BABIES and a storytime fail

Babies are always an appropriate storytime theme.  Kids who have baby siblings like to talk about them, and most kids like to pretend to be babies occasionally as well.

BOOKS:

We read Waiting for Baby by Harriet Ziefert and Baby Day by Susan Heyboer O’Keefe.  I tried to read Oh, Baby! by Sara Stein at Tuesday’s storytime, but I hadn’t read the whole thing before I started reading out loud.  BIG BIG BIG MISTAKE.  I had read the first couple of pages which have short clear text and nice bright pictures.  I missed the later pages, like the one with the breastfeeding mom (not too big of a deal), or the one about the baby’s “bowel movement” (YES THAT IS A DIRECT QUOTE) and all the dirty diapers.  UGH.  Thankfully, most of the kids who have been attending storytime lately have been toddlers and they didn’t notice that I skipped three pages and then abruptly stopped reading halfway through the book.  Jeez.  Classic case of needing to read the WHOLE book before choosing it for storytime.  Waiting for Baby is super cute.  I love the partial page to represent the days that Max is waiting for baby.  I love the illustrations in Baby Day but wish it had a little more solid of a story.

SONG:

We listened to “Rollin’ Baby” by Elizabeth Mitchell and You Are My Flower from Blue Clouds.  I was super disappointed that I couldn’t find a video of this so you could hear it, but she has other stuff available from Smithsonian’s Folkways.  I highly recommend her stuff.  It’s zen and mellow and pretty.  “Rollin’ Baby” was perfect for our theme and we got to use shakers.

CRAFT:

I will admit: I think this craft kind of sucks, but everyone seemed to like it.  We made spoon babies and put them to bed in a toliet paper roll crib with a blankie.

We used plain old plastic spoons, googly eyes, red hole punches for mouths, a pipe cleaner for arms and a toliet paper roll cut in half for the crib.  I had excess flannel from when I made my flannel board so I cut some of that up for the blankies.  It was really easy and we had all the materials on hand.  I was surprised that so many of the kids liked it.  I must just have much higher standards for my crafts than anyone else.

Apples

I got this theme from Erin at Falling Flannelboards.  She had listed apples as one of her favorite themes and I had never even thought of using apples as a theme.  I was all “Challenge Accepted,” in my brain.

BOOKS:

We read Letting Go by Janet Morgan Stoeke and “Johnny Appleseed” from Very Short Tall Tales to Read Together by Mary Ann Hoberman.

I love Janet Morgan Stoeke.  I love love love Minerva Louise.  Letting Go was perfect for our theme and it was short and it was funny and all of the preschoolers and toddlers loved it.  For “Johnny Appleseed,” I got out my tin pan hat:

And read the selection out loud with my dog puppet, Buster.  Buster asked me a question and I, playing Johnny Appleseed answered.  This was fun.  I should do more with puppets and storytelling, rather than just reading.

Another book that works well for this theme is Odd Dog by Claudia Boldt.  Our local headstart was celebrating "Apple Crunch Day" by eating lots of apples and they asked if I'd come read and sing and play with them.  Odd Dog was one of my choices for that group.

View fullsize

SONG:

Thanks again to Erin at Falling Flannelboards, I had my song for the week.  We sang a song about apples to the tune of Bingo!

I know a fruit that’s good to eat and
Apple is its name-o!
A-P-P-L-E! A-P-P-L-E! A-P-P-L-E! and Apple is its name-o!
(For each subsequent verse take out a letter and substitute “munch” or “crunch”)

Here are my letters:

And their reverse sides for when we take the letters out:

FINGERPLAYS:

We did two fingerplays at headstart around this theme, both of which I borrowed from Storytime Katie. 

Eat an apple                           (put your hand to your mouth like eating an apple)
Save the core                        (make a fist)
Plant the seeds                      (touch the ground)
And grow some more           (extend arms up like a tree)

5 apples in the bowl                                                     (show five fingers)
1 fell out and started to roll                                           (roll your hands)
It bumped the table and hit my feet                            (bend down and touch your toes)
How many apples left to eat?                                      (Repeat with descending numbers)

Both of these were fabulous for headstart because they really helped the kids get their wiggles out before we read another story.

CRAFT:

For our craft, we made prints using apples!  I will admit that I am not an Iron Chef and maybe an Iron Chef could have cut the apples a little more neatly so they made better stamps.  OH WELL.  We all had fun with paint anyway!  Here is an apple print that was gifted to me.

