Hively Provider Book Club

Wednesday, 13 July 2022

Hively offers regular workshops, classes, and training to help child care providers develop their skills as small business owners, child development experts, and compassionate caregivers.

This includes Hively’s Childcare Provider Book Club! Every Wednesday from 1:00-1:30pm, Hively has a guest reader who reads a children’s book to a group of child care providers and we discuss the book together. Providers discuss their thoughts, how they can implement the book into their centers, and what they can teach their children in connection with each book.

Hosted by our Training and Inclusion Coordinator, Hively’s Childcare Provider Book Club introduces a range of diverse topics including inclusion, emotions, representation, disability, meditation/mindfulness and more!

At the end of the month, Hively provides childcare providers with a copy of their favorite children’s book to help providers build their children’s library while also providing them with the tools to implement the book into their child care program.

This week Brenna, one of Hively’s Family Support Specialists, read Bodies Are Cool by Tyler Feder. “This picture book is a pure celebration of all the different human bodies that exist in the world. Highlighting the various skin tones, body shapes, and hair types is just the beginning in this truly inclusive book. With its joyful illustrations and encouraging refrain, it will instill body acceptance and confidence in the youngest of readers. ‘My body, your body, every different kind of body! All of them are good bodies! BODIES ARE COOL!’”

Key takeaways from our Provider Book Club discussion included the following:

• The book visually provides representation of different bodies (e.g., people with prosthetic limbs, people in wheelchairs, people with skin conditions, stretch marks, scars, surgical scars, etc…).
• “Bodies are cool!” is a statement that is seen on every page. This statement emphasizes how our characteristics can represent who we are and this indeed is why “bodies are cool!”
• The book doesn’t only focus on things we are born with (e.g., hair color) but talks about scars and the “marks-that-tell-a-story scars.” This is a great concept to instill in children-that our bodies don’t always stay the same but they change as we grow older and this is okay.
• Throughout the book we see different bodies in different locations. This is shows that all different people can all be together in different places.
• It’s important to discuss body representation because the media doesn’t always represent everyone. As kids grow up they may begin to view themselves through the lens of the media and compare themselves.
• Having kids share their unique characteristics (e.g., birth scars) allows them to have discussions around body representation and positive self image which can help them gain confidence and represent how they are unique.
• Explaining to kids that all our bodies are unique is important, but our bodies do not always represent the full scope of who we are. We have different personalities, and visually, our bodies do not always show who we are as people on the inside.

You can check out a read aloud of the book below:

If you are a childcare provider in the Tri-Valley (Pleasanton, Dublin, Livermore, Sunol) and would like to join Hively’s Provider Book Club, please contact hello@behively.org for further information.

About the Author:

Hello, my name is Karely! I am the Training and Inclusion Coordinator at Hively. One of my roles at Hively includes facilitating and sharing resources for Hively’s Provider Book Club.

In addition to the Provider Book Club, I help and support childcare providers in the Tri-Valley (Pleasanton, Dublin, Livermore, Sunol) with inclusion services for their child care programs.

If you are a childcare provider in the Tri-Valley and are interested in inclusion services for your childcare program and/or you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to reach out to hello@behively.org Thank you!