St. Joseph Public Library here to help keep kids engaged
St. Joseph, MO (News-Press NOW) — Parents don’t need to panic about coming up with family activities for the summer. The St. Joseph Public Library has lots of resources for keeping kids occupied and engaged over the summer months. From our Summer Reading Program that begins in June to programs at all of the library branches, to books you can check out for activities for the whole family, we’re here to help. The books discussed here are available at the St. Joseph Public Library, at other Missouri Evergreen libraries, or from one of the SJPL eContent vendors. Visit the library’s catalog, https://sjpl.modiscovery.org, to find these or other great books to enjoy.
3D Paper Crafts for Kids: 25 Creative Projects to Make from A-Z by Helen Drew. All 26 projects are accompanied by full color illustrations. Many are not at a preschool level although with parental or an older sibling’s help a preschooler could produce something to be proud of. Some of the projects include the use of embellishments. Many projects feature paper folding with an opening section on paper folding techniques. This book makes even adults itch for scissors and paper (excellent for gift package decorations).
Thriving With Autism: 90 Activities to Encourage Your Child’s Communication, Engagement, and Play by Katie Cook. NOT just for autistic kids! The activities could be useful for all kids to help them with development in communication, engagement and play. These areas of development are important for all kids at different points in their growth. Let’s communicate, Let’s do something together, Let’s play, Let’s get social, Let’s move, Let’s get sensory smart, Let’s get calm, Let’s learn and Let’s be independent are the chapters in this book. There is something that every child can use.
The Bilingual Book of Rhymes, Songs, Stories and Fingerplays by Pam Schiller, Rafael Lara-Alecio and Beverly J. Irby. This huge book is packed full of fun. Over 450 selections with a wide variety of topics including school days, home and family, friends, pets, and travel. Each topic is broken into songs, fingerplays, rhymes and stories. Many will be familiar, but others will be new to explore with your child. There is an appendix of Spanish language resources, an index of titles in Spanish and English, and an index by type of activity.
Camping Activity Book for Families: The Kid-Tested Guide to Fun in the Outdoors by Linda Parker Hamilton. Starting with planning the trip as a family to promote buy in by kids and adults, this is a very well thought out book. It does give you a suggested list of what you will need to take but goes way beyond that to make sure everyone has something of interest to them. It gives suggestions for kids when they get bored, too much sun or experience emotional overload. A creatively informative book
The Best Preschool Learning Activities: 75 Fun Ideas for Literacy, Math, Science, Motor, and Social Emotional Learning by Katie T. Christiansen. A book of useful tools for parents and preschool teachers. Included are literacy activities for reading and writing, math for counting and how numbers work, science to excite children about how things work and teach observation skills. Gross and fine motor activities are both good for coordination and helping to solve behavioral struggles. Social emotional activities help children understand their feelings and work on self-regulation. Useful for both preparation for learning and keeping skills up over the summer.
