As a former school librarian, I know first hand the importance of early literacy and making sure our babies have a variety of texts available to them at a young age. I have 4 yo and 1 yo boys and this week I have been working on organizing their spaces, including their books. I thought some of my friends might appreciate the what and whys of what I did book wise.

1. The 4 yo went through his board books and selected about 25 to give to his brother. He was so proud to help his brother build his library and this helped to reinforce that, when building a library, we have to make space occasionally for new books by finding new homes for ones we have outgrown. Anything beyond repair was trashed or will be used in arts and crafts.

2. I went through his picture books and removed a ton until I had just enough so that he could see the covers of all the books on the shelves. These are our bedtime and rest time reading books. Having the covers facing out allows him to pick. Removing the extra books from those wall shelves makes choosing less overwhelming.

I stored all the books we aren’t using right now in bins in his closet. I will rotate out the ones currently on the wall shelves next month and put some of the ones from the closet in their place. That allows us to not get bored with our selection and gives books that normally might be ignored, because they were behind a favorite, a chance to be in the spotlight.

3. I put a cube shelf in my 1 yo’s room that he could easily reach and put all the board books his brother had given him on there along with a couple toys and soft books. He has loved taking them off and on the shelves and looking through them on his own and with us. It is really important for children to be able to touch and chew on books at this stage, as well as being read to, because this is how they first become interested in interacting with books and leads to the development of concepts of print skills.

Pictured are:
- the wooden wall shelves I had my husband build when I was pregnant with our oldest.
- my oldest son’s little reading book shelf all with books that can be handled independently by him and his brother without being destroyed, so board books and the like. It gets a ton of use and is always filled with books going every which way. Also the side cushions are often missing because they make great shields when fighting off super villains.
-my youngest’s little book cubby
-my oldest reading to my youngest one of the books he gave him. Note, my oldest doesn’t actually read yet but he is retelling the story to his brother which is an awesome prereading skill.

Vapor billows gently from the humidifier, placed strategically out of reach of the one year old terrorizing the living room, and the smell of Vicks wafts from my four year old's chest.  Ah...It is beginning to look and smell a lot like cold and flu season around our house.  There is no doubt that the blissful time of year where someone's nose is always needing wiped is upon me.  Both the boys are sick with coughs and noses that are somehow  stuffy and runny at the same time. 

If 10 years of teaching elementary and middle school has taught me anything, it is that germs are the one thing that children share freely.  For the most part, it isn't a big deal.  Getting an occasional virus helps build their little immune systems.  We have vaccines to ward off or minimize most of the big scary viruses.  Thank you, science! However, as any parent that has dealt with a whiny snotty child sneezing directly into their ocular cavity will tell you, their germ sharing often goes beyond their little school friends.  

So what can we do to minimize the passing of germs to one another?  Well, the CDC and our mothers have been telling us for years that the best thing we can do is wash our hands thoroughly and frequently, cover our mouths and noses when we sneeze and cough, and stay away from each other when we know we are sick.  It is pretty basic stuff for adults, even though the pandemic has shown that some adults still don't comprehend it.  Children are new here and need to be taught these things though.  The best way I have found to teach kids these skills is a combo of modeling, reading books, and watching videos. 

Modeling is the easy part, it just involves consistently washing your own hands while reinforcing why it is important. For example, "Hey, buddy, we just came in from playing outside, time to get all those germies off our hands. Grab your stool and we can wash our hands together, but don't you dare steal my soap."  The "don't steal my soap" is a game I play with my 4 year old to get him to wash his hands longer.  I put soap on my hands and he "steals" it by grabbing some for himself.  Then I act all indignant and try to steal it back, all the while rubbing it on his hands.  He thinks it is hilarious and doesn't fight me with the typical, "I can do it myself," battle cry of independence when it is a game. 

As for the books and videos, I have put together a handy dandy list of resources below for you to use with your kids.  If you have any to add, please let me know.  The key to developing any healthy habit is repetition so read and watch your kid's favorites frequently and praise them each time they make the great choices to cover their mouth or remember to wash their hands.  Will any of this completely stop your kids from sharing germs with you and each other? Absolutely, not.  I share this in the hopes that it makes teaching our kids lifelong healthy habits easier and, fingers crossed, reduces the number of times you have to break out the vapor rub this Winter.