Thanks to Mr. Andy

Yes, Andy, you are in another blog today. A number of things that went well today I learned from you when I was a storytime intern. I started off with The Gruffalo by Donaldson, and I wasn't sure if this group would stay with me. They really liked it, even if they didn't really get it. I read the big book From Head to Toe by Eric Carle, which was fun. The kids really enjoyed being each animal, and were super animated (Please don't donkey kick your neighbor!) I also did Hermy the Wormy for the second week in a row, and the kids really had fun with it. They were still singing it during my next book, and I had to tell them that we were done with that song. Thanks to Andy for all these great ideas.

I also did "Driving in My Car" from Ralph's world again, and this is very popular, with some comments of "I like this song!" I was asked about paper plates, but alas I didn't have them, so we had to pretend we had a steering wheel. Oops.

Do I Look Like Mr. Andy to You?

Today I had the honor of subbing for Andy while he is enjoying a relaxing holiday eating turkey and discussing politics with his family.
It did not go well.
My first clue should have been the shocked looks as I opened the door. I cheerfully explained that Mr. Andy was away and boy-oh-boy weren't we all going to have fun together today!!

I then proceeded to present what was quite possibly the worst storytime ever.

Trying to be timely, I read One Little Two Little Three Little Pilgrims (B.G. Hennessy) and was greeted with vacant stares. I think the book is sweet-- the illustrations are particularly appealing. Choosing a book that emphasizes the historical aspect of the holiday was a mistake, I think. Was it just my delivery, or could it be that the under-3 set isn't familiar with the word "Wampanoag"? Lori and I were talking afterward, and thought that approaching Thanksgiving from a shopping/cooking/eating with family point of view would resonate much more with Twos.

The rest of the storytime didn't reach the level of fiasco-- It was just one of those low energy sessions where one looks up in the middle of maniacally singing "Little Red Wagon" to see that not only is no one singing, they are yawning. Ouch.
It was definitely a "If You're Comtatose and You Know It" not "If You're Happy and You Know It" kind of day.

I am exaggerating slightly-- the Milkshake Song went well.
And I did do a new rhyme with the "3 birds in a nest" puppet:
"Three little birds in a snug warm nest
Stretch their wings, then take a rest.
They stay right here; They never fly.
They listen to our lullaby."
We all then sang "Twinkle" to the birds very softly. Tres cute.

Other books shared:
No Haircut Today (Savadier): Meh.
A Kitten Tale (Rohmann): Very nice-- I talked about how snow would soon be coming and that there had been a few flakes this morning. Some kids were excited to tell me they had seen the snow too...

In any case, these particular terrific twos will no doubt be overjoyed when their beloved Mr. Andy returns next week.
: )
Jennifer

Preschool Storytime

Thanksgiving was the theme this week. I read How Do Dinosaurs Eat Their Food (table manners anyone?), 'Twas the Night Before Thanksgiving, Feeling Thankful, and Tattered Sails.
I did the Five Fat Turkeys Are We song from Where is Thumbkin and Five Little Pilgrims flannel board. I also asked what they were thankful for. "Mom" and T-Rex toys were some of the responses. I felt that 'Twas and Feeling Thankful worked the best. Most kids had heard the Dinosaur one and Tattered Sails was the last one and I was losing them by then. I had a lot of kids this week and there was some pushing for the stickers. I don't really know how to handle this. Should I have them all stay in their seats and I come around? Any suggestions? Thanks!

Book Buzz

Popcorn! Highlighting Tomie DePaola's simple but factual book about popcorn I made popcorn for the kids. Feed them and they will come! I had to make about 3/4 of the bag. I didn't have a craft for them this week. This was a good thing because I had too many to handle the glue and popcorn craft I had thought about. Instead I had a sheet of how many words can you spell from the word "Thanksgiving". I brought in my scrabble letters and tried to get the kids to help spell words. This didn't work very well. I needed more than one set of the letters with all those kids and one child hogged most of them just randomly saying "What's this spell" kinda cute though. One older boy volunteered to write them down. We did manage to fill in all the blanks with our best word being "Viking". They did seem to enjoy just moving the tiles around. It didn't go as I had planned in my head. Live and Learn.

I heart Sandra Boynton

If I ever grow up to be an author of board books, I want them to be just Sandra Boynton's. I read The Going to Bed Book today, and the ones just loved it, but the moms also laughed, when after the animals on the boat are getting ready for bed; they put on their pajamas;they brush their teeth, "And when the moon is on the rise, they all go up (to the lido deck) .........to exercise." Boynton always seems to surprise. Moo, Baa, La, La, La, and Blue Hat, Green Hat are also great.

two-two fun

Ok, I finally broke down today and did 2 music/prop stretcher favorites from Lori and Jennifer that I had never done before.

