Snow!

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Hilariously enough, I scheduled this theme for last week AND we had a blizzard and had to cancel both days of storytime.  So we moved it to this week and it's bitterly cold, BUT we were still open and had people show up.  

BOOKS:

We read The Mitten by Jan Brett and Snow by Uri Shulevitz. 

Both of these were wonderful.  I just love love love The Mitten.  I saw someone on the Storytime Underground Facebook page who had put a masking tape outline of a big mitten on their storytime room carpet and as they progressed through the story, they had more kids going into the mitten outline until they were all crammed in like the animals in the book.  So I did that and at first, it was difficult to get kids to be brave enough to go in there, but once they did, they were giggling and having a blast.  Fabulous idea!  Snow is nice.  It was a good winding everyone down book.  It would be a nice bedtime story book.

FLANNELBOARD:

I borrowed "Five Little Snowflakes" from Storytime Katie.  It is so fun.  Here are my snowflakes:

And here is the rhyme to go with them:

One little snowflake with nothing to do.
Along came another and
Then there were two.

Two little snowflakes laughing with me.
Along came another and
Then there were three.

Three little snowflakes looking for some more.
Along came another and
Then there were four.

Four little snowflakes dancing a jive.
Along came another and
Then there were five.

Five little snowflakes having so much fun.
Out came the sun and
Then there were none!

At the last verse, I swept my arm over the flannelboard and scooped up all the snowflakes so they "disappeared."

SONG:

We shook our shakers along with "Winter Party" by Caspar Babypants.  He's not always my favorite baby musician, but I do like this song.

CRAFT:

The majority of kids I'm getting these days are toddlers - three and up - so I've tried really hard to tailor my crafts to fit the skills that those kids have AND need to develop.  So we made simple snowflakes using blue paper strips and painting white glitter dots on them using qtips.  All about those fine motor skills.  Here is one of mine!

Clothing

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I ditched the Thanksgiving theme this year because blegh holidays and we don't have any good Thanksgiving books anyway.  So after I wrestled with the idea of music and night time, I finally settled on clothing and what a storytime it was!

BOOKS:

We read Naked Mole Rat Gets Dressed by Mo Willems and Ella Sarah Gets Dressed by Margaret Chodos-Irvine.

Both of these are wonderful.  The kids liked Ella Sarah a little more I think, but the adults appreciated Willems' humor.  I liked that we could talk about different items of clothing with each story - and items of clothing we might not usually talk about like suits and top hats and all that. 

ACTION RHYME:

I borrowed this action rhyme from Storytime Katie.  The stomping, let me tell you what.  The stomping is the best.

Old shoes, new shoes
[insert child's name] is wearing [description] shoes.
1, 2, 3, 4, now I stomp them on the floor!

So I got to talk to most of the kids and ask them what kind of shoes they were wearing or how they would describe their shoes and we would chant our little rhyme again and stomp our feet. 

SONG:

We listened and danced and did all kinds of goofy stuff to "Bring Your Clothes" by Laurie Berkner.  I made sure to preface this one by saying we're going to PRETEND that we ARE our clothes.  That helped them understand the actions we did.

CRAFT:

I went super simple for this one.  We just matched up the different clothing with its shape and letters and then glued it down.  We've had a lot of toddlers at storytime lately so I've been trying to go simpler on the crafts for the kids and for the moms.  

My Imagination!

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I have been struggling a bit to come up with themes for storytime (I need to do more without themes, I realize). But imagination fell into my lap and I just rolled with it.  Kids get really excited about using their imagination.  When do grown-ups lose that?  We need more imagination in our lives.

BOOKS:

We read It's an Orange Aardvark! by Michael Hall and Not a Stick by Antoinette Portis.  I love love love these books so much.  It's an Orange Aardvark! is a great way to introduce parents to dialogic reading.  (Actually now that I think about it, both of them are.)  The carpenter ants repeat the color they see and then add a further descriptor.  "It's green!  Green like the grass!"  Just brilliant.  With Not a Stick, one could ask questions about the pictures.  If it isn't a stick, what is it in this picture?  What else do you see?  My storytime is skewing younger again so these were short, to the point, and were great for pre-preschoolers and toddlers.

