Smart Start of Pender County Revamps Early Childhood Lending Library to Better Serve Families and Educators
Lending libraries are invaluable community resources, offering families and educators access to high-quality educational tools and materials that might otherwise be out of reach. Smart Start of Pender County has long championed early learning, and its Executive Director, Connie Carr-Costin, shares how recent updates to the Pender County Early Childhood Lending Library are making a meaningful impact.
One of the most important programs and resources at Smart Start of Pender County is the Pender County Early Childhood Lending Library. We recently made several changes to our Lending Library to better suit the needs of our early education consumers and advocates. This process involved including suggestions and feedback from agency staff, parents, early educators, and the community. Our mission is to make the lending library an early education experience everyone can enjoy.
The revamped Lending Library at Smart Start of Pender County features new educational materials, sensory tools, and a playful, organized space designed to inspire learning for children and support for families and educators.
Our process involved enhancing our educational totes and materials and creating new areas of interest. The process included carefully inspecting items for damages, removing outdated materials, and replacing items. We added related book sets to many of the themed totes! With that, totes are now better suited for home and classroom use!
We are excited to introduce our new selection of materials for exceptional children. We continue to add to this section of the lending library, which currently contains a number of materials designed to meet a variety of needs. Some of the items available include noise-reducing headphones, a sensory bag, a scooting board, fine motor sorting games, and a few other things!
With the help of volunteers, we are well on our way to implementing a complete digital catalog of the items available in the lending library. The catalog will eventually contain pictures and brief descriptions of all the items available, and where you can locate them when you visit. One of our hopes is that this catalog makes planning a bit easier for teachers and alleviates some of the stress families may feel when searching for appropriate learning toys, games, or other materials for their children.
Inside the lending library, the rows of learning materials are now color-coded and numbered to make it easier for members to find what they need. Totes are also labeled with color-coding, to denote where they belong in the lending library. Eventually, this coding system will be reflected in the digital catalog. Some of our materials have been enhanced with toys or resources from PBS Kids or PBS Learning Media. Those items contain a PBS or PBS Kids sticker!
We did not forget about the little ones that visit! “Play really is the work of childhood”; therefore, our play area and art table are available with even more fun items and toys. Children can use their imagination and play while their parents browse. The hardest part now may be getting them to leave!
We hope our Lending Library is now much easier to navigate and is more enjoyable for everyone. We are always open to suggestions about the types of items patrons would like to see and access in the lending library or ways we can improve. We welcome the public to use our suggestion box in the front lobby for comments and suggestions, and we have created a response board so patrons can see our response. Family voice is important to our efforts! We want our community to know that we can all make Smart Start of Pender County a better resource for early educators and families.
