Nikki Planeta is the new librarian at Coal City Early Childhood Center and her goal has been to make the library a welcoming place the students look forward to coming to each week. Additionally, she wants the students to be excited about books and to love reading as much as she does.
“Some changes I have made include a bright, rainbow themed update, books in bins to be able to see the book’s covers to know if it’s something they want to check out and the implementation of flexible seating while they browse through those books. I also came across something called “Dino-vemeber,” she said.
“I found a book called “What the Dinosaurs Did At School.” And after reading that, the next rotation, toy dinosaurs of all kinds and sizes showed up in the library. Instead of your traditional fall & Thanksgiving read-alouds, I read ones that included dinosaurs, like “How Do Dinosaurs Learn to be Kind” (for World Kindness Day) and “Dino-Thanksgiving” the last rotation before the break,” she said.
Each week the students came in excited to see what the dinos were up to. They left jokes in the other specials classes and even joined the students in P.E. one day, as she read “Dinos Don’t Do Yoga” and then they did a dino themed yoga video.
“We ended the month with a whole school scavenger hunt to see if they could spot them all before they went back home. I even overheard a child say ‘Aww, I don’t want them to go!’ when they were boxed up on the first of December saying ‘please take them back’ as they did in the book. I think they were all sad for it to end. And many said, ‘It could be Dino December too.’”
You can check out Mrs. Planeta’s webpage to see what they were up to all month.