Now recognized as a national issue with major economic implications in the agriculture sector, children and teachers have been inspired to do their part to support pollinator health in the schoolyard setting. From planting pollinator gardens to maintaining their own beehives, schools can contribute to both honeybees and native pollinator health in meaningful ways that also teach core content across curricular disciplines.

Plant a garden

• Ecoregional planting guides from Pollinator Partnership: Select the best plants for your region. Many states have native plant societies that can help locate plant material. Remember that garden centers often sell plants treated with neonicotinoid pesticides, which are suspected to be poisonous to bees, so make sure to source neonic-free plants. Not all neonic-treated plants are labelled as such.
• Pollinator garden planning lesson plan from KidsGardening.org

Start a beehive

• Compilation of pollinator citizen science projects from Xerxes Society

• Information for Schools from the Xerxes Society
• Honeybee curriculum from the Bee Cause
• Project Hero Pollination Quest from Captain Planet Foundation
• Bee Books for Children from the Honeybee Conservancy

Creating bee-friendly schools

At Little Shop of Stories, we like to say that children’s books will save the world. Not only do we see ourselves in the books we read but we are also able to see beyond our own experiences and to understand what it is like for someone else. Books are great and vitally important conversation starters about different lives, different problems, and different solutions.

Using these ideas, we have created new programming in 2017 to engage our community in conversations through children’s literature.

The Kindness Project came out of discussions we had here at the shop during and after the November election season. There was so much negativity, intolerance, and divisiveness during that time that we really were concerned about the impact of it all on the children we serve. We decided we wanted to encourage a discussion on kindness, compassion, and empathy within our community of readers as a way to help families consider ways to think and act differently despite this negativity. Each month we focus on a different topic and provide book lists, workshops, and other activities that will help parents and teachers navigate conversations around these topics with children and teens.

Some examples of Kindness Project activities have included:

• Our January story time about the Refugee Experience brought over 40 families to the shop. We worked with publishers to deliver hundreds of books to our very active refugee community.
• We conduct regular, robust story times highlighting picture books filled with diverse peoples and cultures.
• Our Gender Fluidity Workshop helped to create new support systems for parents and their children and teens.
• We held an April Poetry Workshop for kids to understand themselves and others through poetry.
• We’ve raised $130 in donations for shipping books to military families all over the US. That’s like 16 or 17 boxes of books!

This summer’s Camp Be The Change endeavored to take the Kindness Project one step further—to encourage children to move from idea to action and to celebrate the amazing ways that they too can make a difference in the world around them. Campers learned about influential figures in history who have fought to make the world a better place, from Susan B. Anthony to Representative John Lewis. They also learned about kids like them who have chosen to take a stand to change their communities. Topics ranged from random acts of kindness to civil liberties, and campers explored ways to improve and support their own communities.

We’re a bookstore, and we believe in the power of stories, and sharing those stories. We’re not looking to do what non-profits do, or what other, better equipped or already established forms of outreach are doing. Instead, we are looking to initiate thoughtful action in ourselves and others through sharing one another’s stories.

To learn more about Little Shop of Stories and their 2017 programming, visit their website.
Have a great example of how you make a difference in your community? Let us know on Facebook and Twitter to enter our #BeDangerous sweepstakes!

We at Peachtree love to learn about different ways people promote and encourage literacy among children. Having recently published  Lisa Papp’s picture book Madeline Finn and the Library Dog—the story of a reluctant reader who develops a love of reading with the help of a beautiful and patient library dog—we were inspired to learn more and help spread the word about these fantastic programs!

R.E.A.D. (Reading Education Assistance Dogs) is the foremost organization in the country that coordinates library dog programs. They started out in 1999 as the first comprehensive literacy program built around the idea of reading to dogs, and they now have more than 3,000 teams throughout the world working to help readers gain confidence in their reading with the help of a furry friend. This week, we spoke to R.E.A.D. executive director Kathy Klotz to ask her for some pointers on establishing these library dog programs in your library.

She gave 5 steps that she believes are important in making sure your program is successful:

Photo from Gloria Laube, librarydogs.com

1. Make sure to utilize only therapy animal team volunteers who have been screened, trained, licensed and insured.
Not just an employee’s dog, not a service dog, not a friendly neighborhood pet that someone knows of. You want dogs who have been carefully screened and trained for this kind of work, to assure the health and safety of your patrons.

(You can join an ITA affiliate group or another animal-assisted therapy group near you to ensure that you have qualified volunteers.)

2. Hold an initial meeting with the therapy dog volunteers to clarify the procedures and expectations for both sides of the equation—library personnel and volunteers.

