Glue, glitter, colorful feathers, and more. These are the things that decorate the Belmont Library’s Taube Room every Tuesday afternoon and evening.
Every week, the Belmont Library hosts Family Crafts, an event in which young elementary school age children get to express themselves through arts and crafts projects with their family members or by themselves.
“We have events for children almost every single day,” said Michelle Ng, the youth services librarian at the Belmont Library. “We have storytime almost daily, but things like Family Crafts usually happen once a week.”
The Belmont Library offers a wide variety of events, aimed at children, teens, and adults. These events can often be found in monthly calendar, which people can get at the library.
Belmont Library’s events for April 2018. Children’s events, teen events, adult events, and events for all ages are color coded differently.
“We used to go to storytimes when [the kids] were younger, and once they grew out of that, we started going to Family Crafts,” said Indra Husfeld, one of the parents at Family Crafts this past week. “Even though they couldn’t go to storytimes anymore, they still grew close to the library, and are used to coming here every week. Once they’re too old for Family Crafts, we will start going to other events made for older kids.”
Since the Belmont Library offers events for all ages, many of the young library visitors grow accustomed to visiting the library with their parents at least once a week, and events such as Family Crafts can be beneficial to both the children and their parents.
“Kids get to be creative and make friends with their peers,” said Vanesa Fernandez, one of the parents at the Family Crafts event. “Events like this also allows kids to be messier than they would be at home, which means that there’s less mess for parents to deal with.”
The ability to come to these weekly events allows kids to build a sense of community as they become more involved in it.
“The kids are beginning to have a positive association with the library, and their sense of community gets bigger as they continue to participate in library events,” Husfeld said. “They grow more accustomed to books, reading, and learning.”
In addition to that, events such as this one let kids be more creative in a new environment that schools don’t offer.
“Unlike schools, which are very structures, kids here get get some unstructured, creative time,” Ng said. “This is also mostly process oriented, and kids like to participate in this not because of the finished product, but because of how fun the process of making the project is.”
The Belmont Library’s Family Crafts are held every Tuesday from 3:30 o.m. to 5 p.m. in the Taube Room. More information about all the events can be found at the library’s social media page.