ACTION SONG:

I couldn't think of a good song for imagination, so I thought we'd just PRETEND we were in an elevator and sing The Elevator Song.  (Seriously, this theme is pure gold, children's librarians, just whatever you want to do, you just have to PRETEND.)  If you don't know the Elevator Song, stop what you're doing immediately and watch this video.  The Elevator Song is one of my all time favorite songs to sing with kids.  And adults from time to time.

SONG:

Our dancing/singing song at the end of storytime this week was BOTH "Dinosaur Stomp" by Koo Koo Kangaroo and "Robot Dance" by the Pop-Ups.  On Tuesday, "Robot Dance" wasn't working on my tablet, so we did the "Dinosaur Stomp."  Here are both videos for your listening enjoyment.

CRAFT:

I knew I wanted to do some sort of process craft with this theme, and I found this on one of those 50 Process Crafts to do with Your Kid things on Pinterest and thought, hey, old library cards would be perfect for this!

We painted using plastic cards as our paint brushes.  It was interesting.  Most of the kids liked it after they got over the initial weirdness of no brushes.  I just love the way the art turned out.  It's bright and brilliant and the paint has such a different look and texture than it would if you used a regular paintbrush.

Unloved Animals

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I don't know about YOUR library staff, but my library staff can frequently be found squeeing over pictures of tiny cute animals on the internet.  We love us some tiny cute animals.  This made me think about OTHER animals.  What about the weird looking ones?  (We also just got Pink is for Blobfish by Jess Keating) I dug around and found enough stuff for an Unloved Animals storytime.

BOOKS:

We read Aaaarrgggh! Spider by Lydia Monks and Vulture View by April Pulley Sayre.

I really like Aaaarrgghh! Spider.  It's so fun.  The kids also LOVE the random yelling of AAAAHHHH!!!! SPIDER!  Vulture View really is the absolute perfect book for this theme.  It's about vultures (not generally everyone's favorite animal) and the text is beautiful and simple.  And I can't say enough good about Steve Jenkins' illustrations.  Actual Size is definitely one of my favorite nonfiction picture books.

FINGERPLAY:

I brought back the oldie, but goodie, "I'm Bringing Home a Baby Bumblebee."  The moms really got a kick out of this one because they knew the song.  It's not a proper song, but it's funny and silly and brings you back to the time when you thought all things should be fun and silly.

I'm bringing home a baby bumblebee
Won't my mommy be so proud of me?
I'm bringing home a baby bumblebee
OUCH! it stung me!

I'm squishing up my baby bumblebee
Won't my mommy be so proud of me?
I'm squishing up my baby bumblebee
EW! It's all over me!

I'm wiping off my baby bumblebee
Won't my mommy be so proud of me?
I'm wiping off my baby bumblebee
BYE-BYE baby bumblebee!

SONG:

We listened to Moose on the Loose by Ozomatli.  HOLY COW THIS SONG IS AWESOME!

CRAFT:

We made our own vultures!  This is a really terrible picture of my vulture - I took the board down before I could get a good one.  They were a nice easy craft.

Libraries 2016

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National Library Week has come and gone again.  We celebrated in storytime by reading books about...you guessed it....libraries!

BOOKS:

We read The Midnight Library by Kazuno Kohara and Book! Book! Book! by Deborah Bruss, illustrated by Tiphanie Beeke.

These are both so awesome.  I read Book! Book! Book! first and the kids all had a great time helping me make the animal noises.  The Midnight Library is sweet and adorable and a nice quieting down book.

PUPPET PLAY:

I made some animal finger puppets to go along with the story I Brought My Frog to the Library by Eric A. Kimmel.  So I told the story and used the puppets to show the crazy stuff all of the animals do in the library.  It really is one of the best books to use for a puppet play.

SONG:

We listened to a new one for me: "Library Song" by Tom Chapin.  

I like the slow start, then the peppy beat after.  We kind of stretched and woke up and then marched in place (I've been kind of obsessed with marching in place lately, not sure why).

CRAFT:

For our craft we made BOOKWORMS!  How cute are these??!!  I just got back from PLA when we did this and so my brain was a working.  I decided that we'd glue the pom-poms on and then do an action song that I "learned" at a PLA session.  It worked like a charm.

