A Pets And Vets Storytime!

A Tale Of A Library Transformation Into An Animal Clinic And Kennel

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Every Tuesday we open the library before business hours to a gaggle of under five year old kids and their grown ups. This fall storytime's theme is "Little Renaissance Kids" and the programming consists of stories, songs, and hands-on themed play that brings out the creativeness in the little ones.

This week was super exciting as the marvelous Miss M informed me that it was pet and vets day! In the hour before the littles arrived we set up the meeting room as a "vet clinic" complete with ailing stuffed animals, an assortment of diagnostic tools and healing apparatuses, and the cutest little medical charts I have ever seen.

In the back of the library we laid out a bunch of building materials for the little pet owners to build custom dog houses, but it was what we did to the main area of the library after Miss M read a pet themed story that amused me beyond barking, we made a pet agility course.

The kids got to pretend they were puppies and the first part of the course consisted of a foam balance beam:

Miss M and I assembled it into a pretty fancy S curve pattern.

Next the kids had to crawl under a parachute:

And run through a tube:

I thought it was beyond impressive that most of the small fries went through the tunnel on all fours!

The last obstacle before the finish line was a ball pit!

Most of the kid went through the agility course multiple times, barking in glee like the pretend puppies that they were.

Libraries provide so much more for their communities than just books. There is nothing better than seeing a two year old glowing with pride as they complete an obstacle course while they pretend to be a dog or watching a five year old applying a bandage to a wounded plastic dinosaur. I mean, just look at these bandage skills, I think we had a future wound specialist in attendance!

The only casualty in today's fun was one of the library's ever vigilant plants. I'm wondering if one of the puppies thought they needed a fetching stick, for we found a big chunk of said plant lying in a broken heap next to the agility course finish line. No worries though, I plunked that piece into some water and with a little care a new plant will hopefully grow, sprouting roots just like the imaginations of all the kids in attendance today will hopefully have a love for learning and discovery sprout from engaging in creative and informative play and learning!

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And as always, all of the images in this post were taken on the author's delightfully amused iPhone.

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