Hively Provider Book Club

Wednesday, 17 August 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 Oscar Robledo, one of Hively’s Family Support Specialists, read Lola Plants a Garden, Lola Planta un Jardín by Anna McQuinn in both English and Spanish!

The content of this book is as follows, “How does your garden grow? Book-loving Lola is inspired by a collection of garden poems that she reads with her mommy. She wants to plant her own garden of beautiful flowers, so she and Mommy go to the library to check out books about gardening.

They choose their flowers and buy their seeds. They dig and plant. And then they wait. Lola finds it hard to wait for her flowers to grow, but she spends the time creating her own flower book. Soon she has a garden full of sunflowers and invites all of her friends for cakes and punch and a story amongst the flowers.

Lola is a beloved character that continues to shine for young readers. Her curiosity and love of books is infectious. Parents and children love sharing Lola’s stories.

Rosalind Beardshaw’s beautiful illustrations highlight Lola’s close-knit family and how they use stories and books to interact with their world. Lola’s brightly colored and growing garden is the perfect surrounding for this bright little girl.”

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

• The book begins with Lola gaining new information about gardening from books at the library, Lola’s mom then helps her write down a list of all her favorite flowers. This is a great way to teach kids that reading about something they are interested in can then help them when they want to implement a new hobby into their life.
• The book shows that there are many different ways you can learn and implement your knowledge on any subject, in this case, gardening (e.g., reading a book, planting flowers, making a flower book).
• Lola’s family is shown helping her throughout the book. This is a great way to show kids that others can be a part of your interests.
• The book emphasizes how excited Lola is about her garden; she invites friends over and even makes cupcakes with her friends! Children can express how excited they are when starting a garden and share what they have learned with others!
• Gardens can create community and can be a great way to bring people together.
• Gardening shows the importance of being outdoors and doing projects with nature. Being outdoors can help our mental state.

Check out an English read aloud of the book below:

Check out a Spanish read aloud of the book below:

To learn more about how a seed becomes a plant, check the video below:

Here is a video on Planting a Seed:

The video below focuses on Vegetable Gardening: How to Plant a Vegetable Garden for Children Step by Step:

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!