Preschool Storytime

What fun! Most of the children came in costume. I read all Chills & Thrills selections today. I then stole an idea from Jennifer N. and had them do the Hooky Spooky (Hokey Pokey) . Some participated, some just stood and watched. It's hard to even get them in a circle! Stories included "Where's My Mummy?", "The Teeny-Tiny Woman" (one girl said "All I hear in this story is the word teeny-tiny, how true!), "My Monster Mama Loves Me So" and "Ghosts in the House". I was a little disappointed with the low turn out (16/6), I expected overflow crowds. A cute idea would have been a Halloween parade. Oh well, there's always next year.

Jenny

Book Buzz

I had 12 kids and 3 adults in my Book Buzz storytime. I'm very pleased that numbers for this are growing. I did Halloween two weeks in a row. Last week I read "Precious and the Boo Hag", read some verses from Monster Goose (the kids loved them and wanted me to read more), told a few ghost jokes and painted pumpkins. This week I found a pop-up Halloween card craft in a resource book so I jumped at the opportunity to show-off our pop-up books. I showed them "Mommy?" and "Yellow Square". The kids really got into trying to find where the yellow square was in each spread. I then gave them a chance to look at other pop-ups in our collection. The Star Wars and Spider-man ones were very popular. One mom was very enthused about the "Alice in Wonderland". People wanted to check them out. The pop-up craft went well with kids and parents really getting into it.

Halloweenie Ones

I had the perfect number of ones attending on Tuesday (14) and a crazy number on Wednesday (27) and it made a difference in the storytimes. The first group paid attention to everything. They sat for two books in a row, Uh-Oh by Rachel Isadora and Five Little Pumpkins, seemed mesmerized by the tell and draw rhyme "Miss Lori Drew a Monster" and even let me do a flannel story, the Mouse's pumpkin, without rushing the flannelboard.

The larger group was harder to keep entertained. I went to a song medley early, "It's Always the Same" (highly recommended for ones) and "Alice the Camel" on Hugh Hanley's yellow CD. Hugh's not the best singer, but the song selections are very good for storytime on all three of his CDs. I also did Roly Poly (sung to Frere Jacque). Roly Poly Roly Poly Up Up Up... Up, Up, Up....Roly, Roly Poly, Roly, Roly Poly, Down, Down, Down..Down, Down, Down.

We ended with Rockabye Your Bear from the Wiggles again. It's my go-to closer now (bumping skinnamarink and twinkle twinkle) and also the song most likely to stay in my head for days at a time.

Halloween Fun

On Saturday (10/25/08)I presented a fun Halloween storytime-- I think it went pretty well, but you can ask Genevieve for the straight dope-- she was there with the whole family. I began by talking about dressing up for Halloween. I tried on a few different hats/headpieces (witch hat, devil ears, princess) I said I thought I would read the stories with the witch hat on, but Lilah insisted I wear the princess crown. Naturally every kid wanted to talk about what they were planning on being for Halloween-- I tried to nip that tangent in the bud by assuring them that I wanted to hear all about their costumes when they came up for their sticker at the end of storytime. This worked pretty well.


Books: Where's My Mummy? (Carolyn Crimi)

The Plumply Dumply Pumpkin (Mary Serfozo)

Skeleton Hiccups (Margery Cuyler)


Rhymes/ Fingerplays: "Five Little Pumpkins" with the mitt

"Jack-o-Lantern" feltboard rhyme


Songs/Movement: "Itsy-Bitsy/Great Big Hairy Spider" with stuffed animals

"Hooky-Spooky" (i.e. "Hokey-Pokey")

In terms of books, I think the Mummy book got the best response. We had a lot of fun imitating Little Mummy's "tromp tromp tromp"ing throughout the story.

There were fourteen children and eight adults. A few kids wore costumes, which added to the general air of adorableness. I would guess that the average age was about two. One little boy was in a wheelchair-- he seemed to have a muscular-related disability (perhaps CP?) I tried to make sure he felt welcome by moving a number of red chairs out of the way so he and his dad could be close to the front. I also made sure to bring each puppet over for him to touch.

A photographer from the Oak Leaves was there snapping away-- I'm hoping for a cute kid photo rather than a dorky librarian photo to make the news!

