montana

The Phillips County Library Storytime children enjoyed a GIANT Map of MT for the end of season finale. Storytime was held every Wednesday at 10:30 am through the school year. It was geared toward the younger children ages 0 to 5 so they can learn about the library, start a love of reading, and experience socialization.

This year the leader, Sarah Osmundson, carried through with the theme of the United States of America. "Our first meeting in September 2022 we talked about the USA, the capitol in Washington, D.C., the flag and started learning the Pledge of Allegiance. It was in March I turned around to the children and said, 'do you know how good you all sound, you got this, good job!'"

Each week, except for five holidays; Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, Valentine's and St. Patrick's, two children would be asked to pick a state name out of a jar. Those would be the two states read about the next week, it was always a surprise where we would go. The goal was to have a children's author or illustrator book read for each state, an action song/poem, a craft and a color page.

Wednesday, May 3, 2023 started upstairs in the library by finishing up our last three states; Hawaii, Michigan and Colorado. References were made to agriculture, wildlife, the state's capitol and flag. A new children's book "Do Super Hero's Have Teddy Bears?" by Carmela LaVigna Cole a Colorado author was read, the action song "Zoom, zoom, zoom We're Going to the Moon" was blasted off to, then we all walked downstairs to take off our shoes and enjoy the Giant Map of MT. The children were lead through the Dinosaur Trail starting in Ekalaka up to Fort Peck, dropped to Jordan, back up to Malta, across the Hi-Line and ending up in Bozeman. Each MT city on the Dinosaur Trail was marked with a T-Rex foot (just like the one found at the Phillips County Museum) and a picture of what could be found there. For example; "Elvis" at PCM and "Leonardo" at GPDM and all the children were excited to know that they knew where that was and had seen them. A few even knew the species by technical name and had visited many of the museums on the trail. One child even knew that his dad was in Helena today, so he squatted at Helena and I stood at Malta and we both decided that was a long way. Another child was excited to stand at Canada where her mother was from, we then walked the border of MT into North and South Dakotas, Wyoming and Idaho.

"I was amazed how much children 0 to 5 soak-in when given the opportunity to walk onto a 15'x20' giant map. The library staff tried to unfold it upstairs on Tuesday, but it was just too big!" exclaimed Sarah. She reserved the downstairs meeting room from the P.C. Extension the two Wednesdays with May 10th being the final storytime. That day would start again upstairs with the reference book on the state of Montana. A special guest, Nancy Murdock, sang and taught us a song about Montana. Then downstairs to follow the pawprints of the historic dog Seaman and the Lewis & Clark expedition.

The Phillips County Library reserved the map through the Montana State Library and Lifelong Learning. It was one of several Trunk programs available and included all the tools needed to put on an interactive class. Per the site: The Montana State Library provides lifelong learning support to all Montanans through a combination of librarian professional development and training, program development, and meaningful partnerships. Lifelong Learning projects include sustained, long-term efforts in early literacy, economic development, and summer reading, as well as other topics such as health information, STEM programming, wildlife education, and civic engagement. Learn more about Lifelong Learning programs and support on the Lifelong Learning webpage on the MSL Website. https://msl.mt.gov

 

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