Library hosting 2 teddy bear picnics

Both events are free and are scheduled from 10:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m., but registration is required as space is limited.

Tracy Hilton, the children’s program coordinator at the Franklin library, said the song “The Teddy-Bear’s Picnic” will be playing at the start of the picnic, and in keeping with the line “If you go down in the woods today, you’d better go in disguise,” she said there will be a place where children can make their own teddy-bear “disguise” with bear ears to wear.

“We’ll read teddy-themed stories, songs, things like that. After that, there will be stations for kids to explore and build early literacy skills and work to strengthen hand grip,” she said.

Hilton said the hand-strengthening activities are included because according to some recent studies, young children now spend so much time on screens that some of them go to school lacking the hand strength to hold a pencil.

“We’ll have play-dough for that, and little chubby crayons to get them ready to write,” she said, adding that other activities will build visual discrimination and vocabulary.

Items identical or very similar to the items at the picnic stations will be included in the take-home literacy bag each child will receive at the end of the picnic, and Hilton noted the bags will also include information for parents about each activity.

Also available at the picnic will be information and an opportunity for parents to register for Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library, which sends children one free book a month until they turn five.

Hilton said though she has only been the Franklin children’s librarian for about a year, to her knowledge, this is the first time the library has held the event, but “we would love to make it annual.”

“Between the change of position and then two years of COVID shutdowns and changes, we’ve lost some of the continuity of programs,” she said. “It’s kind of a fresh start in a way, trying to maintain some of the things we’d done before, but also come up with new ideas.”

Hilton said she got the idea for a teddy bear picnic from her nieces and nephews, who went to teddy bear picnics as kids and “thought it was so much fun,” she said.

“When I was coming up with stuff for preschool, I thought we could go that way, since there are so many children’s books based around bears and talking about things like colors and rhyming,” she said.

The picnic is made possible by money from the Frank & Eleanor Meise Fund from the Venango Area Community Foundation, which is an affiliate of Bridge Builders Community Foundations, she said.

In case of rain, the Franklin picnic will be held inside the library, but the Cooperstown picnic will remain in the pavilion except in case of bad storms, in which case it will be rescheduled.

Those who wish to register can call the Franklin library at (814) 432-5062.