Afternoon Storytime: New(ish) Books again

Today's afternoon storytime was sparsely attended.  Many people are out of town because school is starting next week, so they're having a last hurrah.

When I started storytime, there was only one little girl and her mother.  We decided to skip the Hello Song and just go straight into the books.  It was kind of a loosey goosey storytime.

We Read



Queen on Wednesday by Gabi Swiatkowska
  A little girl is bored so she proclaims herself queen and ultimately finds that being queen is more trouble than it's worth.  More people came while I was reading the book, so it was hard to judge the reaction of the audience on this one.  If I were going to go with my gut, I'd say it wasn't a huge hit.  I think this is probably better for a child to read one on one with an adult, even though there aren't many words on each page.


The Runaway Hug by Nick Bland
   What a cute book.  Lucy asks her mom for a hug before she goes to bed, and her mom responds that she has only one hug left, so Lucy will have to give it back to her.  Lucy then takes the hug around the house to her family members.  The children especially loved that when Lucy hugged her baby sister it had a peanut butter smell.


Books Always Everywhere by Jane Blatt
    Extremely simple text with nice big pictures.  It was great for storytime.  Surprisingly, even the older kids liked it.  (Older as in maybe 6 years old.)


The Diggers are Coming! by Susan Steggall

  This is a hard book to read as a storytime lady.  The words are all over the page in different sizes and configurations.  Usually, I'd be alright with that, but today it found me tongue-tied.  It didn't really matter, the kids liked it anyway.  It's hard to find a book about construction that kids don't like.

Let's Stretch!

We stretched up to the sky, down to the ground, to the left and to the right.  It's really always nice to take a big stretch in the middle of storytime.

A couple of the boys were getting restless, so I said, "Let's shake our sillies out."  I don't remember the song very well (I know, I know, what kind of storytime lady are you, Miss Stella?)  So we improvised.    We ended up shaking our sillies out, jumping our sillies out, hopping our sillies out, and running our sillies out.  And then all the girls sat down ready for more stories and the two boys ran off - much to the consternation of their mothers.  While the mothers were wrangling up the boys, we continued reading.

More Books!


The Monkey Goes Bananas by C.P. Bloom
     While this is not a wordless book, I kind of read it like one.  I read the words on the page "The Monkey."  "The Bananas."  etc.  Wonderfully, the group was small so we could all get close to look at the pictures and discuss what's going on.  I'm not sure it would work in a large group.


The Hueys in It Wasn't Me by Oliver Jeffers
  This was another book that you need to pay attention to the pictures for.  I'm slowly becoming an Oliver Jeffers fan.


Pardon Me! by Daniel Miyares
    I wish I made good burp noises when I read books that have burps in them.  Mostly, I think that I'm just making weird sounds.  I'm sure that's fine, the kids always seem to know what I'm doing.  This book surprised the parents - which I loved!

Goodbye!

I don't remember where I found my closing song.

To the tune of "She'll Be Comin' 'Round the Mountain"
Now it's time to say goodbye to all our friends (goodbye!)
Now it's time to say goodbye to all our friends (goodbye!)
Now it's time to say goodbye
Wave a hand and wink an eye
Now it's time to say goodbye to all our friends (goodbye!)

Then I let them check out any of the books they wanted to.  Which means that I actually do not have a comprehensive list for this blog.  But a good time was had by all.

Storytime: Getting Dressed

I put this together for another storytime that no one came to.  :(  But that means that I was able to keep it for when I needed a storytime.

Hello!
As always, we sang our hello song first.  I always use the same hello song, it's my own version of the Dragon Tales Hello Song found here.

We read:

Naked! by Michael Ian Black
  This was a lot of fun to do in storytime.  We talked about where it's appropriate to be naked and where it's not.  We also talked about what it would be like to wear your clothes in the bathtub.  Most of the kids agreed it would be kind of icky.  Personally, I love the progression of this book, it's funny and eventually the little boy does get dressed.  Just the right amount of words per page for a storytime book - especially a funny one.


Naked Mole Rat Gets Dressed by Mo Willems
   Mo Willems is a genius.  Seriously.  What's fun about this book is yelling out, "Proclamation!" It's a great place to start talking about how clothing can express your individuality.  And that it's perfectly fine to be different - both for you to be different and for someone else to be different.   


