Yesterday morning was a bit intense. A kindergarten teacher called me asking if two classes could visit the library in one hour. The field trip they had scheduled was cancelled and she wanted the students to experience something outside of the classroom. Our children’s librarian was off so I decided to host the visit and use it as trial run for my big Future Ready with the Library event planned for this summer.
What I appreciated about trying this with kindergartners was that they were super open and receptive to the idea of Future Ready with the Library. Each kid got a custom button that says “ask me what I want to be” and then they all told me. Below is a snapshot of some of the professions that these kindergartners are interested in.
Astronaut
Librarian (my personal favorite)
Ballerina
Doctor
Soldier
Cowboy
Fire Fighter (they had just visited the fire station)
And super hero
What I noticed about getting this insight from kindergartners is that the world hasn’t yet told them what they can or cannot be. As a result, I was able to gather some authentic insight from the students. When I am working with the grade school students this summer I am really going to encourage dreaming big.
The other insight was my job interview Jenga game that I am building. The giant jenga I put out was wildly popular with all of the kids. Seeing how they interacted with it made me realize that I will actually need to have two Jenga games going at the same time. With the amount of kids, I want the process to move fast and having one game going created a bit of a lag time that can easily be fixed.
I suppose my lesson for this was in the value of practicing your program. My Future Ready with the Library program is a one day thing so I will not really get a second shot. With my planning I didn't incorporate a trial run into the planning and I am so glad that this happened. Plus working with kindergartners allowed me to try parts of the program out in a safe supportive environment.