Letter P

We explore the letter P!  Pink perfect puppies parade around the letter P!

BOOKS:

We read Pete’s a Pizza by William Steig and Press Here by Herve Tuillet.

Both of these were fun.  I hadn’t read Pete’s a Pizza so it was super fun and delightful.  The kids LOVED Press Here.  I had them help me and pretend that they had a book in front of them too so they could press and shake and tilt without having everyone swarmed on top of me or having to take turns.

FINGERPLAY:

Our fingerplay went with Pete since that was the first book we read.  We played “Pizza Man,” borrowed from Storytime Katie.

Pat-a-cake, pat-a-cake, pizza man. (clap hands)
Make me a pizza as fast as you can. (shake finger)
Roll it, (rolling pin)
Toss it, (toss it in the air)
Sprinkle it with cheese (sprinkling motion)
Put it in the oven. (open oven and push in)
And bake it fast please!

SONG:

We listened to (and acted out) “Popcorn Calling Me” by Laurie Berkner.  The kids LOVED this song so much.  I had a storytime mom call me in the afternoon to ask what song we sang because the kids wanted to listen to it again!

CRAFT:

We made Pete the Cat headbands.  The preschoolers who knew Pete the Cat were SO excited and everyone else liked it too just because it was fun.  Here’s me in mine.  This was surprisingly easy to make, but it had a lot of little parts which were difficult for little hands.

Letter O

Ostensibly, we ostentatiously open the oracle of O!

BOOKS:

We read Do Not Open by Brinton Turkle and Overboard by Sarah Weeks.

Both of these books are wonderful for storytime.  I was a tiny bit worried that Do Not Openwould be a little too scary, but now I think it’s one of those books that helps kids get over scary stuff, like the book from my childhood How to Get Rid of Bad Dreams.

Overboard is short, cute, and fun.  I had almost every kid shouting “OVERBOARD!” with me as each item exited Baby Bunny’s hands.

FLANNELBOARD:  

I found this activity on Ian Falconer’s Olivia website.  It’s an “Olivia’s Things” activity.  I printed out all of Olivia’s things and colored them in.  I hid them around the storytime room and brought my little stuffed Olivia in.  Olivia and I had a talk and she told me that the last time she was here she had left some things in the room and asked if the kids could help find them.  After the storytime kids had found all of Olivia’s stuff, we talked about each of the items.  It was fun.

SONG:

We listened to Biscuits in the Oven by Raffi.  We did some actions to go along with it – we made our hands rise with the biscuits, we jumped and shouted, we stomped our feet, and looked both ways.  This song is super cute.

CRAFT:

I’ve been waiting for this craft for a LOOOOONG time.  We made letter O octopuses with cheerio suckers on their tentacles.  The moms were worried about the kids eating all of their craft supplies, but I didn’t have a problem with it.  I had a big box of Cheerios.

Letter N

It is necessary for newbie N to be notorious, never needing national recognition.

BOOKS: 

We read Nighttime Ninja by Barbara Dacosta and Too Much Noise by Ann McGovern.

I really really like both of these books.  Too Much Noise was particularly fun because I found a free animal noise soundboard, so every time a new animal came on the scene we played the noise.  The went MOOOOOO and the sheep went BAAAAA.  Great fun was had by all.

FINGERPLAY:

Two HUGE thumbs up to Storytime Katie for this one.  I’m super surprised I hadn’t used “Five Little Nails” before this storytime.  I’ll definitely use it again. The kids loved the BAM BAM BAM! part. (I know, big surprise.)

Five Little Nails

Five little nails, standing straight and steady
Here I come with my hammer ready!
Bam, bam, bam! That nail goes down.
Now there’s just four nails left to pound.
(count down)

SONG:

We shook our shakers and danced our little buns off to “The Bare Necessities” from The Jungle Book.

CRAFT:

We made little nests!  My mom suggested nests since she had one in her backyard.  I found this craft via Pinterest and it was perfect.

Letter L

We have languidly lounged through the alphabet until reaching the delightful letter L, long make it live in luxury.

BOOKS:

I did a little mid-week revision to the line-up this week, so I have featured all three.  We read Feathers for Lunch by Lois Ehlert, a chapter from Little Bear by Else Holmelund Minarik and The Grouchy Ladybug by Eric Carle.

