Storytime: Fall 2015

During our Fall session of storytime at the library, I share eight weeks of storytimes. I try to think of new and exciting themes to share. This fall my co-worker and I decided to share a nursery rhyme with each storytime. We sometimes overlapped, but over all we had different rhymes with different themes. It was a lot of fun and I would encourage you to give it a try! Here's a brief glimpse of some of the storytime materials I shared this Fall:

Nursery Rhyme: There Was an Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe
Theme: Home

Nursery Rhyme: Mary Had a Little Lamb
Theme: School

Nursery Rhyme: Little Boy Blue
Theme: Naps

Nursery Rhyme: None
Theme: New Favorite Books

Nursery Rhyme: Hickory Dickory Dock
Theme: Clocks

Nursery Rhymes: Pat-a-Cat & Rub-a-Dub-Dub
Theme: Bakers

Nursery Rhyme: Sing a Song of Sixpence
Theme: Black Birds / Crows / Ravens

Themes I have used before were houses, school, baking, and crows. Even with repeated themes, the audience is new and for the most part the books are new as well! My favorite storytime this season was the black birds storytime.

#StoryTimeLiveWire

Earlier this month my co-worker, Amazing Miz L, and I started talking about Twitter. I can't recall what sparked the conversation, but it moved onto an exciting new idea - live tweeting our storytime! People live tweet conferences and other events in their lives, why not storytime?

If you are familiar with Twitter, you know that hashtags can be key in following conferences, locations, humor, campaigns, etc. #StoryTimeLive was already taken, so we needed another unique tag. We put our heads together (and dug through the thesaurus) and decided to go with #StoryTimeLiveWire.

It's been an exciting new adventure! While one of us leads storytime, the other live tweets. It's a fun new way to share what we're doing with others as well as connect with authors, illustrators, and musicians. I'm looking forward to continuing this hashtag adventure. Want to join the fun? Start live tweeting your storytime with #StoryTimeLiveWire!

Storytime: Boots

Boots are a fun winter storytime theme to explore! Many little ones (and adult) wear boots when they go out in the wintertime. At storytime, I wore my dress boots, but I noticed many of my little friends wore their winter boots in the story room. Ironically, we talked about boots, but none of the boot books I used were actual books with winter boots. Oh, well! There will be more storytimes to come!

OPENING Snowbie POEM:
"Do Robots Wear Red Rubber Boots?" from
Rainbow Shoes by Tiffany Stone, illustrated by Stefan Czernecki


BOOKS:
Ooh La La Polka-Dot Boots by Ellen Olson-Brown, illustrated by Christiane Engel
Ollie the Stomper by Olivier Dunre
Ladybug Girl: Do You Like These Boots? by Jacky Davis and David Soma

SONGS:
Walkin' Shoes by Miss Carole from MacaroniSoup

Storytime: Vegetables

Every May at the library, we have a special garden storytime series that lasts for three weeks. This year's theme was Planting a Rainbow. My themes for Planting a Rainbow were flowers, fruit, and vegetables.

Vegetables Storytime

This was my favorite Preschool Planters from the Planting a Rainbow series. Here's the agenda for vegetable storytime:

Welcome

Hello Everybody, Yes Indeed SONG by Carole Peterson

Vegetables, Vegetables by Fay Robinson

I like to start out my storytime with an easy nonfiction about the theme. Vegetables, Vegetables fit the bill this week. There were pages I didn't want to include (the pages on veggies that are fruit and making a salad) so I paper clipped them together so we could focus on "regular" vegetables.

Potatoes on Tuesday by Dee Lillegard, illustrated by David McPhail

This is a short and little easy reader. To add to the book, I added flannel board veggies and asked the audience to tell me the veggie when I placed it up on the flannel board.

Vegetable Soup SONG by Piggyback Songs

I added ASL signs for this song. We learned the American Sign Language sign for broth, carrot, celery, onion, and potato.

