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By Katrina Margolis
Hometown Weekly Reporter
The Needham Public Library is a popular destination for a wide demographic. High schoolers pile in after school to socialize with their friends while doing homework or to meet with tutors and adults come in to find their next book or to have a quiet place to read. But who would have thought that the most popular and thriving spot would be in the children’s room on Tuesday mornings?
Terrific Toddlers, a program for one to two year olds and their caregivers, was so full last Tuesday that pairs of children and adults rotated out with others to make room for everyone inside the Story Time Room.
The program utilizes stories, songs, rhymes, fingerplays and sensory activities to help young walkers learn vocabulary and develop motor skills. “There are always more than 45 children in attendance, but today I counted 69,” said Diane, the children’s librarian who runs the class. “There are a lot of new people today. I tend to know at least 60 percent of the kid’s names normally and it was around 25 percent today.”
Whatever the reason for the increase in attendance, the program is certainly popular, and Diane enjoys teaching it. “The overall point of the class is to give the adults and the kids exposure to things that will help with early literacy,” she said. “So it’s kind of a two-pronged approach - it’s something that’s fun for the kids but also things that the adults can learn that they can do on more than just a Tuesday morning.”
Diane explained how exactly she chooses what they do each week in class. “Well, a good picture book for babies and toddlers is one with bright colors and simple words. So I did one concept book today that was about ‘up’ - everything was different ways to be up,” she said. “Last time, we did colors. We do animals, we do numbers - we do all of that.”
The Needham Library is committed to early literacy and promoting learning early on. They offer a class after Terrific Toddlers for children less than one year old, and another class on Monday mornings for children three to six years old. “We do offer a wide variety of many different kinds of things and it’s all on the website, there’s something for everybody,” Diane explained.