The song was "5 Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed" (which obviously I knew, but not with these awesome actions.  We did the sign for monkey, jumped up and down and then fell down like the monkey, shouted for the doctor, and more.  The session was on incorporating more physical activity into storytime and the presenters had compiled a bunch of different physical activity ideas that tie into books on their website Read and Reach.  I definitely recommend that you check that out!  

Pajama Time!

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When I was in high school, one of the most popular kids shows on tv was Bananas in Pajamas.  The theme song was annoying and one of the worst earworms I've ever had.  

Here it is for your listening enjoyment.  I don't recommend it as a good storytime song, but you just have to experience if you haven't.  We did pajamas for storytime and encouraged pajama wearing (even though few kids took us up on that).

BOOKS:

We read Llama Llama Red Pajama by Anna Dewdney and Beep Beep Go to Sleep by Todd Tarpley, illustrated by John Rocco.

Both of these books are great, but I think that the kids like Llama Llama more than Beep Beep.  The parents, on the other hand, really liked Beep Beep.  I think next time that I do a pajama storytime I think I'll pick more sleep related books.  There really aren't that many books out there about pajamas. 

FINGERPLAY:

We did an adapted version of "Ten in the Bed" for our fingerplay this week: Five in the Bed.  My mom used to sing this one to me and my brother when we were little.

Ten in the bed (show ten fingers)
And the little one said
"Roll over!  Roll over!" (roll your hands)
So they all rolled over (roll you hands)
And one fell out (show one finger)

[Repeat with nine and so on]

SONG:

I knew in the back of my head that Sandra Boynton had songs to go along with her books, but I couldn't remember which ones until I stumbled across a recording of Pajama Time!  We got the shakers out and shook shook shook to this one!

CRAFT:

We decorated Llama Llama's red pajamas for him!  This was one of those happy process crafts that I love.  I had some leftover construction paper pieces that I put out with (DUH DUH DUHHHHHHHHHHH) safety scissors.  Kids cut the bigger pieces into littler pieces and glued them on the pajamas.  It was a good scissor activity and I talked about why using the scissor early is so important.  Here are my red pajamas.

Messy

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It's kind of spring here in Northern Minnesota.  I say kind of because it's only the beginning of March, and, while most of the snow has melted, there's no guarantee that it won't blizzard again before May.  So since everything's melting and snow is getting dirtier (we call it snirt here) and mud is making it's way out, it's the perfect time to do a messy storytime.

BOOKS:

We read Duck in the Truck by Jez Alborough and Harry the Dirty Dog by Gene Zion, illustrated by Margaret Bloy Graham.

Full disclosure: I love Duck in the Truck.  I'll use any excuse I can get to read it.  So using Duck in the Truck, while not directly about messes, was a no brainer for me for this storytime.  I remember reading Harry the Dirty as a youth and thought that would be great for storytime.  It's a little long, but not too bad and the kids liked the story.  

FLANNELBOARD:

I used Scott's Dini Dinosaur flannel idea to make my own set of Dini Dinosaur flannels.  

We received our copy of DIni Dinosaur the day after my last storytime.  Next year, it'll be all Dini for messy storytime, but for this year, the flannels worked really well.

SONG: 

We jammed out to "Messes" by the Funky Mamas.  This was super fun.  I LOVE the violin in this song.  This is a great shaker song too.

CRAFT:

We did some non-messy fingerpainting.  I don't want to make mortal enemies of any of my storytime moms, so I tend to avoid the messiest of crafts or at least give them lots of warning.  We've done fingerpainting in bags before, but this gave the kids a little more freedom to create.  I got the paints out and gave each kid a piece of paper on a larger piece of tin foil.  They squeezed whatever paint on in whatever amount they wanted and then we covered it all up with saran wrap and they moved the paint around on the page to make cool designs.  When they were done painting, it was easy to just fold the tinfoil around the edges to make a little frame and it kept everything neat and tidy.


Hats!

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I have a surprisingly huge hat collection - old hats, new hats, costume hats.  I remember collecting hats, but I never really ever wore hats.  I still don't usually wear hats, but they're perfect for a storytime.

BOOKS: 

We read I Want My Hat Back by Jon Klassen and A Hat for Minerva Louise by Janet Morgan Stoeke.

