Simply Vicki

The title of this post reminded me of a slogan for a now closed boot shop in the Cincinnati area, it was “Boots and boots and more good boots.”  Ah, I can hear it now.  Memories.

Anywho, today’s tip may seem obvious to some, but I’m learning that what is obvious to some is very not obvious to others, so I’m gonna share it all.  Oh, and welcome to Frugal Fridays.  I’m your host, Vicki.  And you are?  Pleased to meet you.  Excuse me, my son is out of bed an hour early…

Ok, so now, where were we?  Oh, that’s right, Frugal Fridays.  If you are new here, check out the guidelines before sharing a link.  Thank you, thank you very much.

I have always loved to read.  I can and often do finish a book in one sitting.  This is why I don’t read much fiction anymore, I just can’t stop and, let’s face it, I have these here kids to wrangle.  If I could, I would have a library in my own house.  Guess where I’m going with this post?  You’re so smart, someone should give you something, come on over, we’ll bake some cookies.  Sorry, tangent.  Back to the books…

I do have a collection of books and so do my kids, though I do a much better job of keeping mine organized.  Well, if you count sitting in a box organized.  Note to self, get some bookshelves.

Anywho, the library is a fabulous resource for books.  As I said before, I would have my own library if I could, but I tend to choose to spend my money on other things, like food.

Some of our favorite uses for the library:

• Chapter story books to read aloud together – My children are still of the read-to-me variety and I plan to read to them for as long as they will sit with me, which honestly didn’t even start until they were about three years old.
• Non-fiction books – We are just now getting into the juvenile non-fiction books to support our kids’ interests.  I love that we have access to books on every subject for when a whim of fancy strikes.  Like today, we will be getting some books on eagles for my flight-loving son, that is if the library retains power and I can use the search catalog this time.  I have picked up books on how to draw things for my uber-creative daughter.  I usually look through this section while the kids play (see below), though they are discovering this section slowly.
• Holiday story times – I know a lot of kids get the privilege of attending story time on a weekly basis, my children are not among them.  While we go the library basically weekly, making story time is not a priority for us.  I do try to notice when the library has a special occasion story time, like story time with Santa or such.  Of course, if your library requires an actual sign-up for story time, this is not going to work.  We have one library locally that works this way, the other (bigger/better, in my opinion) library system does not.
• Screening – I am rather picky about what my children are exposed to, so this is a great way to preview books before spending my money.
• Toys – Our favorite branch of the Cincinnati library system has a nice children’s area with floor to ceiling windows that make the space feel very open.  The kids love playing at the toy table which has a few variety of blocks and cars to build with and vroom around.
• Puzzles and things educational – This branch also has a box of nicely organized puzzles that the kids enjoy playing with.  They have build a word puzzles, rhyming puzzles and those wrap it up type puzzles.  It is also where I discovered Pentaminoes, which I immediately began hunting down a Discovery Toys rep to purchase.  For my husband and me.
• CDs – My children love music, my oldest checks out Andre Bocelli CDs regularly.  There are also a lot of children’s CDs like VeggieTales, Backyardigans, Laurie Berkner, Raffi, etc.
• Movies – Admittedly, this is my kids’ favorite part of the library, though CDs are fastly gaining popularity.  Non-feature movies are allowed to be checked out for one week with one renewal allowed, this is really, really awesome in my book.
• Book clubs – My oldest (currently six) is now eligible for the library’s book club.  Each month there is a kid’s series selected, you read one book from the series (or have it read to you in our case), do a little activity and receive a button pin.  I haven’t been too excited for the series the past two months, but we will be participating in future months.  We will also be doing the summer reading program this year.  These are great (completely FREE) ways to encourage reading with your child.

There are also features to using the library that we haven’t even tried yet, like movie nights/days, reading to a dog (yes, seriously) and even fun things for adults like the usual book clubs and basic crocheting and knitting classes.  These are all FREE.  Most libraries have a calendar of events available, pick one up and try a few things.

Have a blessed weekend!