Rah, Rah, Radishes! A Vegetable Chant by April Pulley Sayre

And then it’s Spring by Julie Fogliano, illustrated by Erin E. stead 

This was a great book to add a counting activity. Throughout the book we'd count the days of the week: 7 days are in 1 week. We'd also name the days of the week. It was repeated 3 times in the book.

Announcements

Goodbye Rap SONG by Carole Peterson

Storytime: Horses

The day of storytime for horses, it was Levi Strauss Day. Cowboys wear jeans and most cowboys wear jeans while riding horses, so let's go with horses. (I also previously hosted a Cowboy storytime for National Cowboy Day. I like to experiment with new themes, rather than repeat old ones.)

The librarians at Neenah Public Library shared an awesome puppet prop at the Wisconsin Library Association conference several years ago. They created barn doors from a red paper box cover. Unfortunately, our paper box covers were black and I didn't want to waste my time covering them with paper or painting them. I explained my dilemma to my amazing co-workers and they helped to create barn doors from bookends and file folders. I secured the doors to the storytime cart and gleefully sang ...

Old MacDonald had a farm, e-i-e-i-o!
And on that farm he had a POLAR BEAR!
No?

Old MacDonald had a farm, e-i-e-i-o!
And on that farm he had a MONKEY!
No?

Old MacDonald had a farm, e-i-e-i-o!
And on that farm he had an OCTOPUS!
No? Okay, that's try one more time.

Old MacDonald had a farm, e-i-e-i-o!
And on that farm he had a HORSE!
Yes? Yes! Let's sing the rest of the verse ...

It was a great puppet surprise element for the audience that provided a unique introduction to the theme of storytime. We jumped right into the usually storytime agenda...


Hello SONG from Dragon Tales: Dragon Tunes
Are You a Horse? by Andy Rash
Clip-Clop by Nicola Smee
In My Barn by Sara Gillingham (This book has a built in finger puppet!)
Let's Sings a Lullaby with the Brave Cowboy by Jan Thomas 

Announcements
Good-bye, So Long, Farewell, Toodle-oo SONG from Hap Palmer: Two Little Sounds Fun with Phonics and Numbers 



Craft Project from Banta friends: Humpty Dumpty coloring page with ... horses! We also recited the nursery rhyme together before leaving the story room.

Storytime: Dinosaurs

Roar! We celebrated Dinosaurs for a special Friday Fling. Throughout the year, the library hosts special storytime events on Friday. For alliteration's sake, we call them Friday Flings. Early in February, the theme was Dinosaur Day! The hour began with a storytime and followed up with a craft, dino book giveaway, and simple games set-up around the Children's Room.


Hello Everybody SONG from Mr. Al: Mr. Al a Carte
Dinosaur Countdown by Nicholas Oldland

Oldland counts down from ten to zero. The ending zero is wonderfully clever and fun. The hardest part was enunciating the dinosaur names. A helpful pronunciation guide is in the back of the book, but, of course, I forgot so I got to stumble through the words and wing it. I even had some helpful hints from dinosaur lovers in the audience. Thank you!


We are the Dinosaurs SONG from Laurie Berkner: Whaddya Think of That?
Ten Terrible Dinosaurs by Paul & Henrietta Stickland

Dinosaur vs. the Library by Bob Shea

Shea's Dinosaur is fun and loud! It's important to control the roar if you invite audience participation. I gave the listeners a roar count while holding up the corresponding fingers on one hand. When I held me fist up, they knew it was zero and we were done roaring. It was a great way for everyone to roar and enjoy participating without going overboard and creating mayhem.


Dinosaurs Forever SONG from Dino Rock: The Great Dinosaur Mystery
Dinosaurs Galore! a roaring pop-up by Paul & Henrietta Stickland
Say Goodbye! SONG from Carole Peterson: Music for the Very Young Child

Craft: Dinosaurs on the Half Plate




The plate dinosaurs came from an idea found on Pinterest via 1-2-3 Learn Curriculum. My co-worker, Amazing Miz L, created the template (red) and the young dinosaur lovers made their own (blue).




Games: Seek 'n' Find, Dinosaur Alphabet Matching, and Dinosaur Match-Up


The Seek 'n' Find printouts were from ... somewhere online. I misplaced the link, if I find it again, I will add it to this post.

