It’s in the Bag: Creating a Babysitting Toolkit for Teens

Traditionally, teens turn to babysitting to make some quick, cold hard cash.  There are a couple of things you can do to help teens with their babysitting career while you promote literacy and get teens in using your library.

The American Red Cross offers a 1 day babysitting class that teaches teens basic babysitting skills like diapering.  In addition, they do CPR certification.  There is a fee associated with the class, which either the library could pay per person or pass that cost onto your teens.  In the past I have paid $28.00 a head for the certified training course.  The benefit do doing the class is that the Red Cross does all the work and the teen leaves with a certificate in their hand.  The downside is that there is no real focus on early literacy, which I think libraries would want to include.

You can also use your library resources to help teens develop a basic babysitting toolkit that focuses on early literacy.

Sandra Boynton is one of my personal faves

• Put together mini first aid kits or craft kits (another great way to get rid of all those left over supplies).
• Have teens make a musical instrument to put in their bag; there are lots of great crafty ways to do the maraca.
• Talk about snacks and show them all your fun snack cook books.  Let them put one together for a treat at your program.
• Share your kids music collection and show them a couple of fun songs you do at story time.
• Don’t forget to share some sheets with your favorite finger plays and rhymes!  Those would make a great addition to the bag.
• Just for fun, have a baby doll diaper changing relay.  Or an raw egg relay to show how delicate you have to be while holding a baby; although I definitely suggest putting down tarps if you do that 🙂

Filed under: Crafts, Early Literacy, Programming, TPIB