These are two tried-and-true storytime classics.  I Want My Hat Back is fun for adults and children - the kids get to figure out the mystery of who had Bear's hat, but the adults really get the punchline at the end with Rabbit.  A Hat for Minerva Louise is so so so cute and interactive, as the kids tell Minerva (or me) what Minerva is ACTUALLY wearing.

FLANNELBOARD:

I used a version of Miss Mary Liberry's Kitty Cat, Kitty Cat, Are You In the Blue Hat?  I made a bunch of hats of felt and an itty bitty kitty.  Before we started the game, I put the kitty up and covered him with one of the hats and then put the rest of the hats on.  We talked about the hats and what they were used for or who would wear them.  Then the guessing began!

Everyone had a blast.  We played twice and I managed to keep them from guessing the kitty hat for a while.

SONG:

We listened to "The Hat Song" by David on Sesame Street.

CRAFT:

We made our own newspaper hats!  Here I am wearing mine.  We used a piece of newspaper (one sheet - not a double) and folded it into a hat. We did need to do a little taping to make our hats more durable.

Ice and Skating

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This is a little bit of a crossover theme - we did talk about skating, but we also talked about ice, hockey, curling, and zambonis.  If you are unfamiliar with zambonis, I'm going to assume you grew up somewhere where hockey isn't a BIG DEAL.  Here's a picture of a zamboni for your reference.

Yes, the zamboni is the machine that cleans and levels the ice in an ice rink.  Kate and Jim McMullan, bless their hearts, wrote a whole book about the zamboni.

BOOKS:

We read I'm Cool by Kate and Jim McMullan and Bunnies on Ice by Johanna Wright.

These were both great books.  There are a few times in Bunnies on Ice where pausing to talk about the pictures made continuing with the text awkward, but it wasn't anything a little improvisation couldn't fix.  I'm Cool is a great book for me.  There are some voices.  There is a lot to talk about in the pictures, and it's all about something that's near and dear to my heart: The Zamboni.

ACTION SONG:

I found a winter song that's sung to the tune of "If You're Happy and You Know It" and tweaked the lyrics a bit to match my theme.

It's winter and it's time to lace our skates
It's winter and it's time to lace our skates
It's winter
That's the season!
We don't need a better erason
It's winter and it's time to lace our skates

Verse 2: It's winter and it's time to glide on ice.

Verse 3: It's winter and it's time to skate and leap!

SONG:

What kind of Ice and Skating storytime would this be if we didn't sing the zamboni song?  Here's "I Wanna Drive the Zamboni" by Martin Zellar.  This one is a little more laid back than the one we listened to in storytime.  We used our shakers with this one.  

CRAFT:

We made our own ice skates!  

These are something I found on Pinterest.  You put the template on half of a sheet of paper and then fold it and cut out the template as two, connected by the little white strips on the bottom.  You open them up, put the straws in, and glue the whole thing shut and color it.  They were lots of fun to make and the kids were zooming around the storytime room tables with their skates.

Rascally Rabbits!

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Hello, blog.  It's me.  :D

It's been a while, but I had a fabulous storytime this week and had to share.  Expect more regular posts from me as I get back into the groove.  Our theme this week was rabbits (because we don't have very many good Valentine's Day books and I don't really like Valentine's Day all that much anyway).  

BOOKS:

We read Big Mean Mike by Michelle Knudsen and illustrated by Scott Magoon and The Black Rabbit by Philippa Leathers.

Both of these were wonderful.  Big Mean Mike gets a tiny bit long, but my storytime tots really liked trying to find where the bunnies would show up next.  The Black Rabbit is great for younger kids - the older ones pointed out right away that the black rabbit was Rabbit's shadow, but it was nice to talk about shadows with the younger ones post story.  

FINGERPLAY:

I do not recommend planning to do a fingerplay that you knew when you were a kid and then not practice and so consequently you get to storytime and you can't remember what happens halfway through.  Yeah.  Don't do that.  Do practice your fingerplays ahead of time.

We did "Little Bunny Foo Foo," which goes like this:

Little Bunny Foo Foo hopping through the forest
Scooping up the field mice and bopping them on the head
Down came the good fairy and she said,
"Little Bunny Foo Foo, I don't want to see you
Scooping up the field mice and bopping them on the head.
I'll give you three chances and if you don't listen,
I'll turn you into a goon!"