The Dinosaur Alphabet Matching was created by Erin from Creating & Teaching.

Dinosaur Match-Up was created in Microsoft PowerPoint with clipart. The dinosaurs could be matched up by color or by dino name.

Storytime: Tall

 Storytime landed on Abraham Lincoln's birthday. We focused on one characteristic of Abraham Lincoln - tall.



Welcome
Hello SONG from Dragon Tales: Dragon Tunes
Who's Short? Who's Tall by Kailee Herbst
Small Medium Large by Emily Jenkins, illustrated by Tomek Bogacki
Very, Very Tall SONG from Wiggleoworms: Wiggleworms Love You
Abraham Lincoln by Pamela Walker
Our Abe Lincoln adapted by Jim Aylesworth, illustrated by Barbara McClintock
I'm So Big SONG from Stuart Stotts & Tom Pease: Celebrate: a Song Resource
Too Tall Houses by Gianna Marino

 
The library owns a wooden storytelling set for The Three Little Pigs as well as Goldilocks and the Three Bears. I borrowed two houses and a tree to recreate the setting of Too Tall Houses. The characters in the book are an owl and a rabbit. I placed finger puppets next to the houses to indicate house ownership. (Yes, the rabbit is in a top hat, but that's the only finger puppet rabbit available.)


 
Announcements
Good-bye, So Long, Farewell, Toodle-oo SONG from Hap Palmer: Two Little Sounds Fun with Phonics and Numbers 

Craft Project from Banta friends: Heart Ornament from pipe cleaners and beads

The craft project focused on the current holiday (St. Valentine's Day) rather than the storytime theme.

Storytime: Pancakes

Tuesday, February 5th was National Pancake Day ... for IHOP. Free storytime at the library and free* pancakes at IHOP. It might be cold and snowy, but the price of free cannot be beat!

Welcome
Hello SONG from Dragon Tales: Dragon Tunes
American Sign Language signs for pancake and waffle
How to Make a Pancake by Dave Max (with mouse finger puppet)
Pancake Shapes flannel board

Pancakes are usually made in a circle, but not all the time. It is a silly refresher on basic shapes. These pancakes were made from pancake texture images, cropped to different shapes. The pictures were glued to yellow card stock and cut out with a wobbly edge to reflect the unevenness of actual pancakes.






The Shapes That Surround You SONG from Hap Palmer: Can a Jumbo Jet Sing the Alphabet?
Round is a Pancake by Joan Sullivan Baranski, illustrated by Yu-Mei Han
Poem: Pancakes? by Shel Silverstein from Where the Sidewalk Ends (with mouse finger puppet)



The mouse finger puppet was used twice at storytime. The first time, author Dave Max used mice as kitchen assistants, so it naturally fit to bring in the puppet. The mouse returned to recited a short poem for the audience. Bringing the puppet back is always enjoyable for the listeners. 

If you're nervous about using puppets or poetry in storytime, the combination of poetry with a puppet cannot be beat!


If You Give a Pig a Pancake by Laura Numeroff, illustrated by Felicia Bond
Announcements
Good-bye, So Long, Farewell, Toodle-oo SONG from Hap Palmer: Two Little Sounds Fun with Phonics and Numbers
Craft Project from Banta friends: P is for Pancakes book

*from the IHOP website: "Since beginning its National Pancake Day celebration in 2006, IHOP has raised more than $10 million to support charities in the communities in which it operates. On February 5, 2013, guests from around the country will once again celebrate National Pancake Day at IHOP and enjoy a free short stack of Buttermilk pancakes*. In return for the free pancakes, guests will be asked to consider leaving a donation for Children's Miracle Network Hospitals© ** or other designated local charities." http://www.ihoppancakeday.com/

Storytime: Challenge

2013 is a new year for storytime sessions, songs, books, and activities. Last year, I added my storytime books to GoodReads. This year I hope to add my storytime themes to the MissPippiReads blog. I hope you will find these reviews, agendas, and activities helpful. Happy reading, friends!