The Youth Services team at Flathead County Library plans and implements early literacy programs for babies, toddlers, and preschoolers in Kalispell, Bigfork, and Columbia Falls. Our goal in every Storytime is to connect with young children and their caregivers through books, songs, and interactive activities that foster early literacy and social emotional skills.

Explore the Storytime Schedule

There’s always something fun for kids at the library, and summer is no exception! This month, we are highlighting some of our favorite activities from this past summer reading experience! Which ones do you want to see again? 

Our Favorite Activities from Summer Reading Experience:

Magnatile Roads Set

One of the newest additions to our collection of storytime toys is the magnattile roads set! Kids can use these magnetic pieces to create roads, parking lots, tunnels, bridges and more. We brought these out during our Opposites themed week this summer, and it was a huge hit! With our older students, we discussed magnets and how magnetic poles work, but it provided endless fun for even the youngest participants in the crowd.

Glow Room

For our Light themed week of the summer, we created a Glow room at each of our branches using special black lights and glow in the dark materials. Each room had a glow in the dark sensory tub, where kids could search for hiding objects and practice sorting based on size, shape, and color. At our Kalispell and Bigfork branches, we had enough space to create a glow in the dark obstacle course too. It’s not every day that you get to experience the library in the dark!  

 

       

       

       

         

                     

       

       

       

     

Pool Noodle Birds

During our Flight themed week, kids got creative with pool noodles and built birds to send flying through the wind tunnel! As they added feathers and googly eyes to the base, kids experimented to see if the weight affected how high the bird flew or in which direction it would go.

     

       

       

       

         

                     

       

       

       

     

Building with Mini-Bricks

During our Brick-by-Brick week, we explored all of the basics of building! In addition to our regular storytime building materials like wooden blocks and LEGO Duplos, we got some special mini-bricks and pretend mortar to give our kids the most realistic experience of building structures. We used graph paper to make design plans with our older participants and used tools to spread the mortar and bring the designs to life!