Last summer, a coworker and I ran a very successful baby and toddler play program. Each week, about 80-100 parents and little ones joined us for a variety of interactive activities.
Six months ago, when we were planning for May-August 2020, we were thrilled to be able to offer Play & Learn again this summer, plus an additional four weeks in May.
Then COVID happened.
Obviously we weren’t expecting a pandemic, but luckily we were able to shift our plans to adapt this program virtually for the month of May, creating Play & Learn at Home.
Each week, Lisa (my coworker) and I emailed caregivers registered for Play & Learn at Home a video and instruction sheet for two DIY play activities, made from objects commonly found around the house.
This summer, I worked with a fellow librarian to start a nine-week play series for ages 0-3 and their families. Play & Learn quickly turned into one of my (and our patrons) favorite programs of the summer.
Each Wednesday, from 9:30-10:30 am, parents and their little ones interacted with 10-12 activities we placed around our large meeting room. On average, we had 80-120 visitors each week. People came and went on their own schedule–for some babies, 10 minutes was more than enough time in the crowded room; others enjoyed a full hour of play and even stayed to help with clean-up.
Play & Learn at its busiest!
Some activities repeated each week (bubbles!), while others rotated in and out throughout the summer. We grouped our activities into four categories and made sure to have a mix of these each week:
“Messy” Sensory Play (rice, beans, sand, easter grass, water)
Instrument/Sound Play
This program is particularly great because you can adapt it to whatever budget and space you have available. We have very large crowds in the summer, and this program was able to meet the needs of parents and little ones while appealing to a large range of ages. We included a mix of purchased play items and items that parents could re-create at home cheaply–another library could do a similar program just focusing on one of these categories, to save staff time (pre-purchased items) or money (cheap, home-made items).
Play & Learn also encouraged parent-child interaction. Each activity included laminated sheets on the floor nearby, explaining the value of the activity along with questions and vocabulary words to encourage parent engagement.
Play & Learn has already been requested multiple times by our community to be continued this fall. While that cannot happen, unfortunately, due to our busy school-year programming schedule, I am looking forward to this program’s return next summer.
