Special Needs and Inclusive Library Services (SNAILS)

The Glenview Public Library hosted a wonderful Friendship Club event for special needs kids and typical kids seeking friendship (grades 3-8) and their peer volunteer buddies (Friendship Ambassadors grades 4-12). We invited musician and sound healer Preston Klik to conduct a session called Sound, Frequency and Sensory Fun . He brought his large gong, a variety of singing bowls and bells, crystal bowls, drums, rattles, and other instruments from around the world. After explaining and passing around his instruments, he conducted a sound meditation. The kids reclined on the floor and lights went off. A DVD with kaleidoscopic images played on the large screen while Preston took us on a meditative journey via sound and vibration. Everyone enjoyed this unique and relaxing experience, even a child with autism laid back and settled down for a time. Trying the instruments was neat, and we had sensory boards available for fidgety hands. This post was written by SNAILS member Silvia Kraft-Wa...

This post was written by Maria Papanastassiou, Early Literacy Services Supervisor at the Arlington Heights Memorial Library in Arlington Heights, IL . For more information about the Arlington Heights Memorial Library's services to families with children with disabilities, check out their Special Child webpage .  Our library was fortunate enough to host a very successful Fairy Tale play exhibit for over two months this past winter.  Crowds of children and their caregivers enjoyed playing with the interactive exhibit pieces from open to close daily .  Due to the high customer traffic and noise levels each day, we wanted to offer an alternative time for exhibit exploration for families with members with special needs.  Our library is open daily at 9 am with the exception of Sundays when we open at noon; w e chose a Sunday morning early opening time of 10:30 am to accommodate this program .     How did we get this program off th...