I started out with Feathers for Lunch and Little Bear but wasn’t loving Little Bear after Tuesday’s storytime.  I grabbed my copy of The Grouchy Ladybug from home (because we don’t have it.  WUT?) and read that for Wednesday.  Really, though, The Grouchy Ladybug was getting a little long by the end too.  Sometimes when picking books we’re walking a thin line.  We want our storytime books to be interesting, engaging, and quality books, but we also don’t want to lose our audience halfway through a story.  I’ve found lately that Easy Reader books don’t lend themselves well to storytime for precisely the reasons they were created – they are often full of repetition and simple words (sometimes even rhyming words or words that have the same stems) because they are written to help children learn to read.  That was the problem with Little Bear.  Don’t get me wrong, I love Little Bear.  I think it’s frequently overlooked because it is “old,” but the story and characters are actually fun.  Who doesn’t want to make birthday soup or go to the moon?  I do.  Treasured classics are sometimes quite a bit longer than the picture books that are coming out or are popular now.  The Grouchy Ladybug follows the same formula as The Very Hungry Caterpillar but has more words, making it longer and a less enjoyable read aloud.  I’d love to hear what other storytime practitioners think about this and how they deal with lost attention or encourage engagement with longer or repetitive texts.

FLANNELBOARD:

I used Sarah’s template from Read Rabbit Read to make flannels for the book Lunch by Denise Fleming.  I have a little mouse finger puppet who ate ALL of the lunch.  Here’s a picture of my completed flannels.

SONG: 

I got out the shakers and we listened to “Wimoweh (The Lion Sleeps Tonight)” by Laurie Berkner.  We practiced shaking quietly and slowly and quickly and loudly before we listened to the song.

CRAFT:

We practiced lacing for our craft this week.  I cut out big construction paper letter Ls and punched holes in them and then cut out long yarn pieces.  We used half pieces of pipe cleaner (or chenille stem – whichever is your preferred craft term) and bent them in half to use as needles.  This was a great deal more difficult for the kids than I thought it would be.  Let’s face it, most of them wear velcro shoes and shoe tying is still a few years away.  I didn’t think about the intricacies involved in lacing.  You go in one hole and pull the string through and then go in another hole, but you have to reverse directions.  Down into one and then up into the other.  Maybe if I had explained a little better it would have gone more smoothly for our children.  Regardless, it was a great small motor skills exercise for everyone.

Letter K

Letter K was a surprisingly easy storytime to plan, but not an easy letter to alliterate.  So, without further ado…….THE LETTER K!

BOOKS:

We read Katie Loves the Kittens by John Himmelman and I Love You Blue Kangaroo by Emma Chichester Clark.

I Love You Blue Kangaroo wasn’t my favorite book for this letter, but it worked and we were able to talk about sharing and about why Blue Kangaroo wasn’t feeling good.  Katie Loves the Kittens though was adorable.  The pictures are fabulous (I looooooove those little kittens) and the story lends itself well to dialogic reading and textual predictions.

PUPPET PLAY:

I made a little kite puppet to do the action rhyme My Kite, borrowed from Miss Anna presents.

My Kite (can be sung to the tune of “The Farmer in the Dell” if you so desire)

My kite is up so high,
My kite is up so high,
Oh my, just watch it fly,
My kite is up so high

My kite is falling down,
My kite is falling down,
Oh no, it’s down so low,
My kite is falling down

The wind has caught my kite,
The wind has caught my kite,
What fun, I’m on the run,
The wind has caught my kite

I saw another post where the storytime lady had made little paper kites on popsicle sticks for all of the storytime participants, so they could follow along.  I would have loved to do this with this rhyme, but I ran out of time.

SONG:

I whipped out my ukulele for the song for this week.  I found some ukulele chords for the famous Australian nursery rhyme “Kookaburra” and away we went.  A few of the moms knew the words and could sing along with me, but for the most part it was a listening type of song.

CRAFT:

We made kangaroos with pocket joeys.  Really, this craft was TOO easy.  If I were to do this again, I would put the kangaroos on white paper and have the kids color them before we glued the pocket on.  Otherwise the kids glued on the pocket and were done.  Too easy.  But still cute.

Letter J

We jocularly joke about jumping through the alphabet.  Jamming J is up next!

BOOKS:

We read Gooey Jellyfish by Natalie Lunis and Five Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed by Eileen Christelow.