The Milkshake Song (Songs for Wiggleworms, track 18) was lots of fun for both groups. I passed out the shaker eggs, and then prepped the kids by saying "shake" and then "stop" and saying "shhhh" with my finger to my lips a couple times. It was interesting how there was a divide between the (mostly) older kids who understood how to stop shaking the eggs and be quiet and the other (mostly) younger ones who just kept shaking the eggs nonstop.

The "Ravioli" song (Toddler Trio, track 16) went much better in the 2nd group than the first. This was mainly because, the 2nd time around, I had a much better idea of how to prep the kids before hitting the play button on the CD player. I passed out the small white flannel squares and went through a short follow the directions routine - "put the ravioli on your elbow...put it on your knee....put it on your ear" then I told the kids that in the song, we would put them on our chins, noses, and then on our heads. I then played the song, and I just sang the man's part - so that I answered the woman's questions. This was a lot of fun for me to do, and I know the tune got stuck on some adult heads because I heard a mom singing it on her way out the door!

Fun book I did: There Once Was a Puffin by Jaques, Florence Page. It's a singing-optional book that Amy did when we were interns together, and I just remembered it. It has very nice bright colors with clear contrasts that make the illustrations stand out nicely in STs, and it has fairly minimal text so it's good for toddlers. Bonus: half the caregivers went "awwww" at the end....
- I just noticed that we just have 1 copy, tried to reorder it, and discovered it's out of print. Grrr. Well, the copy's got 51 circs, is in ok but not great shape, so I just canceled it and am adding it to the ST collection...

Bird storytime

I had never done the Saturday storytime, and the kids were definitely younger than I expected, so I'm glad I had a few back-up books. (Thank you Charlie Chick!). I read Ducks Don't Wear Socks, and the kids were a little slow getting into it, but once the duck was in his underwear, they were excited. Also, the parents seemed to enjoy that one. I did Little White Duck, and a little girl sang the entire book along with me. I was very thankful for the vocal accompaniment. I was going to read Penguin by Polly Dunbar, but switched to Cock-a-Moo-Moo. The kids liked this story. Then, I finished with Charlie Chick. Some of the really little ones were wandering a bit, but they were very intrigued by the duck puppet for Five Little Ducks. Also, I am becoming a true believer in the felt board because the kids were almost silent for Two Little Blackbirds, even when I messed up and couldn't remember the birds (although the parents chuckled).

Moral of today's story: A duck in his underwear is real comedy.

Head Start frustrations

So I went out to Head Start on Thursday afternoon to present a ST. Trouble started with my arrival; the director informed me that a police officer was scheduled at the same time (unapologetically), and asked me to wait and do the ST afterwards. Uh, ok, I said. In the cop's defense, he was pretty good with the kids (he successfully got them off questions about his gun, finally) and didn't go too terribly long (about 20 minutes). Still, a tough act to follow, because 1) the kids had already been sitting still and listening for 20 minutes and 2) I don't have a gun or walkie-talkie or badge.

I knew I'd have to do a pretty interactive, lively ST for the increasingly squirrely kids, and I tried, but a major cause of annoyance (sounds bad, I know) was a boy with developmental delays/mental challenges. He roamed all over the room during the ST, including walking between me and the seated kids, playing with toys in the room, and sprawling/rolling all over a caregiver seated at the front, just to my left. And the caregivers? For the most part, they were content to just sit and watch as the boy did whatever. Which would have been tolerable, if the other kids hadn't frequently done the same. In other words, the seated kids (about 30 of 'em) were definitely distracted from the books and stretchers I was trying to present.

This was a tough situation because I knew it was totally unfair to blame the boy, and I wasn't really sure what exactly the caregivers should do. I do believe in inclusion, and I really tried to establish eye contact, speak directly to, and otherwise engage the boy, but he was not seeming to pay any attention at all, or have any interest in the ST. At one point, a caregiver did try to hold him on her lap, but he started squirming and making loud noises, so she let him go, to walk around the room again, relatively quietly.

I'm still not really sure what to do or say to help the situation, for next time.

Thoughts?