[Repeat three more times and then LBFF gets turned into a goon]

And the moral of the story is: Hare today, goon tomorrow.

SONG:

We listened and danced to the "Bunny Hop" by the Wiggles.

CRAFT:

Our craft was Valentine's related, BUT IT WAS STILL A RABBIT.  We made a little bunny valentine, because, you know, somebunny loves you.  :D

Christmas

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We are still doing Christmas storytime here in my library.  I know it's controversial and it's not necessarily something that I will continue, but for now, it's here.  We do focus on the primarily secular aspects of Christmas - Santa, the Christmas tree, and baking.

BOOKS:

We read Samurai Santa by Rubin Pingk and When Cows Come Home for Christmas by Dori Chaconas, illustrated by Lynne Chapman.

Both of these stories were great in their own way.  I love Samurai Santa.  It's about playing and planning and having fun, but also thinking about the consequences of actions.  Pingk's illustrations are TO DIE FOR.  I told all of my storytime kids that this book combined two of our favorite things - Santa and NINJAS.  They loved it.  When the Cows Come Home for Christmas has a nice lyrical rhyme to it and a cute story.  It was a little long for my little wigglers, but most were able to sit through it well.  

FLANNELBOARD:

I borrowed this idea from a Flannel Friday post from Recipes for Reading.  I am sad to say that I haven't actually read Santa's New Suit by Laura Rader, but I LOVED making these flannels.

I explained that Santa was sick of all of his old suits, not to mention that some of theme were dirty and torn.  He went to a new story, The Snappy Dresser, and brought back a different suit.  When he tried it on for Mrs. Claus and the elves and reindeer, they disliked it.  I turned my big flannel board around when "dressing" Santa and then flipped it back with his new outfit.  The kids really liked it, and one storytime mom commented that I could do this every year and just make new outfits for Santa.  

SONG:

We listened to "Jingle Bell Rock" by Bobby Helms.  I have enough bells for everyone to have a set so we danced and jingled away to this classic.

CRAFT:

We made gingerbread men!  I wasn't super sold on using glitter glue and sequins since my audience has been skewing younger, but it turned out to be a big hit.  Caregivers were pretty good about reigning their kids in when everything started getting messy and sticky, so no harm, no foul.  Here's one of mine.

Construction!

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We finished the alphabet in August, and I'm feeling a little lost as we head back into randomly chosen theme storytimes.  I'm sticking with the my favorites and the greatest themes to get me back in the groove, hence construction.

BOOKS:

We read Goodnight, Goodnight Construction Site by Sherri Duskey Rinker and Tom Lichtenheld and Machines at Work by Byron Barton.

These were both really great for storytime.  There wasn't a whole lot of diversity in the stories, but the boys liked showing off that they knew the equipment names, and it was a good opportunity for me to talk about vocabulary and ways to build it.  I really really really love Byron Barton's work.  The clean lines, the detailed, yet simple illustrations, combined with straightforward prose.  Ah.  Just perfect.

FINGERPLAY:

For our fingerplay today, we recycled 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 are just four nails to pound.

With this, you pretend that your fingers are the nail and pound them down one at a time with your invisible hammer.  Kids REALLY like the BAM BAM BAM part.  

SONG:

What kind of construction storytime would this be if we didn't sing the Bob the Builder Theme Song??

CRAFT:

For our craft we made dumping dump trucks!  When I started this job I hadn't thought of brass fasteners since elementary school.  Brass fasteners are like my best friend.  We had our two truck pieces and we fastened them together and VOILA! a dump truck.  

Letter R

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Rapturously, we reached the rotund letter R!

BOOKS:

We read Round Robin by Jack Kent and The Magic Rabbit by Annette LeBlanc Cate.

I LOVE Round Robin.  I did have a moment of trepidation when I was thinking about how this could be thought of in relation to body image, but I still went with it.  The Magic Rabbit requires a little more work for a storytime audience, but I think it's worth it.  The pictures tell the latter half of the story and it's important to point out certain things in the illustrations that will help the kids figure out what happens later.

FLANNELBOARD:

I borrowed the Duck! Rabbit! flannelboard from Lisa Shaia at Thrive After Three.  Here are all of the pieces I made for it.  You'll have to read the book to see how they all go together.

SONG:

This is one of my new favorite kids songs: Little Red Wagon by Raffi!