Both of these books were great.  Gooey Jellyfish is simple – like many nonfiction titles at this level it has text boxes and sidebars with extra information that extends one’s understanding.  I skip most of those when I read these books in storytime, but it’s nice to have that extra info.  I had some extra help with Five Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed since most preschoolers know that one.

FINGERPLAY:

We did “Peanut Butter and Jelly” which is a combo fingerplay and chant kind of.  I remember loving this in elementary school and most of the kids really had fun with it too.

Here’s the text I used:

First you take the peanuts and you dig ‘em, you dig ‘em, you dig ‘em, dig ‘em dig ‘em
then you crunch ‘em, you crunch ‘em, you crunch ‘em, crunch ‘em, crunch ‘em
then you spread ‘em, you spread ‘em, you spread ‘em, spread ‘em spread ‘em
Peanut, peanut butter and jelly
Peanut, peanut butter and jelly

Then you take the grapes and you pick ‘em, you pick ‘em, you pick ‘em, pick ‘em, pick ‘em
Then you squish ‘em, you squish ‘em, you squish ‘em, squish ‘em, squish ‘em
Then you spread ‘em, you spread ‘em, you spread ‘em, spread ‘em spread ‘em
Peanut, peanut butter and jelly
Peanut, peanut butter and jelly

Then you take the sandwich and you bite it, you bite it, you bite it, bite it, bite it
And you chew it, you chew it, you chew it, chew it, chew it
And you swallow it, you swallow it, you swallow swallow swallow it
MMMMMmmmmm mmmmmm mmmm mmmmm
MMMMMmmmmm mmmmmm mmmm mmmmm

SONG:

Our song for this week was “Jump Jump” by Joanie Leeds and the Nightlights.  It’s an awesome song.  Fun sound, fun actions – gets everybody up and moving around.

CRAFT:

I have been waiting to do this craft since I very first started this job.  I pinned this a million years ago (okay maybe just a year and a half, but still!) and haven’t had a chance to use it yet. Paper bag jellyfish, everybody!  We did some watercoloring on paperbags and then I cut the tentacles and we glued on the eyes.  These are the three that I made over the course of the week’s storytimes.

Letter I

Impatiently, I ignite my imagination for the letter I.

BOOKS:

We read I Love Bugs by Emma Dodd and From Cow to Ice Cream by Bertram T. Knight.

From Cow to Ice Cream was a little over the kids’ heads.  I wish we had had a better book about ice cream, but I just couldn’t find one.  I Love Bugs was fantastic though.  Before I started reading, I talked about insects and that most bugs are insects and insects starts with I.  Emma Dodd can do no wrong in my book.

FLANNELBOARD:

For my flannel, I borrowed Ice Cream Colors from Storytime Katie.

The rhyme goes:
We have ice cream, the best in town
Let us begin with chocolate brown.
Now let us scoop up some bubble-gum pink,
It is sweet and yummy, the best, some think.
Here is ice cream minty and green,
It is the creamiest I’ve ever seen.
Yellow ice cream is lemony and tart.
We like its taste from the very start.
Scoops of blueberry would make my day,
Look at all this ice cream, hip hip hooray!
Red ice cream is a strawberry delight,
All these scoops are a magnificent sight.
Vanilla white is a popular flavor.
It tastes very good to an ice-cream craver.
Purple ice cream really gives me a kick,
Good and yummy til the very last lick.
Ice cream, ice cream, what a cool sensation.
We love ice cream in any combination!

And here are my flannels:

As you can probably see, I forgot to make a pink scoop, so we just skipped that part.

SONG:

We listened to “I Love a Parade” sung by Bob Keeshan (AKA Captain Kangaroo).  I couldn’t find a video of the version I used, but I did find this one from the Lawrence Welk show.  I think it’s doubly appropriate since I have been compared many times to Lawrence Welk by one of our elderly city council members.

CRAFT:

We made iguanas out of the letter I.  Our color sheets also had iguanas on them and all of the boys in storytime just had a blast coloring the iguanas and telling me all about them, whether or not they were deadly or poisonous or why they were different colors.

Letter H

Letter H storytime is a hippy happy hoppy holiday!  The alphabet saga continues!

BOOKS:

There is a Bird on Your Head by Mo Willems and Hipps Go Berserk! by Sandra Boynton.  TWO OF MY FAVORITE AUTHORS!