Ella Sarah Gets Dressed by Margaret Chodos-Irvine
   There are some mornings when I feel like Ella Sarah.  I just want to do what I want to do but no one wants me to.  In both storytimes, there were children who very obviously dressed themselves (my favorite being the girl wearing pretty pink underwear on top of her black velvety pants - awesome!) and while I didn't point them out or anything, I could tell they really loved this book.

Song Time!

Hat, Shirt, Pants and Shoes stands in for Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes

Children need repetition, and so that's why my storytimes have a basic outline.  But, they also learn when you use a well known tune but put in different words. It also encourages them to experiment with the world around them and try new things, even if it's in a safe way.  A co-worker suggested that I should change Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes to clothing we wear on those parts of anatomy.  What a great idea!

When it was time (after we had done our stretching), I said something like, "Let's try something new," and asked them, "Where would you wear a hat?"  The children pointed to their heads.  "And where would you wear a shirt?"  Most of the children pointed to their tummies or chests, but a few touched their shoulders.  "Where do you wear your pants?"  They pointed to their legs or knees.  "Where do you wear your shoes?"  They pointed to their ears.  Nah...just kidding, they pointed to their feet.

Some of the kids had trouble with the concept of using clothing words instead - most of them had to do with not wearing that particular piece of clothing.  This was a great opportunity to pretend, and I grabbed it.  Frankly, it was a lot of fun, and I hope I'll figure out how to change the words more often.


I Went to Bed and I Tried to Sleep (magnet board)

Pretty much as soon as we were done with Hat, Shirt, Pants and Shoes everyone sat down - both days - even though I said, "I have another game we can play."  The first day, I asked them to stand back up...but they didn't!  So, I poked my lower lip out and said, "No one wants to play?"  They all kind of giggled and stood back up.  The second day, I said, "Oh, we're going to need our standing feet for this one."  There wasn't as much giggling for that one.

For the magnet board, I found different types of shoes, printed them out, laminated them and put a magnet on the back.

The rhyme is:
I went to bed and I tried to sleep
but someone put _____ shoes on my feet!  (and then you do the action that goes with the shoes)

The shoes I have are:
running shoes
skis
ballet shoes
tap shoes
roller skates

I saw a lot of smiles on faces as they played along.

More Reading!


Morris Micklewhite and the Tangerine Dress by Christine Baldacchino
   I love this book.  I really do.  I love that someone wrote a book about a normal boy who likes to wear a dress.  There is no shame in boys wearing dresses.  Before I read this book (in both storytimes) I asked, "Is there any clothing that's only for boys?"  Both times, I got a lot of "no!"  Then I asked, "Is there any clothing that's only for girls?"  Both times, I got a lot of "no!" again, but in both instances 1 child said, "dresses."  Since we'd already been talking about clothing as an expression of individuality, it made it easier for me to be able to read this book with an open minded audience.  

I'm afraid that I might have gotten a little "preachy"  and I really try not to.  

By the end of the book, however, everyone wants Morris to be able to wear what he wants, so it was alright. 



Joseph Had a Little Overcoat by Sims Taback
  Joseph is the ultimate re-user.  The kids really liked watching the overcoat shrink and shrink.  Both days I had to explain what a handkerchief is.  They all thought it was super gross, and perhaps the way I said it made it sound that way.  "You blow your nose in it and then put it in your pocket to use later."  Hmmm...I'm not sure how I could have explained it without it sounding gross.


Zorro Gets an Outfit by Carter Goodrich
  I did this book on Tuesday but not Wednesday.  Wednesday, I let them choose between Zorro Gets an Outfit and Dinosaurs Love Underpants.  I'm sure you could have already guessed what they'd pick.  Zorro is a nice story about a dog who is embarrassed to be wearing an outfit until he meets a super cool dog wearing an outfit.  I like Zorro and Mister Bud.


Dinosaurs Love Underpants by Claire Freedman
  Seriously.  

  I had to ask to purchase this book for storytime.  We don't have it in our collection!  It's so much fun to read.  The kids love it because it makes an adult say "undies" or "underwear" a lot.  We laughed quite a bit at this book.

Goodbye!