It is ridiculously catchy and infectious and I found myself wandering through the library or cleaning at home singing it.  I believe that after you listen to it you too will have it stuck in your head for eternity.

CRAFT:

We made a rainbow out of the letter R.  This is probably one of the weirdest, shoved together, make it work crafts I have ever made.  The kids liked it and it was easy to do, but it's a little contrived.

Letter Q

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Letter Q in the HOUSE!

BOOKS: 

We read Mooshka: A Quilt Story by Julie Paschkis and The Very Quiet Cricket by Eric Carle.

I enjoyed Mooshka; it has such a nice story and the illustrations are gorgeous.  Growing up in North Dakota, it's so common to have Grandma's quilt at home or being happy to use Grandma's quilt while you're at Grandma's.  That might be why this appealed to me.  The Very Quiet Cricket is nice, but it's not my favorite of Carle's stories.  We were able to talk about time while reading through this book and talked about how the day changed in the illustrations as we read through.

FINGERPLAY:

We did "Six Little Ducks" which is both a fingerplay and a song - double whammie!

Six little ducks that I once knew
Fat ones, skinny ones, tall ones too,
But the one little duck with the feather on his back
He led the others with a "Quack, quack, quack!"
"Quack, quack, quack! Quack, quack, quack!"
He led the others with a "Quack, quack quack!"

Storytime Katie has another verse that I didn't know:

Down to the water they did go
Wibble wobble, wibble wobble to and fro
Home from the water they did come
Wibble wobble, wibble wobble, ho-hum-hum!

SONG:

We listened to "The Question Song" from Sesame Street.  

This is a fun song to listen to (and watch for that matter), but it wasn't as powerful in storytime as it could have been.  If I had used my brain a little better, I would have paused it after the narrator asked her question and I could poll the audience.

CRAFT:

Our craft was a quilted Q.  We had made quilts before using little squares of construction paper for our blankies storytime and I had some leftover.  I printed off Uppercase Qs on construction paper and we glued in our squares.  Some Qs were all one color and some were a plethora of colors.  Here's mine.

Superheroes

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Of course, since the Summer Reading Program CSLP theme is Every Hero Has a Story, we had to do a superhero storytime.  Surprisingly this was also harder to plan than I thought.  Luckily the online storytime community had my back and had unearthed some gems.

BOOKS:

We read Baron von Baddie and the Ice Ray Incident by George McClements and SuperTruck by Stephen Savage.

I cannot say enough good things about Baron von Baddie.  He's evil and devious and cute as hell.  Also there are some really good adult jokes mixed in with the kid ones.  Before we read SuperTruck we talked about secret identities and named a few popular superhero secret identities.  SuperTruck is cute, just short.  Not a whole lot of content there.

FLANNELBOARD:

I used "Five Superheroes" from Jbrary, but added in flannelboard superheroes.

The rhyme goes as follows:

Five superheroes ready to fly,
Here comes a villain.  Stop that guy!
This superhero can save the day.
Off he/she flies - up, up and away!

I spent some of my hard earned moolah to purchase Cloud Street Lab's superhero creator kits which are clip art kits that allow you to create different superheroes.  I created them, printed them off, and laminated them.  The guy in black with the black mask is the villain and the other superheroes flew off of the flannelboard to get him.

SONG:

We rocked out to "Superhero Song" by Pancake Manor.  You should totally watch the video.  It's adorable.  We did a few actions along with the song.

CRAFT:

Our craft for this week was creating our own superheroes.  I did this craft in a summer reading program workshop put on by the North Dakota State Library, and I believe the workshop leader got it from Frugal Fun For Boys.  It's a superhero made from pipecleaners, cut up pieces of straw, pony beads, wooden beads, and a construction paper cape.  Here's my superhero.

I was a little worried that it would be too difficult for little toddler hands, but everyone seemed to do okay with it.  A storytime success!

A Puppy Craft and Fingerpuppets

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I HAD to make these finger puppets from Widia’s Etsy Shop.  Storytime Katie featured them on her blog a few years ago and I stumbled across them while looking for puppy songs and fingerplays.

I am super pumped about how awesomely they turned out.  The pattern was very easy to follow and produced some epically great finger puppets.  I will definitely be back to the Floral Blossom shop when I need some new finger puppets.