There is a Bird On Your Head didn’t work as well for storytime as I thought it would.  It might be the repetition (good for easy readers, not so much for storytime) or the fact that it reads so fast or the fact that I don’t have good separate Elephant and Piggie voices yet.  Hippos Go Berserkwas fabulous though.  I love Sandra Boynton.

ACTION SONG:

We sang Head and Shoulders, Knees and Toes and touched all of our body parts.  We had to do this one twice – once at normal speed and once at super duper fast speed!

SONG:

We listened to one of my favorite childhood songs: “Hop Up My Ladies!” sung by Elizabeth Mitchell.  I couldn’t find a good video of this, but here’s a link to the Smithsonian Folkways sitewith a sample of it.  I highly highly highly recommend the Elizabeth Mitchell & You Are My Flower album called Blue Clouds.

CRAFT:

I was inspired by Storytime Katie’s Letter H craft so we also made houses out of the letter H and a triangle roof.  I used whatever extra bright colors I had laying around – green, fuschia and gold and we filled in with crayons.  Here’s my house from my second storytime!

Letter G

Gregariously, we gallop across the grass toward G, the glamorous gal galivanting through this week’s storytime.  I never get sick of alliteration.

BOOKS:

We read The Three Billy Goats Fluff by Rachael Mortimer and Look Out, Suzy Goose by Petr Horacek.

Both of these books were AWESOME.  I love the twist on the three billy goats gruff.  The goats worked to help the ogre, not trick him and everyone ended up happy. Look Out, Suzy Goose was super cute.  The kids helped me make the noises for each creature, especially Suzy.

FINGERPLAY:

I borrowed “The Little Black Gorilla” from Miss Anna Presents  It’s a cute rhyme and I made up mediocre actions for it.

A little black gorilla went up the banana tree  (swing arms like a gorilla)
When he reached the top, he was stung by a bee! (climb up tree and hold knee at the end)
Down came gorilla with a stinger in his knee (climb down tree)
And the little black gorilla cried,
“Mama, please help me!” (waa waa gesture)

It was really hard to actually differentiate between climbing up the tree and climbing down the tree, but oh well.  I’ll work on it (and maybe the rhyme too)

SONG:

I am a major sucker for all Laurie Berkner songs.  So I had to use “Here are My Glasses” for this storytime.  Here’s a cute video with the actions that we use in the song.

CRAFT:

For our craft this week, we made GUMBALL MACHINES! Most of the pieces were construction paper, except for the gumballs.  I found these rad shiny round color coding labels that were in bright gumbally colors at Office Max.  Perfect gumballs.  And stickers!  DOUBLE PLUS GOOD.  Everyone loves stickers.

Letter F

Letter F storytime is fascinatingly fantastic!

BOOKS:

We read Jump, Frog, Jump by Robert Kalan and Swim! Swim! by Lerch.

I was initially skeptical about Swim! Swim! but reading it at storytime changed my mind.  The kids liked the goofy fish and the things he didn’t know and the theme enabled us to talk about another F word: friendship.  Jump, Frog, Jump is good.  The kids quickly caught on to the pattern and helped me say, “Jump, frog, jump.”

FLANNELBOARD:

I had felt animals and a big barn that I’ve used for other flannelboard songs and stories, so I cobbled them together and we sang “The Animals on the Farm,” sung to the tune of “The Wheels on the Bus.”  Here’s a sample verse:

The cow on the farm goes, “Moo moo moo.  Moo moo moo.  Moo moo moo.”
The cow on the farm goes, “Moo moo moo,” all around the yard.

Substitute your various farm animals and the sounds they make and repeat ad nauseum.

SONG:

We listened to “Hurry Hurry Drive the Firetruck!” by the Old Town School of Folk Music.  I couldn’t find an exact copy on the web of this version, but here is Jbrary’s version which is just as awesome (but not quite as fast).

CRAFT:

We made fish out of the letter F.  

I think this craft is A-DOOOOOOOR-ABLE.  Cute and easy.  I have been lamenting the fact that we haven’t done any process art in a while though.  It will be coming soon.

Letter E

Every week I eagerly flex my alphabetic expertise for exciting storytime! This week: letter E.  Next week we take an alphabetic break to celebrate Valentine’s Day and Chinese New Year after that.

BOOKS:

We read Elmer by David McKee and The Ear Book by Al Perkins.