I don't remember where I found my closing song.

To the tune of "She'll Be Comin' 'Round the Mountain"
Now it's time to say goodbye to all our friends (goodbye!)
Now it's time to say goodbye to all our friends (goodbye!)
Now it's time to say goodbye
Wave a hand and wink an eye
Now it's time to say goodbye to all our friends (goodbye!)

Handouts

I hemmed and hawed over what to handout.  Finally, I figured that I should give them paper dolls!  I found a spiderman paper doll and a beautiful little girl paper doll.  I don't have many left!

Craft Story Club: Glass Marble Magnets

I can't remember why I thought it would be a great idea to buy 5 lbs of clear flat marbles.  I ended up using a total of 10 for the project I was doing, which left me with about 4.9999 lbs of clear flat marbles.  Space is tight in our library, so I try not to buy too far ahead for crafting, and the manager is strict about clutter.  Storage space is at a premium.

Thus, Glass Marble Magnet Craft Story Club was born.

I was so excited about the magnets that I forgot that Craft Story Club starts with 2 to 3 stories.  What in the world was I going to read about Glass Marble Magnets???????  For a moment, I felt like I had painted myself into a corner.  Then, I looked over at the fridge in the staff room and saw the one lone little magnet on the front and storytime was saved.

Refrigerators!

Yes, of course, magnets and refrigerators go together like peas and carrots or Forrest and Jenny.  Marvelous.  Let's get books about refrigerators!

....

Did you know there aren't that many books about refrigerators?  I was shocked.  Shocked, I tell you.  Actually, no, I wasn't.  I figured there wouldn't be many, but I also figured there would be more picture books about refrigerators than there were about magnets.  I looked at the non-fiction books about magnets, but they were so wordy and had experiments that I wasn't prepared (read: willing) to do in a storytime setting.  So, the 5 or 6 books I found would have to do.

Being the marvelous procrastinator that I am, I didn't read any of the books until 2 hours before the program. All I can say about that is, "at least it was a full 2."  Going through my scant pile, I was kind of sad.  There were books about heroic cheese and bananas (Missy Swiss by David Michael Slater), imaginary monkeys that live in the fridge (Maggie's Monkeys by Linda Sanders-Wells), animals conspiring to open the fridge to eat all the food (Heave Ho! by Heinz Janisch), and a very cold family in the fridge who all get taken away one by one by the monsters who create earthquakes (The Shivers in the Fridge by Fran Manushkin).  The last one was the only one that seemed to deal with what I wanted since it turns out the entire family is a bunch of magnets that got lost in the fridge.  

Then I picked up The Pink Refrigerator by Tim Egan

Inside this innocuous looking book is a marvelous story.  I would almost say a modern fairy tale.  The main character is living a life of monotony and routine.  One day as Desmond is looking through the junkyard for stuff for his Thrift store, he sees a pink refrigerator with a brass magnet on it.  He tries to get the magnet off, but it's stuck - even when he uses a crowbar.  Finally, he notices the note that the magnet is holding on the fridge that says "Paint more."  Opening the fridge, Desmond finds a beautiful red sketchbook and all sorts of paints.  He takes them back to his store, thinking to sell them, and finds he can't bring himself to do it.

I really don't want to tell the entire story here, but I will tell you that it is absolutely marvelous.  The children were extremely involved as I read it to them.  If you ever do storytimes and you haven't heard of this book, I would highly recommend it.


Because I do need to read at least 2 books, I also read The Shivers in the Fridge by Fran Manushkin

The story goes on too long for the punchline at the end, but it was about magnets and refrigerators, so it was the book that won the getting read contest.  The children were not as interested in this story.  Which was fine, because it was time to go craft anyway.

I was worried that this craft was too little and not involved enough.  Boy, was I wrong!

Added to my 4.9999 lbs of flat glass marbles, I threw in scraps of scrapbook paper, white paper for them to make their own designs and markers.  (and glue and magnets)

This is a pretty simple craft with few steps.  What takes the most time is choosing your decoration and waiting for the glue to dry.  Here are the steps:

1. Choose your decoration and cut it to size for your marble (ususally this involves tracing around the marble).
2. Put one drop of glue (we used Elmer's School Glue) on the flat part of the marble.  Brush the drop until it is spread evenly on the glass.
3. Put your decoration decoration-side down on the flat gluey glass
4. Put one drop of glue on the back of your decoration and brush the drop until it is spread evenly on the paper.
5. Put one last drop of glue on the back of everything and stick your magnet on.