This is crucial—you need to establish where in the library the animal interactions will best be located, the logistics (time, day, frequency, length of sessions), and how to handle the scheduling (sign-ups or drop-ins?). Will you be setting up a special theme and display for the days the dogs visit? It’s vitally important for everyone to know who will be responsible for what, to make sure you all understand one another.

Photo from Pete, librarydogs.com

3. Publicize your new program well in advance.

Give your patrons plenty of time to hear about the program, both to encourage kids to attend and to
forewarn those who may need to avoid coming during those times due to risk of allergy. Use fun posters, your library newsletter, PSAs, any resources you may have.

4. Make sure your personnel and your volunteers are clear on the way you want your program to work. Be ready to do some fine-tuning.

It can take awhile for everyone to find their groove. How will you handle crowd control and interruptions? Are the chosen spots—not private, but reasonably free of noise and traffic—working out? Are the chosen days and times appropriate for the traffic in your children’s library? There are endless things that may come up to surprise you all, and flexibility will help everyone keep improving your program.

Photo from Gloria Laub, librarydogs.com

5. Keep up the ongoing communication with your therapy animal volunteers.

We all want the best for the children and families who visit your library. The volunteers want to be on your team, and they will want you on theirs, as well. The library can get very busy, as you know, but it’s important for someone on the staff to be keeping one eye on the dog interactions in case they need help (freedom from interruptions, overbearing parents, too many interested kids at once, etc.) Any small misunderstandings or difficulties can easily be smoothed away when library staff maintains clear and frequent communication with the therapy teams who work with you.

If you are interested in learning more about these programs and establishing one at your library, check out the R.E.A.D. website for more information! And go to librarydogs.com for more adorable photos and great information about library dogs! 

If you need some literature to get you in the mood for windy days and kite-flying, be sure to check out Elizabeth Spurr‘s latest board book In the Wind. Perfect for toddlers, the simple, evocative language describes a girl’s experience on a windy day; the lovely illustrations by Manelle Oliphant could even give you some design ideas for your next kite project or kite-flying outing!

In case you don’t happen to have a kite handy, we’ve collected a few kite-making tutorials so that everyone can join in the fun of Big Wind Day.

This one is for the kite-flyers who like the more natural, neutral look for their kite.

Style Me Pretty

This one has streamers galore, with more simple ingredients for a bright and beautiful end product.

Inner Child Fun

This one removes all excuses for not being able to fly a kite. All the components are right under your nose!

2 Little Hooligans

This one is for any kite-makers who want to break out of the usual kite box with some fun designs!

Red Ted Art

This one leaves the design up to the kite-flyer but provides all the necessary blueprints for the perfect kite.

Squawk Fox

Find In the Wind at your local library, indie bookstore, or Barnes & Noble!

It may seem like spinning a spooky yarn ought to be easy as pumpkin pie, but, like tight rope walking, writing a children’s book (Am I right, guys?), and drinking black coffee, telling a scary story is a skill that must be honed with years of careful study.

But, since Halloween is just a few days away, consider this our Scary Story Bootcamp.

via duplexproductionblog.com

• Indoors: 
  • Make a blanket or pillow-fort. First off, they’re awesome. Second, they’ll hide all the light from outside the fort, leaving your flashlight as the only source of light. And third, forts are awesome.
• Outdoors: 
  • Do you have an outdoor fire pit? The eerie light will flicker; the fire will crackle; and creatures of the night will skulk and slither in the shadows just out of sight…

via stellarfour.com

The Story: 

You’ve selected your setting and collected your props; now it’s time for the main event.

Speaking in front of an audience can be nerve-wracking. Practicing before is always an option, especially if you aren’t too familiar with the story.  Adding changes in the tone and volume of your voice throughout can also enhance the story and get children more intrigued in what happens next. But just remember: it’s important to seem confident in the story you’re telling. Whatever the story is, it is true. If you believe it, your audience will believe it too.

But how do you pick one?

The best thing to do is to learn a few on your own, improve them, and then swap them with your friends. Pretty soon you’ll have a good collection built up! Becoming familiar with some classic scary stories that originate from folklore in Alvin Schwartz’s Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark can always be a good place to get some ideas; but here are also a few tried and trues to get you started:

• Tommy Knockers
• You Can’t Get Out

• Bloody Mary 
• The Headless Horseman 
• Yellow Ribbon 

Super Scary/Proceed with Caution: 

• Girl in White
• Hairy Toe
• No Trespassing

• The Long Fingered Man