Building A [How To Do A Good Baby Storytime] Mystery

Yes, I titled this post with a Sarah McLaughlin reference. Heh.

I just finished my last of three Build Your Baby's Home Library storytimes. We had five kids attend the first week (and only two of whom we'd targeted with our promotions), 13 attend last week (five of whom we'd invited from the daycares and preschools we visited) and 15 come today. And on a rainy day! I hope this means that Lori will have at least that many in her sessions, during the next three Saturdays.

What's really terrific is that, for more than half of the people at this program, this is their introduction to storytimes--if not their introduction to OPPL! So it's even more important than usual to provide a solid, fun, easy-to-get-into experience. For me, that meant planning"Greatest Hits" programs based on what I know works from my Busy Babies. I didn't want to try out too much new stuff!

Lori and I had also spoken about how to reinforce the six early preliteracy skills in these sessions (as we said we would in our proposal to the Rotary Club). We finally decided to NOT make strict outlines or to make the storytime anything like a seminar/workshop. Instead, we would try to seamlessly include prelit skills with our usual patter and fun, rather than pound them home. A couple of examples...

"I love this book for babies because the images are simple, high-contrast and fun to look at. See how Cooper's pointing at the puppies already? That means he's motivated to interact with this book some more. And we definitely want our babies to interact with books. Even if it means trying to digest them, Jacob!" [Then we read Look at the Animals together as a group, doing something different on each page to get the babies interested--counting, pointing, sound effects, sign language, etc.]

"Remember, grown-ups: hearing your voice sing along makes it easier for your little one to pick out the different sounds of the words and tune. And picking out sounds will help their brains be more reading-ready later on! So, a one and a two..." [Then we sung "You Are My Sunshine" to finish up the program. Which was very sweet!]

This week in twos

So, after 3 STs for 2s this week, a quick review of some elements of my show:

- Such a Silly Baby ((Lorig) – kind of old, in a way, for 2s. I don’t think they understood at all the idea that the baby comes back from the various settings mimicking the sounds he/she has heard. On some of the spreads, the colors of the characters and their backdrops are too similar, needing more contrast for viewing from 10-15 feet away. Also, a bit too long for 2s. Still, fun repetition…and I feel like I’m running out of books already this session!

- Mommy Mine (Warnes) – this went over pretty well. Very cute, with lots of different kinds of animal mommies.

- These are Grandma’s glasses (stretcher) - I started doing this one about a month ago, and it’s been lots of fun. At the end, when Grandpa is taking his little nap, I ask (with my eyes closed, in between snores), “Who’s going to wake up Grandpa?”, and I always get an enthusiastic response of “Wake up, wake up, Grandpa!” I do it twice through, btw.

- Listen to the sounds (activity) – It never gets old. It’s the only thing I know that gets 30 2-year-olds all totally silent at the same moment. Nice to do about 2/3 through the ST, to grab back their possibly wavering attention…

- Ten Little Fingers and Ten Little Toes (Fox) – The adults like this one a lot more than the kids do…It worked alright – I had them all wave their fingers and toes on the repeating title phrase – but it’s a bit too long, I think.

- Plumply, Dumply Pumpkin (Serfozo) – Perhaps a bit too much for 2s, but it has very nice bright illustrations, with plenty of contrast and size for those on the outer fringes, and the vocab is just fun to say. I used this to lead into the “Jack-O-Lantern” flannelboard, which has gotten a good response.

Keep it peachy,
Andy

Don't Let the Space Bugs Bite

My PJ storytime continues to be popular and kinda maddening. This week, I had a space segment that went well...except for the books. Though most of the kids would be considered preschoolers, they didn't get into I Want To Be An Astronaut or Papa, Please Get the Moon For Me (even with the magical fold-out action!) but they did love the stretcher "Three Little Men in a Flying Saucer" and playing Blast-Off.

Three Little Men in a Flying Saucer
Three little men in a flying saucer [wag three fingers around]
Flew 'round the world one day... [make a big circle with your three fingers]
They looked left and right [turn your head left and right]
But they didn't like the sight of it,
[put your hands on your eyes and shake your head]
So one man flew aWAY--
Whoosh! [make a big whooshing sweep with one finger]
[Start over with "Two little men..."]