I really like Elmer. I hadn’t read it before (I know *GASP*), but it’s one I think I’ll have to add to my repetoire. It’s about difference, but it isn’t preachy or didactic.  It’s just refreshing.  The Ear Book was a good companion to this too.  It’s short and has lots of fun mouth sounds.  I did bring in my little rainstick to make the rain in the middle of the story.

FINGERPLAY:

I borrowed “Up the Hill” for our letter E fingerplay.

(Make one arm into a hill)
Here comes the turtle up the hill, creepy, creepy, creepy (crawl fingers up the arm)
Here comes the rabbit up the hill, boing, boing, boing (bounce fingers up the arm)
Here comes the snake up the hill, slither, slither, slither (slide fingers up the arm)
Here comes the elephant up the hill, thud, thud, thud (clap hand up the arm)
Here comes the elephant down the hill, boom, boom, boom CRASH (clap hand down the arm and clap hands for the crash)

We did this two times, switching arms for the second time.  I recently read an article about crossing the midline and how important it is for young children (brief summary: it is important for children to cross the imaginary middle line of their body with their arms and legs.  It helps the two hemispheres of the brain to communicate with each other and develop dominant hand and use both sides of our body simultaneously) and this is a good quick activity to help with this.  Children have to cross their body to make the animal climb up the hill and then completing the activity using opposite arms forces more midline crossing.

SONG:

It took me forever to find a song that would work for this.  I chose “Los Elefantes,” a Spanish folksong featured on Wiggleworms Love You, a great compilation by the Old Town School of Folk Music.  I really like this collection because it has a lot of what I think of as traditional children’s music.

This went okay.  I took out the shakers and we shook and shook and shook.  It went better the other day because I listened to it a million times to learn the words in English and Spanish.

CRAFT:

For our craft we made elephant ears!  And an elephant trunk.  Here I am sporting my awesome craft.

Yeah, the trunk was a little too wide for most of the kids.  They couldn’t quite see around it, but they really really liked playing with it and pretending to be elephants.  A total success in my book just because of that.

Letter D

Dutifully domineering the alphabet, we doggedly did letter D!  I feel like I really need to make big felt letters when we talk about these or print off some letters. I don’t know why on earth I haven’t yet.  We do talk about the letters when we start and talk about the sounds that each letter makes.

BOOKS: 

We read Dog’s Colorful Day by Emma Dodd and Dragons Love Tacos by Adam Rubin.

Dragons Love Tacos might have been a little long for my storytime crowd.  I think this would work superbly as a kindergarten or even early elementary read aloud.  Dog’s Colorful Day is brilliant though.  The kids helped both with the counting and with naming the colors.

ACTIVE PLAY:

I wasn’t quite sure what to call this.  It isn’t exactly a song or a fingerplay.  It’s “I’m a Mean Old Dinosaur” sung to the tune of “I’m a Little Teapot” WITH ACTIONS.

I’m a mean old dinosaur big and tall (gesture high and wide)
Here is my tail (wiggle butt)
Here is my claw (make mean claws with hands)
When I get all hungry (rub tummy)
I just growl (Roar!)
Look out kids, I’m on the prowl! (stalk around like a T-Rex)

We definitely had to do this one twice!  I borrowed this from Miss Anna presents.

SONG:

We danced to the Fruit Salad Salsa by Laurie Berkner!  I really like this song.  I made up a few actions to go with it, nothing major, just stuff that goes along with the lyrics and we danced.

CRAFT:

We made wee little ballerina puppets!  The dancers are people of color because I think they look nice and we don’t talk enough about diversity in storytime.  The kids (girls especially) loved dancing their little ballerinas all over the place.

Letter C

Cheerfully, I chose the character C for recounting comedic and cliffhanging chronicles.  Letter C was our theme for the week and we celebrated it to its fullest!

BOOKS: 

We read Mrs. Armitage, Queen of the Road by Quentin Blake and Clip-Clop by Nicola Smee.

Both of these went over well.  I personally like Mrs. Armitage better, but they both lend themselves well to dialogic reading.  They really are on opposite ends of what I use for storytime.  Mrs. Armitage, Queen of the Road is longer, has more difficult vocabulary and requires an ability to decode.  Clip-Clop is much simpler – the words are small and not really any new or specialized vocabulary, the pictures are simple and enhance the story rather than tell part of it.  It’s neat to see how the kids react to both choices. Good choices on my part, if I do say so myself.

