Resources for Parents
PrincetonKIDS is a community website dedicated to providing Princeton area families with useful information including camps in the area, day trip ideas, events around town and more! Whether spending time on our website or simply signing up for our weekly events email, PrincetonKIDS will help you keep tabs on everything that our community has to offer and conveniently search and discover something that interests you and your family. PrincetonKIDS, keeping parents in the know, and kids on the go!
Reading Check Up Guide
From the "American Pediatric Association." Helping your children become better readers.
Reading Check Up Guide
Use Your Brain
Find fun activities, labs, and lesson plans for kids, teachers, and parents.
Brainy Kids Online
Whether you're a parent, guardian, grandparent, or an older sibling, you can help a child learn to love reading!
For more information on the RIF Program
Zero to Three
The Nation's Leading Resource on the First Years of Life. Includes such links as Tip of the Week, Parenting A to Z, and solutions to Parenting Dilemmas
For more information on the Zero to Three program
The Public Broadcasting Service's site with information and many recommendations for developmental as well as social endeavors.
For more information
Read Today
The Read Today site promotes early literacy and a love of reading that will continue as your child grows.
For more information on Read Today
New Jersey Rescue & Recovery K-9 Unit
Assists Emergency Response Teams in locating missing persons. We work closely with police, rescue squads, forestry/park service, and fire personnel by providing search dog teams. Search dogs are trained to air scent, which enables them to pick up a human scent in any given area. They will alert their handler when the missing person is found. Teams can be utilized for locating missing persons in wilderness settings, drowning, floods, building and bridge collapses, airplane and train wrecks, fire scenes, earthquakes, and crime scenes.
For more information
Child Care Resources
Parenting Booklists
Travel Resources
Reference Services
Have a question? Need to know? Internet search engines giving you too many hits but not enough answers? Ask a Librarian in the Youth Services Department. We are trained to work with young people and with materials published for them. We have books, magazines, video and audio tapes, sound recordings on CD and CD-ROMs as well as experience working with the Internet to find answers to questions young people ask or need to answer for homework. With homework, we have most likely been asked before and will know where to get the answers fast.
Suggestions for "Good Reads"
Need a good book to read or hear? The Youth Services Department takes pride in getting the right book in the right hands. By asking a few questions such as "What was the best book you've ever read?" or "If you didn't have to read a mystery for school, would you be reading mysteries?" or "What have you read recently that was really really good or not so good?" we can learn enough to recommend good reads to any child.Teens have a special advocate and advisor in Susan Conlon, our Young Adult Librarian. She really knows teen books.
Homework Helpers
Springboard is a first-come, first-served homework help program sponsored jointly by Princeton Public Library and the Princeton Regional Schools. Certified teachers and community volunteers are available to help with homework in the Youth Services Department from 3:30 to 6 p.m. every Monday through Thursday that the Princeton Regional Schools are in session.
School/Class Visits
Teachers and librarians are working toward the same goals. The Library encourages visits in both directions. Most kindergarten and nursery school classes in town visit the library at least once each academic year. Upper grades receive library orientations and learn research skills and Internet search techniques during class visits. Librarians regularly visit school classrooms as well. We can provide annotated subject booklists and "booktalk" the books. We facilitate the Best Books Club at John Witherspoon Middle School and Tiger Book Club at Princeton High School. Phone (609) 924-9529 ext. 240 to arrange visits at least a week in advance.
Books for Babies
Princeton Public Library and the Friends of Princeton Public Library, with the help of the Princeton Regional Board of Health, mail to the parents of each newborn resident of the Township or Borough an age-appropriate hard cover book. Included with the book are a coupon and an invitation to bring the coupon to the Library to receive a second book. When the parents arrive with the coupon, we encourage them to apply for library cards and to attend programs for themselves and with their children.
Summer Reading Club
Princeton Public Library encourages preschoolers, elementary school students and teens to participate in Summer Reading Clubs. Reading for work and for school is part of people's lives. Reading for pleasure is not always possible. Summer, with its more relaxed schedules, is the ideal time to read for the fun of it. Research shows that children who read (or are read to) do better in school than those who don't. Teachers have told us that children who read during the summer start school in the fall at the same reading level that they left in the spring, requiring less review time. Librarians are available whenever the library is open to help readers choose books they will enjoy.
Book a Trip
"Are We There Yet?" If you're a parent vacationing with children, then most likely you hear this more than a few times on your trip. We can help reduce the number with our Book a Trip service. Fill out a Book a Trip form a week before your trip. The forms request information about the travel destination and the ages of the vacationing children. Specify the type of materials you'd like and list some of the child's interests and favorite authors. Seven days later you can pick up the requested materials.
For a printable form click here
Big Tree Library
For six weeks every summer the members of the Princeton Public Library Youth Services Department visit the Princeton Regional Recreation Department’s summer Day Camp three times a week to read stories to the campers. Librarians also encourage children to borrow and read books from the deposit collection of high interest age-appropriate paperbacks that are left at the camp for use at any time.
Policies of the Youth Services Department
edited by AS 7/25/07 |
