If you visited the library on a Monday morning this fall, you may have noticed some very special guests - our local kindergarteners, their teachers, and chaperones on their highly-anticipated field trip to the library. Relaunched in fall 2024 after a hiatus since 2019, kindergarten visits have become an essential part of our school engagement program. In fact, it was because of requests from our school partners that we created our kindergarten field trip program for them. This year, we hosted visits with Romona, McKenzie, Central, Joseph Sears, Central, and Harper Schools.
When children arrive for their school visit, they're welcomed by school engagement librarian Eti Berland who brings them to our Youth Program Room to settle in on the carpet. They are welcomed by library staff, and our library mascots, beasties Minty and Marshmallow, which many of them have met in their preschools or from visits to the library.
They listen to a fan favorite story, Pete the Cat and His Four Groovy Buttons by Eric Litwin, illustrated by James Dean, which many children have heard before, so this experience leverages their prior knowledge. They then received a Pete the Cat lanyard without any buttons; they must find the button stickers as they go on their library tour, so the experience is gamified. The classes are divided into two where one group goes on a tour and another stays in the Youth Program Room for an interactive storytime including songs, a flannel story about five wonderful books, engaging read alouds, and puppet stories. Meanwhile, the tour group stops at the Circulation desk to learn how they can check out books, get their own library card, and ask for them. They then return upstairs to their next stop at the Youth Services desk to learn more about experiences in the children's department like scavenger hunts, the coloring station, board games, and of course, all the books they could ever dream of checking out. Finally, they visit the Picture Book Area where they can play with trains, toys, puppets, Duplo, puzzles, and spend time reading with their grown-ups.
Everyone concludes the visit in the Youth Program Room with a quick-fire Q&A to ask their pressing questions, whether it's about how Minty and Marshmallow borrowed the library van, how many books they can check out, and what's the librarians' favorite books. Knowing we can't possibly answer all of their questions or do all the things in the library, we encourage the children to visit again with their grown-up and continue their journey in the library. In fact, we hope that our kindergarten friends become lifelong library users. These powerful field trips are only possible because of the incredible hard work of our local kindergarten teachers, classroom parents, chaperones, and administrators who manage the logistics and support enrichment experiences in our community. It's also a team effort here at the library to ensure field trips run smoothly, from Facilities and Safety managing school bus parking and room logistics, Youth Services staff co-hosting visits and participating in the tour, Circulation staff offering insights about how books get to the library - and showcasing the blue bins that come in daily, and Welcome Desk staff helping with communication and information sharing - and of course, making sure all our friends are welcomed. We're so grateful for everyone's help to make our kindergarten visits a resounding success!
If your child visited the library on a kindergarten visit, here are some questions you could ask them. (These are also great questions for everyone.)
What was your favorite part of visiting the library?
What do you love about the library?
What are you still curious about?
How old do you have to be to get a library card?
How old is the library? (We share our Wilmette Public Library history timeline with our teachers before the visit - it's a great resource to better understand the amazing history of our community!)
Do you want to go to the library?
We can't wait to see you soon!