I've found that it dries best if you lay the whole thing magnet side down.  The glass doesn't slip around as much.

And that's it.  That's the whole thing.  Honestly, once you have your decoration, the whole thing takes about a minute.

I am so amazed by how these turned out, and the kids and caregivers all had a wonderful time making them!

This one is a hybrid - a child drew on scrapbook paper. 

Look at mine!!

The snowflake was made from scrapbooking paper, the other was drawn by a child.

One girl and her mom made 5 magnets.  This is 3 of them.

We even used stickers (non-glossy) as decorations in our magnets.

I covered the tables with newspapers in order to keep them cleaner....I didn't see the picture of the wine bottles there until much later.

Making the magnets - tracing around the shape of the glass marble

Most of the magnets together!  (Some were made after the picture, some were taken home in various states of not done-ness)

For a craft that I thought would be too small and too quick, it turned out to be marvelous.

And I still have 4 lbs of glass marbles left.

Musical Storytime with PowerPoint

Every Wednesday, we either have Lego Club or Craft Club.  On those rare occasions that there is a 5th Wednesday in the month - we do a Musical Storytime.  This is so that we can keep Lego and Craft on schedule.

This also means that I really have to bring it for Musical Storytime because Lego and Crafts are so hands on and exciting.

I did my first Musical Storytime as more of a singalong. Considering everyone is singing "Let It Go" and "Happy" lately, I jumped on the band wagon. But I wanted to make sure that everyone sang with me. Musical Storytime is really fun...as long as I'm not the only one singing.  And since I was in the room that has the projector, I put together a PowerPoint slideshow and blam!  Singalong Storytime.



It was 40 minutes of sweaty insane fun.

And I was exhausted after.  I felt like I'd just lead a Zumba class for kids.  As they were all leaving, the moms and caregivers were asking if we were doing it again next Wednesday and how often do we do this?  and Can we have this instead of Crafts and Legos?  It was hard to smile at them and say, "Oh the next one is in October," when really, I just wanted to die on the carpet for a moment.

Our Set List:
   Sunshine On My Shoulders
   Puff the Magic Dragon
   What Does the Fox Say?
   Play with musical instruments
   Happy
   Sing
   Let It Go
   Gitchee Gitchee Goo

The Play with musical instruments was so much fun.  I let them choose their instruments and gave them a little time to play with them.  Then, we played Echo.  This is where I would hit out a beat and they would copy it.  This turned into cacophony after a while, but that was just fine.  Then we played "Conductor."  I had a long skinny stick and they would play fast or slow depending on how fast or slow I moved my stick.  Both games were well received.

For "Happy" I handed out some scarves and we flung them and waved them and played with them all over.  We kept the scarves and brought them back out for "Let It Go."  Honestly, you can never go wrong with scarves.

For Sing, we played Cooperative Musical Mats.  This is a lot like Musical Chairs...but no one is eliminated and we used mats.  We started with 6 mats on the floor and when the music stopped, everyone had to put a foot on a mat.  Then I took one mat away and we continued.  When we got down to the 1 remaining mat, it was so much fun, the kids were helping adults make sure they got their foot on, and there was a baby being passed around to get her foot on the mat.  24 people trying to get their foot on a mat was a great time.  And since this was Storytime, most of the people participating didn't know each other.  We had a blast.  This might have been the best part of storytime.

I threw in "Gitchee Gitchee Goo" even though I knew that people wouldn't know the song.  It's from the cartoon Phineas and Ferb and is really popular in our house.  My 6 year old boy often wanders around singing Gitchee Gitchee Goo, and it's such a fun song that I couldn't resist finishing with it.

This storytime was a huge hit, and I'm glad we didn't have our normally large crowd for it so that everyone could spread out and dance.

Storytime: Frogs

Okay.  Blogger was down for me when I tried to do this post before.  Now it's back up, but I think I've forgotten most of what happened in Storytime.  I'm hoping it comes back as I type.


