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Talk With Me Toolkit

Talk With Me Toolkit

Come join Martin Library for the Talk With Me Toolkit. It’s a fun program just for 5 to 9 year olds and their caregivers! Register online here.

What is Talk With Me? 

The Talk With Me Toolkit is a new program that helps caregivers connect with their 5 to 9 year old child on a one-on-one basis. Join us for a free dinner from 5:30 to 6, then at 6pm the fun begins! You and your child will spend an exciting hour together. You’ll explore topics like science, animals, arts, and music over the course of 6 weekly sessions. 

This exploration happens through a mixture of technology, hands-on learning activities, getting up and moving around, and putting your heads together to learn. Each parent and child will get a chance to look at pictures and videos of real-world items. The topic changes each week, so it’s a great way to discover your child’s interests!

You and your child will use what you see to make some smart guesses. Then we’ll all listen to a story together that helps us get the real answers! It’s fun to see how close your guesses were.

You are guided through this process with a lot of fun and easy prompts from an instructor. It’s okay if you don’t know how to do this. Learning (for caregiver and child) is the point! Each week you’ll have the opportunity to take the story home with you, along with some extra activities to try in your own time.

Free dinner

If you can come early at 5:30pm, we will provide each caregiver and attending 5-9 year old with a tasty meal for free. You’ll be all fueled up to learn! You can register online here.

screencapture of the Smithsonian Institute's Talk With Me Toolkit webpage

An hour a week is worth a lot!

Talk With Me runs every Monday from September 25 to October 30, 2023.

  • If you come to 4 or more sessions and complete a quick weekly feedback form, you’ll get a $20 gift card at the last session.
  • Make it to the first week (September 25) and the last week (Oct 30) and take a quick survey each time, and you’ll get another $20 gift card!
  • Caregivers who come to our bonus focus group meeting on November 6 will get another $20 gift card, and help us improve the program for next time! Note: you and your child must have attended at least one of the regular sessions to provide this feedback. 

That’s up to $60 in all for spending some quality time at the library with your child. What could be better than that?

About the event

Talk With Me will take place from 5:30pm-7:00pm Mondays, September 25 to October 30 and is held in the Family Place in the Martin Library Children’s Room. A bonus focus group session will be held on November 6. 

Martin Library is at 159 East Market Street. Come around the corner on Queen Street to the Children’s Room entrance.  

Talk With Me is a Family Place™ Libraries program. It is made possible in part by the Institute of Museum and Library Science (IMLS).  It is engineered by the Smithsonian Office of Educational Technology and the Goodling Institute for Research in Family Literacy.

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