The craft we did to go along with this was a puppy hand puppet out of paper plates.  I’ve been making our crafts a little more interactive if I can.  I want kids to get some use out of them besides just hanging them on the fridge.

Here’s my puppy.  I believe his name is Alex – all the kids in Wednesday storytime were naming their puppies.  My favorite was a little boy who named his Prego.  :D

On Guest Stars in Storytime

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Last week, I had a guest star at storytime.  She had recently self-published a very cute children’s book and wanted to read it and sell some copies.  She wanted to read at storytime and I agreed to do it, though, I am still not sure how I feel about guest stars.

I have had volunteers come in from time to time to do storytime when I’m not around (like next week, one of the days we have storytme, I’ll be at the Minnesota Library Association conference), but having guest stars is a different matter.  When I have a volunteer do storytime. usually that volunteer has been at one of my storytimes or has experience with small children.  And I’m NOT THERE.  Having a guest star means that not only am I there, but I’m endorsing that person or presenting them.  I’m more than happy to talk up a local author’s book or even bring it in to show it off, but I haven’t had the best experiences with having someone read their own work AT STORYTIME.  Reading out loud to children, especially toddlers, is a skill.  And not one that everyone has.  Not only that but my storytime has a routine – we talk a little about the topic of the day, we sing our introductory song, we read our books, and either sing another song or do a flannelboard, and then have craft time.  Usually our guest stars don’t know the routine, or aren’t interested and throwing out the routine throws off the kids.

I do love to see people excited about kids and books and reading, I think I will be gracefully declining any guest star requests in the future.  It feels a little selfish, but right now it’s what’s working for the kids.  I will keep thinking about this and try to integrate guests in different ways.

Yoga to move it move it

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Full disclosure: this is probably the worst storytime I have ever had.  It is due to a million and a half reasons which I will disclose, but, that being said, I did learn a fair amount about storytiming and about toddlers vs. preschoolers.

I was mega excited to try this storytime theme.  I’ve toyed with the idea of doing a series of yoga storytimes a great deal and this was a chance to give it a try.

BOOKS:

We read From Head to Toe by Eric Carle and Move! by Steve Jenkins and Robin Page.

The books were a problem.  These are basically the same book.  If you’ve ever read them, you can tell – both books deal with animals moving in some way, shape, or form.  Carle’s introduces one animal movement and asks children if they can copy it and Jenkins’ and Page’s talks about the way animals move.  Silly me, I read the books and didn’t think much about how they would go together or how they would sound or feel read one right after the other.  Again, like I mentioned in my Thanksgiving post (and others), my storytime children enjoy traditionally narrative texts.  I switch it up periodically and give them something wild, but two non-traditionally plotted books don’t work for my storytime.  The kids were restless by the end of Move!  Super restless even with a movement activity between books.

ACTIVITY:

To start out with, we did a little warm-up.  We did some deep breathing, reaching up high, and touching our toes.  After From Head to Toe, we did a sun salutation.  I modeled each part of the pose and encouraged the kids to try with me and then we did the whole sequence twice along with “Dance for the Sun” by Kira Willey off her CD Dance for the Sun.  This worked out pretty well.  I didn’t have mats or towels for the kids and I think this threw them off a little.  Some of them wanted to be on my mat or next to me or they were in each other’s space a bit, but no one got hurt.  The song, which is so damn catchy, is great, BUT it has two long-ish sections at the beginning at the end where there’s just singing and no specific actions to go along with it.  I should have practiced more, we probably could have gotten at least four sun salutations in during the whole thing, but I didn’t.  So we ended up doing some aimless dancing at the beginning and end.

Here is my yoga mat.  I like to show it off because I think it’s sooooo pretty.

After we finished our sun salutations, we read Move! which did not capture anyone’s attention.  We did two balance poses after – Star and Shifting Star and tree pose.  I attempted to do a little shavasana with them after that, but NO WAY JOSE were they having that.  We got about 30 seconds through the song I had picked to listen to with them (“How to Be a Cloud” by Kira Willey) before they were up and moving around.  So I stopped the music.  This would have been a GREAT time to do a craft and distract them, but NOOOOO Miss Andrea decided that the movement would take up enough time so we wouldn’t have to do a craft.  Some of them colored, but some of them went out to play.  Overall, big fat mess.  The second day wasn’t nearly as bad; there were fewer children and more preschoolers.