Hello!
As always, we sang our hello song first.  I always use the same hello song, it's my own version of the Dragon Tales Hello Song found here.

We read:

Where Do Frogs Come From? by Alex Vern

    I really wanted to talk about real frogs - what they are and their lifecycle.  The kids LOVED it!  We talked about tadpoles and froglets and frogs and how they all look different, but are all the same things.  This was a great book to read in storytime because it doesn't go too much into detail, and has places to elaborate if you feel like it.  

999 Tadpoles by Ken Kimura

   This is a great book.  It wasn't until a little girl burst out crying that I realized it's a bit scary.  Oops.  If I'd have realized that, I would have prepared the kids a little better.  I reassured everyone that the frogs would be alright.  The kids really loved the ending, and the parents/caregivers liked the part where the frogs are falling from the sky.  One caregiver even exclaimed, "It's raining frogs!"  

The Wide-Mouthed Frog: a pop-up book by Keith Faulkner

   Our library doesn't have this for check-out because it's a pop-up book, but it's in my storytime collection - so I use it.  The caregivers understand when I tell them it can't be checked out - and since I "perform" this book, I think the caregivers don't want to try.  I give the frog a kind of Kermit the Frog voice and the other animals all have their own voices as well.  There are always gasps and giggles when I read this book, so I love to pull it out.

Song time!

Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes
  I find this provides great movement for the kids.  This time, we did it once, then did it faster and then did super fast.  They love that - especially for super fast we get our bodies ready by shaking all our different parts, like this:
         Let's get our hands ready!
         Let's get our heads ready!
         Let's get our shoulders ready!
         Let's get our knees ready!
         Let's get our toes ready!
         Let's get our ... EVERYTHING ready!  (hilarity ensues for a moment.)

A Little Frog...and a life lesson

  I get a lot of my fingerplays and such from around the web.  One of my favorite places is Storytime Katie.  I got this from her, and it was a hit. We did it several times.

            A little frog in a pond am I
            Hippity hippity hop  (we did little hops here)
            And I can bounce in the air so high
            Hippity hippity hop  (huge big hops here)

I learned something today doing this poem...

  ****When crouching down to the floor and then leaping as high as you possibly can, hold on to the bottom of your dress.***  

I really apologize to my storytime moms, dads and caregivers...at least I was wearing nice red underwear.

More reading!

Poison Dart Frog! by Willow Clark

   Even though we already talked about the life-cycle, I thought that we'd do a non-fiction book about Poison Dart Frogs because they are so fascinating.  Everyone - children and caregivers - really liked learning about these interesting frogs.

Ribbit!  by Rodrigo Folgueira

  This was such a great read.  We all enjoyed saying "Ribbit" together and guessing why the pig is saying "Ribbit."  I would definitely do this again - and encourage the kids to "Ribbit" with me.

Stick by Steve Breen

  What a great story about a little frog who travels. It was a little hard to do for storytime because the pictures are small and my audience was a little too large to be able to see the detail in the middle to back of the crowd.

Kiss Me! (I’m a Prince!) by Heather McLeod

  Far more popular than I thought it would be.  Some of the girls came up after and wanted to talk about frogs becoming Princes.  I read it by opening the cover and showing the art at the very front and reading the "Once upon a time" then skipping all the title pages etc. and getting right to the story.  Then at the end, I show the end pages and read the "and they lived Happily Ever After."  I love when books have art and story on the end papers.

Goodbye!

I don't remember where I found my closing song. 

To the tune of "She'll Be Comin' 'Round the Mountain"
Now it's time to say goodbye to all our friends (goodbye!)
Now it's time to say goodbye to all our friends (goodbye!)
Now it's time to say goodbye
Wave a hand and wink an eye
Now it's time to say goodbye to all our friends (goodbye!)

Handout

I had a hand out to encourage cutting (fine motor skills) and coloring (fine motor skills and writing) as well as imagination.  I used images from around the web.  The first is from Chuck Does Art 

and the other side, I found a pattern to cut and color for the kids...but I don't know the source (I have lost it because I'm kind of disorganized). So, I'm not going to include it now.


I forgot to include the magnet board I made!

We sang Five Green and Speckled Frogs, and I used this magnet board: