Eastern’s Ballenger Teachers Center invites children to a free storytime on Nov. 7 and Nov. 14.

The Ballenger Teacher Center is teaming up with Kappa Delta Pi and Sigma Rho Epsilon to allow children ages 3 to 7 to attend the event.

Children will have the opportunity to be involved in crafting, activities, and feature stories from 10 to 11 a.m. at Booth Library.

All of the children participating in storytime have to be accompanied by a parent or guardian while they are in the library.

The children will be moving around from different groups, but their parent or guardian needs to be in the room with them.

The activities are a part of a 3-set piece. The first program was on Halloween.

This program allowed the children to participate in Halloween-themed activities as well as meet the trombone player who was associated with the Doudna Fine Arts Center that day.

The Saturday program will have a “being thankful” theme and will involve turkey and pumpkin making as well as leaf rubbing.

The children will also discuss things they are thankful for as a precursor to the upcoming holiday season.

The members of Kappa Delta Pi, an honorary society of educators, will be there helping with the event.

These members have a concentration in elementary education and are well fit for the age group attending the event.

The Nov. 14 program will have a special education awareness theme where children will get hands on lessons for how to deal with a wheelchair.

The members of Sigma Rho Epsilon, future educators with special education concentrations, will be at the event teaching the children about special education.

Jeanne Goble, senior library specialist at Booth, has participated in putting these events together for the children.

“Last Saturday’s event was fantastic,” Goble said. “They had a lot of hands on with a trombone player.”

The event splits up the children into stations so they are all doing something different. By the end of the hour all the children will have participated in all of the stations.

Goble said at these events they like to get the children to participate in a very hands-on manner, so they are able to experience the fun as well as listen to the literature.

They are unsure how many children to expect; however, she said she has high hopes of having many participants.

Cheyenne Fitzgerald can be reached at 581-2812 or cmfitzgerald@eiu.edu