Inspiration

These two storytime blogs from amazing children's librarians in Chicago really put my blog to shame ;)
 (though, if I'm lucky enough to get a full time children's librarian position, I'll aspire to make mine as involved as their blogs).


 They have great ideas for flannel boards, including something they call "Flannel Friday." They also make their own boards and include resources, tips, and templates. Included are action rhymes, activities, songs, stories, and books to pair with the flannel boards. 

http://awesomestorytime.wordpress.com/

http://storytimekatie.com/

http://www.abbythelibrarian.com/2008/09/how-to-make-felt-flannel-board-story.html

Craft Website

http://ourcraftsnthings.com/

This website is a great resource for craft projects for toddlers and preschool age children. The blogger is a former preschool teacher turned stay-at-home mom. She has a whole curriculum of lesson plans and does a craft with her daughter every day. They cover letters, transportation, holidays, weather, etc. using an assortment of stuff.

Ideas

A patron at Peninsula told me about this book yesterday. I just read it. It's really cute! It's about two kids who have done everything and are so bored. Finally, they decide to do....nothing! But nothing always turns into something. There's a lot of fun illustrations that shows them using their imagination. It would make a fun read-a-loud and I'm sure would get the kids laughing. It's also easy to relate to. 

Another idea I just had would be to do a remake of Stone Soup, one of my favorite tales. While there are many good picture books illustrating the tale, it would be fun to do on our own, with the kids acting out. One idea would be to have a big pot and cut-outs of ingredients that each kid could drop in. They can then come up with their own ingredients, using their imagination. Or, maybe make a flannel board and do it that way. It could also be a good memory exercise, to have everyone reiterate what each kid put in before putting in their own. Hopefully I'll get to try it one day!

How Many Ways Can You Wiggle?

A patron at work was just reading this to her two boys and it sounded adorable! It shows all different ways you can wiggle. This would be great for storytime, as it gets the kids moving! :)

Cute Cat Back

This book looks very promising for storytime, though I haven't gotten a chance to read it yet. It's a book of opposites with rhyming text. Apparently, parts of the sentence are actually left off to leave room for the kids to jump in. Normally the librarian would have to pause and let kids jump in, but this really does the work for you :p

 

"Keba Keba wa...."

I bought Keba Keba years ago when I saw the Murakami exhibit at the Brooklyn Museum. It's a cute story with bright, graphic illustrations, about this creature called Keba Keba who decides to share all his wonderful colors with objects and nature. In the end, he is all white and transforms into a cloud, floating away, watching over everyone and everything. My copy has english next to the Japanese kanji. I'm sure most kids have never heard of it and the story is very  reminiscent of Rainbow Fish and the Elmer series. It would be fun to read Keba Keba during storytime and pair it with the aforementioned titles.

Dooby Dooby Moo~ *sings*

Mary Ellen just told me about this book. I read it at the desk and it was soooo cute! She used it at her school; I believe the teachers helped act it out for the elementary school kids as she read it aloud. The Principal of her school, who has a good voice, sang in the background. She said it was a huge hit! I would love to do this with a group of kids sometime and maybe even have them take turns acting it out if we have time.

RLY K

The kids had a special treat when Janet invited me to do storytime with her on Friday! Some of the kids remembered me from the times I've filled in for Erin, and now that Janet is back at RVC, this is her regular group. It was a slow day with everyone in Children's in Philly for PLA, so Janet thought it would be fun for the kids to have to readers! It was fun for me to of course, since I love doing it and I got to watch Janet lead storytime (Janet is such a pro). I even picked up some good lines to use to get their attention before starting like "show me that your ready: sit up straight, pretzel legs, eyes front, mouth closed, but maybe, just maybe, your lips can form a smile"


I read two books, including:

The kids had never heard of the Super Hungry Dinosaur before and they loved it! It was a fun choice to do. They were laughing like crazy! The new Lemons Are Not Red, but were still enthusiastic about shouting out the answers. Laura Vaccaro Seeger is a local author and the copy I read them was autographed, which was pretty cool. I loved the way this concept book was laid out, where there were cut out shapes and solid, painted backgrounds. The cut out of the lemon, for example, started against a red backround, and when you moved it over, it went to the yellow side. So, lemons are not red, they are yellow.

Janet read two St. Patrick's Day books. They danced to "head, shoulders, knees and toes" and a couple of other similar songs. They didn't know it as well and enjoyed it more because of that.

 

RLY Pre-k and K

I was so happy when they asked me to to RLY again. I was told only the night before doing the program, so I didn't have as much time as usual to prep extra goodies to give them, but we all had fun nonetheless :)


I started out with my usual "If you Want to Hear a Story" for both groups. We did animal songs. Since they are more used to me now they knew I would start off with that and they actually joined in with the main song, which was wonderful!


The best moment of the day was when I taught the pre-k group "soft kitty," the adorable lullaby from The Big Bang Theory and one of the teacher's smiles and calls out that she loves that song and show! No one ever thought to use it with kids, but the first time I heard it on BBT I knew I wanted to use it in my storytimes! I read both classes Kitten's First Full Moon by Kevin Henkes and then taught them the song. It was so cute hearing them sing it. They seemed to like it, too ;)

Other books we did were Here Comes the Big, Mean Dust Bunny by Jan Thomas after the success of her other book Is Everyone Ready for Fun? the previous storytime. They were laughing at this one a lot. Since the book is about rhymes, I first explained what a rhyme is in case some of them didn't know. I printed out a a document I made with a definition and some examples. I made the colors coordinate with the cover of the book. It turned out they were well versed in rhymes (no pun intended), especially from having been read The Cat in the Hat. They enjoyed calling out what the rhymes were before I read them in the book. 

We also read Dinosaurs Roar! by Paul and Henrietta Stickland, Eli, No! by Katie Kirk (great repetition in this book and hilarious pictures), and a new book we just got in the library called Chilly, Milly Moo by Fiona Ross. This is such an adorable book about a cow who can't make milk because she's too hot. Suddenly, after a storm, the air becomes cold, and while all the other cows are freezing their utters off, Milly is happy. When it's  her turn to try and give milk--and save herself from being sent away--something else comes out: ice cream!! The surprise ending is so silly and cute that it had everyone laughing hysterically. We then talked about how much we love ice cream!

For songs in between the five books we did Popcorn Calling and There's a Wheel Turning in My Hearth, both my the ever popular artist Laurie Berkner. For the pre-k group, we also ended with We Are the Dinosaurs, because they insisted on hearing it. It is a very addicting song. I wonder if it's our library or every library that has kids begging for this song? I think they will all grow up being fascinated by Dinosaurs, which is great. And all from this one song! ;)