Story Time Secrets

Outreach Round-Up, 5/22/13 - 6/13/13

2013-06-17T18:48:00.001-04:00

As school ends this week, my outreach duties will diminish considerably, so the round-ups will be quite small. Here, though, are my final school-year visits.

Wednesday, 5/22/13: Public School Pre-K (Two Separate Classes)
Books: Giant Dance Party, Lawn to Lawn, Prudence Wants a Pet
Songs: Visor, Tee-shirt, Shorts and Shoes, These Are My Glasses
Notes: There was no real hit of either session. The kids seemed to enjoy all three books, but none of them left them begging for more. It's also a lot harder than I thought it would be to explain why some people put gnomes and flamingos on their front lawns.

Monday, 6/3/13: Psychiatric Institute
Books: The Mysterious Tadpole, The Little House, Here Comes the Garbage Barge
Notes: This was smallest group ever at the psychiatric institute - just two kids! Both were very quiet, but attentive, and they applauded at the end.

Wednesday, 6/12/13: Public School Pre-K (One Class)

Books: Whose Garden Is It?, Rosie Sprout’s Time to Shine, A Big Guy Took My Ball

Songs: Visor, Tee-shirt, Shorts and Shoes, These Are My Glasses

Notes: All three books were successes, though the Elephant & Piggie book was the biggest hit of all. The class also really related to the conflict between Rosie and Violet in the Rosie Sprout book - and they had also planted their own seeds earlier in the year, so they knew all about what plants need.

Thursday, 6/13/13: Catholic School Pre-K
Books: Whose Garden Is It?, Rosie Sprout’s Time to Shine, Phoebe and Digger
Rhyme: African Planting Chant
Song: These Are My Glasses
Notes: They loved the planting chant, but it is quite a workout! Whose Garden Is It? went over their heads, but they liked Phoebe and Digger. I will miss their monthly visits this summer!

Dig Into Reading (Reading): Family Story Time, 6/15/13

2013-06-15T16:15:00.001-04:00

Dig Into Reading (Reading): Family Story Time, 6/15/13

*No photo this time - it's too hard to predict what I'll read when all ages are invited! Credit for the image above goes to mycutegraphics.com.

Today was the first session of my library's new Saturday afternoon story time. We are offering this every week until school starts, because so many families have asked us to do Saturday programming. Only two kids joined me today, but I asked them to bring their friends in the future, and one dad promised to let his son's playgroup friends know about it. I think attendance will grow as summer gets in full swing.

Because there were only two kids and neither seemed to love singing, we just sang the hello song, goodbye song, and one other song, and read four books, then colored for a few minutes.

Book: Bats at the Library by Brian Lies
The kids were so quiet, it was hard to tell whether they enjoyed this book or not, but they seemed interested.

Book: We Are in a Book! by Mo Willems
This was definitely the book they loved most. Neither of the two boys who came to story time had ever seen it before, so it was great to see them laugh at the jokes for the first time.

Book: Otto the Book Bear by Katie Cleminson
This book didn't get much of a reaction during the reading itself, but the kids clapped when it was over.

At this point, I asked if we should read one more. The younger of the two boys - who was three - told me he wanted three more! (One was enough, as I knew it would be.)

Book: Quiet! There's a Canary in the Library by Don Freeman
The younger boy liked this book a lot. The older one seemed to be kind of over me at this point, and I definitely felt the "you're a lame librarian" vibe coming from him when I then said we would sing before we left.

Song: These Are My Glasses

Coloring Page: I re-used my bookshelf coloring activity from my book-themed Read-Along story time back in April. Both boys liked it and spent a good amount of time coloring. The younger boy also took a break to show me his "out of control superhero moves" and his dinosaur stomping.

I use the same hello and goodbye songs at almost every session. Click here for the tunes and words. For descriptions of each of my story times, click here.

Dig Into Reading (Digging Dogs): Preschool Story Time, 6/14/13

2013-06-14T17:18:00.003-04:00

Dig Into Reading (Digging Dogs): Preschool Story Time, 6/14/13

Book: The Digging-est Dog by Al Perkins
Two kids came to story time - a girl who is almost four, and a boy who I think is three. The little boy's eyes welled up with tears on the first page of this book, where the dog is lonely and sitting beside the "for sale" sign, and it was all I could to keep reading to get him to the happy parts ASAP.

Flannel Board: Doggy, Doggy, Where’s Your Bone?
Credit for this idea goes to two sources: DLTK's Crafts for Kids, which provided the rhyme, and Tracey at 1234 More Storytimes who gave me the idea to have different animals hide the bone. I had an elephant, hippo, lion, walrus, and snake, and hid the bone behind the walrus. He was the last one guessed, so we had a great time pulling every animal off the board and being surprised each time it wasn't there. I used a slightly altered version of the rhyme linked above:

Doggy, doggy, where's your bone?
Someone took it from your home.
It wasn't me.
It wasn't you.
Was it the _______ at the zoo?

The kids had a ball with this flannel board. I want to do some more like it this summer!

Song: Head and Shoulders
Song: Shake My Sillies Out

We had been sitting for so long, we did not one, but two action songs!

Book: Dig! by Andrea Zimmerman and David Clemesha
This book is a lot like Zimmerman's Trashy Town. It follows a backhoe operator through one day on the job. The kids were very quiet, but I think they liked the story.

At this point, the little boy had to leave, and the little girl seemed tired and restless, so I asked her mom if she would want another story, or if she would prefer to move on to coloring. Coloring won, so we skipped Harry the Dirty Dog and finished the session with a coloring page.

I use the same hello and goodbye songs at almost every session. Click here for the tunes and words. For descriptions of each of my story times, click here.