By Callum Ludwig
Yarra Junction Library held its first Storytime event for the year recently and is welcoming families to join them at future events throughout the year.
The storytime events vary in theme and target age range, but all encourage kids and parents to socialise.
Childrens’ Services Officer at Yarra Junction Library Rachael Falls said the first storytime of the year was to promote Healthy Lunchbox Week.
“We worked with Yarra Ranges Council and Eastern Health to have some songs and books all about healthy eating to help encourage kids to eat their fruits and vegetables,” she said.
“We had some wonderful take home packs provided by staff of the council to help inform parents about what kind of healthy foods they can have available for their children to eat and they had a great time doing that,”
“We also had a little craft activity where the kids could choose some pictures of fruit and vegetables and put together what kind of things they would like to have for lunch.”
Other storytime events which have and will run throughout the year include Tiny Tots storytime for kids aged up to 12 months old, Toddler storytime for kids aged one to three years old and Family storytime for kids aged up to six years old.
Ms Falls it’s really important for the kids to have a chance to socialise with other kids of a similar age in order to learn to play, share and work together.
“Tiny Tots storytime focuses getting the body parts moving and body part recognition so a lot of the songs will talk about different body parts and adults will touch their babies in that part to help them learn what is what,” she said.
“With the toddler and the family storytimes, because the kids are usually a little bit older we can have things like ‘lift the flap’ books which they like because they can have a little guess about what’s hiding under there based on the quiz in the book or talking about animals and what sounds they make,”
Lately we have been reading a lot of summer books so the kids can talk about things that we see in the summer time and things that we might find at the beach and it gives them a chance to learn a bit about what’s going on in the world around them.”
You can look at for future Storytime and other events at Yarra Junction Library and other libraries in the Outer East at events.yourlibrary.com.au/.
