Library Pretend Play

One of our favorite places is our local library. We go frequently, and always leave with a huge bag of books. My four year old enjoys discussing themes of books he would like to check out with our librarians, and he also likes to hand each book to the librarians to be scanned at the circulation desk.

This got me thinking that he would enjoy some library pretend play. I created library cards for each of us. I left a blank line for the name on the card, so he could practice writing. He can write his own name, but he traced both my name and his brother’s name. I laminated ours to give it some extra durability. I also printed out a “Return Books Here” sign, which I taped to a storage container. For a little fine motor activity, my 4 year old helped me to roll tape balls to stick on the signs. 

To complete the setup, we used a little wagon as our shelving cart, brought in a child’s desk for the circulation desk, and post-it notes to use as due date stickers on the books at check out.

At the real library, my son gets upset if people put CD’s and DVD’s into the book return instead of the media return, so he immediately noticed that I hadn’t printed out a sign for a “Media Return”, and asked if we could add that to our activity. If you click here, I have included the library card, Return Books, and Return Media template that you can print out.

We took turns acting as patron, who returned books, asked questions about which new books to select, and chose books to take home, and the librarian, who checked in books, reshelved, helped select books, and check them out. When checking out the books, the librarian also noted the date the books are due back on a post-it, in the back of the book. We also enlisted my grandmother as another library patron.

Multiple shelves sprung up around the playroom.

We delegated the board books to my 10 month old, who paged through them, gave them a few nibbles, and used them as blocks. Not exactly exemplary library behavior!