FINGERPLAY:

I found “Drive, Drive, Drive” on Miss Anna presents and knew I HAD to use it.  It’s sung to the tune of “Row, Row, Row Your Boat.”

Drive, drive, drive your car
All around the town.
Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily,
Up the hills and down.

Turn, turn, turn the key,
Make the engine roar.
Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily,
Let’s go to the store.

Press, press, press the pedal,
Give the engine gas,
Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily,
Now we’re going fast!

Turn, turn, turn the wheel.
That is how we steer.
Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily,
Make a turn right here.

Push, push, push the brake,
Make the car slow down.
Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily,
Now we are in town!

There are some fun actions in here for kids to do with you – turn the wheel, pressing the pedal, turning the key.  Made me pretty joyful to sing it.  :D

SONG: 

What kind of letter C storytime would leave out “C is for Cookie?”  Not this one!

CRAFT:

We made a cat from the letter C!  I don’t love this one as much as I like the alligator A and the BumbleB, but it works.

I made my first two cat crafts upside down.  OH WELL.  We used cotton balls and clothespins to paint on our cat spots – fairly clean and easy to deal with at the end – toss the cotton ball and reuse the clothespin.

Letter B

B is for BAZINGA! This series is going well so far!

BOOKS:

We read Not a Box by Antoinette Portis and The Pigeon Needs a Bath by Mo Willems.

I was surprised that Not a Box went over WAY better than The Pigeon Needs a Bath.  Usually I rock through all of Mo Willems’ books and the kids are begging for more, but I think the spread with the tiny pigeon pictures just didn’t work for storytime.  In a one on one reading it would have been fine, but not so much for storytime.  Not a Box, though, AWESOME!

PUPPET PLAY:

I broke down and finally bought a Folkmanis puppet.  It’s the little bear hand puppet and I love it!  I told my boss that she should find someone to give us $500 so I could buy a bunch more.  She told me to find someone myself or write a grant (go figure).  Here’s the bear.

What a cutie.  We sang “Where is Bear” to the tune of “Where is Thumbkin” to go along with him.

Where is Bear?  Where is Bear?
Here I am! Here I am!
How are you today, sir?
Very tired, thank you.
Go to sleep!  Go to sleep!

When the song is over the first time, the kids can yell, “Wake up bear!” to wake him up and start singing again.  I borrowed this from Storytime Katie.

SONG:

I have decided to incorporate some kind of fingerplay and a song into this series of storytime.  That way I’m emphasizing singing as well as reading – two of the five skills of Every Child Ready to Read.  The song this week was “Singing in the Bathtub” by John Lithgow.  We whipped out our scarves and waved them around and then pretended they were washcloths and towels and washed our arms and legs and face.

CRAFT: 

In keeping with the letter crafts, we made bumblebees out of the letter B!

Super simple and lots of glue stick use which every toddler loves.  I don’t know if I’m going to stick with the letter as something craft theme for the whole series, but it worked for A and for B (and for C).

Letter A

New year, new storytime series! I decided that we should do an alphabet series for storytimes  So starting this week, every week (excepting some holidays and special events) we’ll cover a different letter of the alphabet.  I actually am really enjoying planning these storytime sessions because they’re a lot less restrictive than the themes.  I can choose books about ANYTHING that starts with A.  I think they’ll make for a fun 26 weeks!

BOOKS:

We read Hooray for Amanda and Her Alligator by Mo Willems and Airplanes by Byron Barton.

I didn’t read all of Amanda & Her Alligator! It was just too long.  We got through the price tag section and that was a good stopping point.  Airplanes (which is what my copy is called contrary to the picture) was a great read.   I’m always surprised how much kids like Byron Barton books because they’re so simple.  It doesn’t matter though because he has interesting subjects.

FINGERPLAY:

On Miss Anna Presents, I found a TON of alphabet storytime resources.  I took this fingerplay from the A section.

Way up high in the apple tree (stretch up)
Two little apples smiled at me (make two fists)
I shook the tree as hard as I could (shake tree)
Down came the apples (hands fall into lap)
Mmmm, they were good! (rub tummy)

SONG:

For the song portion of this storytime, we listened to Raffi’s version of Aikendrum.  Such a silly song.  I think the Headstart kids I visit would appreciate this song a little more than the toddlers did.

CRAFT:

For our craft, we made a big letter A into an alligator!  We glued little squares of green construction paper to the A outline, then added eyes and teeth.  Here’s mine.