Public Library Programs Offer Free Enrichment Resource

I am sometimes asked to participate in the teen program at one of our public libraries as a writing coach. Each year the teens in this weekly evening program write a play, make costumes, scenery, act and direct themselves and then perform the play for the local K-2 kids who come to the library in the summer for story hour. This year I've been asked to coach the writing portion of the project. Typically they start work on the play about three months prior to the performance

While I was working with them recently, some of the kids were also stitching and gluing on quilt squares. These are no ordinary quilt squares. They are large and very artistic and also very diverse, sometimes with three dementional objects attached. I learned that each square represents a book and will be placed on a panel of cloth, with about four squares per panel. Each square is anchored to the panel at the top and can be lifted up to reveal underneath the name and author of the story the square represents. This is another project that they have been working on for several months. The panels will hang on the wall of the new library recently built in this community.

I love the multi-faceted aspects of this project. I think it could be used as a model for projects for alternative schools, enrichment programs and homeschoolers. First the student gets to think of a book they enjoyed, think about what that book meant to them, sketch a design that represents that book, see that sketch turn in to a piece of art via their own hand, then serve the community by providing not only art for the wall of the library, but provoking thought for decades of children to come through the puzzle of guessing which book each square represents. In thinking about that, I realized that the play project these teens work on each year is also a multi-diciplined project with several payoffs for the teen and the community.

As a former homeschooling Mom, I used the public library a great deal as a resource for materials. I know that no teacher or homeschooling parent is a stranger to the local library. The only resource program many public libraries offer is a story hour, however. If your library is one of those, then go a little farther. Check out the libraries in the region, particularly those at universities that have a school of education. You might stumble on to a little gem of a program that would enrich your teen or home schoolers life...or you might approach the library administrator about starting one. Hurray for the innovative educators who work at public libraries!
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