Andy and Lori helped me think of new ways to engage this big, wobbley group. More books with call-and-response, maybe? More snazzy props? More structure--that is, letting the grown-ups know exactly what to expect and how I expect them to participate? Using the kids stuffed animals (that most of them bring) to reinforce listening skills?

Overcrowded

I had 26 one year olds today and had to adjust my storytime plan, adding a couple extra songs on CD to keep their attention--Head and Shoulders and Pease Porridge Hot from It's Toddler Time. I also tried a rhyme of my own that I wrote so I could use a little stuffed otter I have. Oscar the Otter, floated in the water, waiting for his lunch. He felt a nip, "ouch," (have fish fingerpuppet bite Oscar) and took a dip. And caught that fish. Munch Munch.

I hope those of you doing storytimes will start writing some highlights or low moments soon, so I'm not the only one posting. Thanks, Lori

Little Legends

I went to Little Legends on Thursday and did a storytime for 11 10 -20 monthers. These little ones were mostly quiet (stunned) for about 20 minutes of excessive singing, rhymes, prop manipulation and three stories. The big hit of the storytime was Biscuit. I can't recommend this enough for the ones, but I did shorten it by eliminating some of the repetition on each page.

Monkey and Me

It must be monkey week. I also kicked off the Ones with a monkey book, Monkey and Me, stealing Andy's idea to wear the Monkey hat (which barely fit my huge head). Jane Cobb says you should avoid using props with the ones, and I think this storytime was way too prop heavy. I did a block rhyme using 12 foam blocks "one block, 2 blocks, 3 blocks in a row; 4 blocks, 5 blocks, 6 blocks--up they go. 7 blocks, 8 blocks, 9 blocks going high; 10 blocks, 11 blocks, 12 blocks--Oh my!" They were fascinated the first time, but then scrambled for the blocks the second time I did it.

Surprisingly, Find the Duck, a board book with a tiny duck hiding in the pages, held their attention more than any of the others. We got through the Five Little Ducks song using the monkey mitt without anyone coming to take the ducks; they were still focused on getting blocks off the cart. They did pretty well with Biscuit (the big book version) and really liked this puppy rhyme, "Here is puppy's doghouse. Here is puppy's bed. Here is puppy's food bowl, where puppy can be fed. This is puppy's collar. His name is on it too. Throw a stick for puppy and he'll bring it back to you."

We closed out with Skinnamarink and the bells this time. The ones are getting better at giving things back as we progress through the session.

Lots of Monkeys, Jumping On My Bed

My Pajama Storytime went alright last night. We got a large crowd, though not as overwhelming as last week (when we ran out of chairs for little and big people!). This program is popular...though I'm not sure why. If I was a parent, I'd run the other way. It's a loud and unruly 25 minutes, and it probably doesn't enrich anyone's preliteracy skills!

I've learned to choose books that are sure-fire hits--and to pitch it young, despite the median age probably being 3.5. Anything with too much of a narrative, or more than 12 pages of actual text, or a moral, or subtlety--well, that would require me to slip the kids a sedative-spiked juice. So last night we read Leonardo (the first time I've pulled that out in a long while!) and Peek-a-Zoo! and My Nose, Your Nose and Five Little Monkeys Jumping On the Bed (Christelow's).

We also jammed to the Wiggleworms "Clap Your Hands," and acted out "Peas Porridge Hot," and did "Wiggle Fingers" and "Head & Shoulders" with scarves.

I end every session with turning off the lights in the Storytime Room--except for the pretty, ornamental ones--and singing "Twinkle, Twinkle." It's a show-stopper.

Forest Friends Storytime

We had about 12 mostly two year olds at this Saturday's storytime. I read I'm not Cute, A Good Day, Busy Little Squirrel and Owl Babies. I should have followed the maxim of reading the books again before sharing them with the kids, because I picked I'm Not Cute off the shelf rather than the storytime cabinet and it was missing two pages. That was awkward. I had never read A Good Day in storytime before, but it was perfect for this group and worked well with the Hap Palmer "High and Low" song.

The Gray Squirrel song, adapted to work with our brown squirrel puppet, was popular as was the Little Acorn rhyme. I had the kids stand up to do the I'm A Nut refrain and told them to be super silly. They loved this. Also, by popular request we did Alice the Camel. We ended with Rock-a-bye your Bear from the Wiggles which I can't get enough of. Thanks for sharing this one with me Andy.