Preschool Storytime

While greeting the children I heard one mom tell Marcie that last week was her first time and the storyteller was a man and he was fantastic! Well, that gave me butterflies in my stomach.
I started off with If You're Happy and You Know It from the Wiggleworms CD. I've tried a Hap Palmer song as an opener called So Happy You're Here but the children really seem to like Happy. I then did a little game with colors where I hide a little mouse behind a colored house and call on a child to name a color...Little mouse, little mouse are you in the (red, blue, etc.) house? When someone finally guesses right I then let them come up and hide the mouse. We shared brother and sister stories - If I Had a Dragon, Mail Harry to the Moon, and Big Sister, Little Sister. Mail Harry to the Moon got the most laughs. We then drove our cars to Minneapolis singing Ralph Covert's song Drivin' in my Car. I handed out paper plates as steering wheels and one little boy after storytime was over asked me for his steering wheel.

Book Buzz

Continuing with November being all about Native American History Month and Thanksgiving I went with a Thanksgiving theme this week. I figured I could get a couple of storytimes each out of this topic. I started off asking what they knew about Thanksgiving and what they were thankful for. I then read "Pilgrim Cat" which the kids all seemed to enjoy. Lots of the kids had cats as pets and one little fellow told me his cat was male but had never dated! This after finding out that the cat in the story turned out to be a female (and a mother) and not a male. We then made model Mayflower ships out of paper plates from the book"Thanksgiving Day Crafts". A
sample is hanging on my wall.

Baby Brains

I offered an "advanced" Busy Babies session this week. I told the caregivers that, since so many of them had been coming the whole session, we were going to try some accelerated stuff for their brilliant littles ones. Which meant...

1. A few more props than they're used to. I read "So Big!" (an Elmo board book, so help me, that Lori had used and triumphed with) and then had a series of ever-bigger plushies to illustrate how BIG they were. I also brought out the xylophone--yes, I still have the xylophone! I just banged on it a bit to start the session, but it was still something different to listen to.

2. A feltboard! A magnetic board, at least. I don't usually bother with these with our youngest patrons, but today I tried both "Hey Fiddle Fiddle" (after we'd recited it together while I showed in in a book) and "This Little Piggy" (which the caregivers did the motions on their kids' toes or fingers).

3. A couple of songs from one of Seasame Street Bob's CDs. Neither of these songs were familiar to my Busy Babies, though they were simple enough. I thought they fell a little flat and that's probably because I wasn't really singing along. I would mouth the chorus and show them all the motions, sure, but I think it'd be better if I memorized every word and really went for it.

I Ain't Gonna Sing No More No More

Tuesdays One's made me very self-conscious about my terrible singing voice. I tried two new songs, "This is My House" and "Good Morning Mrs. Perky Bird," (from the Mother Goose on the Loose CD) and got very little parent participation, because they weren't quite sure how to follow the melodies I was attempting. I revamped for Wed. and spoke the songs as rhymes and it went much better.

Maybe that's why so many children's songs are sung to familiar tunes like Frere Jacque or Shortnin' Bread, so parents will know how to follow, even when we're not quite on key.

Books used this week included Polar Bear, Polar Bear, What Do You Hear? I thought it would be awesome to do Polar Bear Turn Around instead of Teddy Bear Turn Around as a stretcher, but didn't have a polar bear prop to use. Amazingly, one year old Mary shows up with a polar bear and her nanny says it would be fine for me to borrow it. I didn't notice until I was done with the rhyme that Mary was silently sobbing. She never recovered and cried for the next 25 minutes. Bad bad Miss Lori.

Pajama Storytime, 11/3

Yay! My first PJ storytime. It went very well, thanks to the wonderful Ms. Rory. I think she trained this group in very well. It was well-attended (20/16), and the kids were enthusiastic but attentive. I read Today is Monday, Ain't Gonna Paint No More, Not a Box, and Freight Train. I knew the kids would like Ain't Gonna Paint for its catchy tune (I sang most of it), but I was pleasantly surprised to see how mesmerized they were by the pictures. They stayed with me for the ever-popular Not a Box, but were pretty much done by Freight Train. We all enjoyed "Driving in My Car" from the Ralph's World cd. I also tried out a Rainbow Song we learned at the workshop, and made a rainbow poster to go along with it. The kids didn't really sing along, but seemed pretty into the colors.

Ground Control

My storytime this Saturday was themed "Race to Space." One of the best things I did was "Two Little Aliens" with these adorable alien hand puppets we have (that Lori pointed out). I managed to read Beegu (Deacon) without crying, which is always a triumph. [It's one of those rare books, though, where I think a bit of supportive/explanatory talking makes it better and more enjoyable for the kids.]

I also read "Papa, Please Get the Moon for Me," which I practically have memorized, and that's always a hit--as long as you introduce it with a short discussion about how the moon changes.

One thing that struck me, though, was how many kids seemed to show up specifically for the "space" theme. And I didn't actually have a ton of spaceman/space travel/planet material, which I think was maybe disappointing to those patrons.