Things I have learned:

  • Yoga is easy.  Following directions is easy.  Unless you are between the ages of 2 and 3.  Then everything is difficult.  Preschoolers are more used to following directions (especially if they have had some sort of school setting experience).
  • I need to choose books that not only work well together in theme, but also in writing style and reading style.  Two nearly similar books will not make for an attentive audience.
  • Movement activities are GREAT, but for younger kids they need to be super structured and super simple.
  • Diverging slightly from the usual format is a-okay, but there has to be still some familiar things.  Singing our opening song is one of them.  Doing a craft at the end if we aren’t reading two books and singing a song or two is another.

I hope that these help you, Reader.  My failure should equal your hardy success!  :D  In the meantime, I’ll work on tweaking storytimes and trying to add in more movement activities.

Into the Wild

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I tried to plan science-y storytimes for the summer to go along with the summer reading program theme.  I was mostly successful – there were a few weeks where I wanted to get some traditional summer themes in there too.  This week we did Wild Animals.  It was going to just be big cats, but at the time I started planning it, I could only find one big cat book that I really liked.

BOOKS:

We read The Day Jimmy’s Boa Ate the Wash by Tricia Noble and It’s a Tiger by David LaRochelle.  I was originally going to do Mr. Tiger Goes Wild by Peter Brown, but I stumbled upon It’s a Tigerand I KNEW I had to do it for storytime.

The Day Jimmy’s Boa Ate the Wash was okay.  The first day I read it, my voices weren’t distinct enough and I got confused about who was talking.  I think that this one works a lot better for early elementary school kids.  It’s a Tiger was GREAT though.  We had done We’re Going On a Bear Hunt not too long ago and this has the same kind of feel.   It was FABULOUS.  Jeremy Tankard’s illustrations combined with David LaRochelle’s cheeky story warm the cockles of my heart.  I would definitely put it on a must-read-for-storytime list.

SONG:

I attempted “There Was a Crocodile…” that I learned from Jbrary’s Youtube.  Most of the kids didn’t sing along, but they really liked making the animal gestures.

CRAFT:

After a disaster a few weeks ago with NON WASHABLE paint, I learned my lesson and bought some washable stuff for this craft.  We gave leopards their spots using cotton balls pinched by clothespins as our brushes.  So cute!

Valentine's Day 2015

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This is the second year that I decided to rock Valentine’s Day as a theme.  I overall feel very meh about holiday themed storytimes.  The stories are never as good and it’s often hard to find a song or fingerplay to go along.  I stepped up my game for Valentine’s Day this year though.

BOOKS:

We read Love, Splat by Rob Scotton and Sweethearts by Jan Carr.

Both books were cute.  I have a soft spot in my heart for Splat.  He’s just so fuzzy and cute.  Sweethearts has adorable cut paper illustrations with some elements for interaction.  The kids had to find the valentine on each page.  I really struggled to find good read-aloud stories that were the right length for Valentine’s Day so I’m happy I ended up with two that worked well.

FLANNELBOARD:

I borrowed this idea from Storytime Katie.  I sewed up six little felt envelopes and puffy painted in the “address” and stamp.  I laminated pictures of each of the animals mentioned in the rhyme and put them in the envelopes so we could open them and see who sent what.

Here are the unsewn envelopes.

The rhyme goes as follows:

Six little Valentines were sent to my house,
The first one said, “I love you, From Mouse.”
Five little Valentines in my mailbox,
The second one said, “Be mine, Love Fox.”
Four little Valentines full of love,
The third one said, “You are sweet, From Dove.”
Three little Valentines just for me,
The fourth one said, “Be my honey, Love Bee.”
Two little Valentine’s mailed with care,
The fifth one said, “Here’s a hug, From Bear.”
The last little Valentine, from my friend Jay,

SONG: 

We listened and danced to “Valentine” by Laura Doherty, a very catchy upbeat song.

CRAFT: 

Pinterest is my friend.  Pinterest is the primary place where I get storytime craft ideas.  This one was a real gem.  An owl valentine.

Whoooooooooo will be your Valentine?

Whoooooooooo will be your Valentine?