Another great MLA conference! The sessions were informative and the keynote speakers were dynamic (especially the keynote on Friday). My favorite session was about using STEM/STEAM activities with toddlers. I have been experimenting with some science activities during story time, so this session was exactly what I needed. I have been trying to incorporate STEM activities INTO story time, but the speaker actually talked about how she separates these activities out and does them as a separate program, which I thought was a great idea. She shared a lot of pictures and ideas for activities and even had time for some hands-on work.
The keynote speaker during Friday’s lunch was fantastic and talked about so many interesting (and awful) issues. Race, politics, search engines, and how they all come together.
The first session I went to on Thursday morning was called “Queering the Stacks” and the two presenters did a good job exploring the history of GLBT literature and talked about how it has evolved and some current trends we see in today’s publishing world. I also attended the PLD meeting, which was great because there was time for everyone to share current ideas of things they are doing in their libraries, so I got to hear a lot of new, fun ideas.
I attended a program about summer reading programs (an ever-eternal hot topic) and got some good ideas about new ways to expand the program. In Summer 2016, I “loosened” things up a bit and allowed kids to do things other than reading to achieve goals. In Summer 2017 I pulled back a little and went back to the more traditional route. But after listening to this session (and looking at their materials!) I think I’ll go back to the loose side — they had some fantastic ideas worth “borrowing!”
Overall, a great conference, as usual.
