Early Learning Express Bookmobile

Climb Aboard the Early Learning Express!

Children delight when they see the green and purple bookmobile pull up. They climb the stairs and enter into a magical world where the walls are filled with books. They love to hear Sueño read them stories, lead them in finger plays, and explore hands-on activities together. Children and providers then get to pick out books to borrow until the next time!

The Early Learning Express (ELE) serves young children and early childhood professionals at family child care homes and center based programs year round. During the summer months we partner with Hunger Free Vermont to offer our services to children and their families at free summer meal sites. Visits include:

Story time program – Each group of children who board the bus are entertained by one of our librarian’s story times which often include finger puppets, shadow puppets, crankie boxes, felt board stories, guitar and ukulele songs, as well as the reading of at least two books.
After story time, all children get the opportunity to check out a book for their classroom.
Our bookmobile has resources for child care providers to use including professional journals and books, teaching materials, and curriculum resource kits.
During the summer months we partner with the local library to bring the summer reading challenge to the youth on our route. These children also check out books for home reading.

Our bookmobile often makes appearances at annual community events as well, including Touch a Truck, Strolling of the Heifers, and The River Valley Kids’ Fair.

MAKE YOUR OWN BOOKMOBILE

Print and cut out your very own Early Learning Express bookmobile!

CURRENT SCHEDULE

Click HERE for the Spring 2018 Schedule

CURRENT ACTIVITIES: Spring 2018

Our first spring visits on the Early Learning Express are a celebration of eggs! After reading April’s poem from Chicken Soup with Rice, of course, children hear Margret Wise Brown’s The Golden Egg Book. In this sweet story, a lonely bunny finds an egg and wonders what’s inside. “Maybe a little boy? Maybe another bunny? Maybe an elephant? Maybe a mouse?” Something’s in there for sure, he can hear it, but it won’t come out… or will it?

At the story’s conclusion, we go back and discuss the page where the bunny is picturing what could be inside that egg. Do the animals the bunny imagines actually hatch from eggs? What animal do hatch from eggs? After brainstorming some ideas, Sueño shows her crankie depicting the following poem.

Eggs

Lots of animals come from eggs.
Some with fins and some with legs.
Some that chatter and some that cheep.
Some that fly and some that creep.
Some that slither and some that run.
Some with feathers and some with none.
Animal eggs can be quite small,
Or just as big as a tennis ball,
The animals here, they’re quite a few,
Hatch from eggs and lay them, too.

As the pictures scroll by, children are excited to name the many animals they see that hatch from eggs: sharks, clown fish (Nemo!), turtles, spiders, ducks, flamingos, alligators, caterpillars, ants, snakes, ostriches, octopuses, ladybugs, hummingbirds, penguins, eagles, wasps, seahorses, starfish, a triceratops and more! That’s a lot of different animals!

Finally, we close our story time with A Bird is a Bird by Lizzie Rockwell. This book gets to the heart of what sets birds apart from other types of animals. After all, platypuses have beaks and hatch from eggs, flies have wings and hatch from

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