Storytime, Winter

New story time sessions have started! I am down to two sessions a week-Wednesday nights and Thursday mornings. This session runs 13 weeks. All of our storytimes are birth to age 5, so there is a wide range of age, activity and comprehension levels. I try to choose shorter books, books that I can sing, books in rhyme or humorous books to share with these groups.

Our sessions usually run 35 to 45 minutes, the first 15 to 20 minutes are stories, rhymes, songs, flannels and the occasional puppet. The last 15 or so minutes we do a craft. We have a divided room with a half wall to separate our rooms, so we move from one area to the next as i play transition music. I know there has been discussion on other blogs about crafts in storytime, but it works well for us. This gives the parents the ability to chat with other parents and lets the kids be creative. I try to have open-ended crafts or multi-part crafts, and the kids really enjoy them.

Plan:

hello song-If You're Ready for a Story, Take a Seat from Miss Meg's Storytime.

Boots song from Laurie Berkner.

B-O-O-T-S boots! 
B-O-O-T-S black boots In my black boots, in my black boots I stomp around in my black boots In my boots (stomp, stomp) In my boots (stomp, stomp) I stomp around in my boots 






Goodbye song from Preschool of Rock.

Craft: I used the patterns from kizclub and cut out a pants and jacket pattern. I used the black and white outline, that way the kids can color the frog and then add his winter clothes.


*I had three under 2s at my Wednesday evening storytime, so we skipped Froggy and did a board book instead. I feel so horrible, one of the kids started to cry during the goodbye song! We had to stop the song and explain that we were just saying goodbye to the stories-but boy, did I sure feel terrible!

Outreach Storytime, Moose

Theme: Moose

The kids had an overabundance of energy today. With three classes in one group in a cafeteria, it is difficult to keep control of the storytime.

Plan:
I brought along a new hello and goodbye song-the kids specifically requested that i come prepared. My supervisor is retiring and she had a goodbye song, which they like to repeat. I decided to mix things up and use my own.

This hello song was courtesy of Storytime Katie. 
“If You’re Ready” (Tune: If You’re Happy and You Know It)
If you’re ready for a story, take a seat
If you’re ready for a story, take a seat
Clap your hands and stomp your feet
Make your hands all nice and neat
If you’re ready for a story, take a seat


The kids thought that it was hilarious when i yelled 'moose' and one girl at the end said, 'it was funny when you cried'. Thanks, kid. How very kind of you.

We attempted to do ABC animals. Not the best idea I've ever had. I brought along a piece of poster board with the ABCs on it, and the idea was that we would go through and name an animal that started with each letter. No dice. The kids just started yelling out their names, names of a friend, random animals. We only got to L before I had to cut my losses and move on.

So i segued into the Fred the Moose song. M is for moose after all. This is a camp song, and we just did the first two verses.


Funny and thankfully, a quick read.

I busted out a new goodbye song as well, which did not get the reception that I was hoping for. The song is from Preschool of Rock: Dance Party. The kids were not feeling it. I don't have speakers for the iPad so the sound was low and i couldn't find my lyrics sheet. (Note to self: just buy the ukulele already so we can learn how to play these songs!) I will practice this more and sing it without the CD next time.

Outreach Storytime, Rhymes

Theme: rhymes

This outreach was a makeup from last week, I got to see two groups, but was unable to see the third group due to scheduling conflicts. The kids in this class are oldest at this location, so I got to do more advanced activities.

Plan:

 

I hid the pages from the book and the kids had to use context clues and rhyming words to guess what color each elephant was.

I made up a few clip art pictures and had them laminated. I matched it up with the song "A Hunting we will go" from the King County Library System. 

A hunting we will go, a hunting we will go!
We’ll catch a fox and put him in a box,
And then we’ll let him go.
…mouse…put him in a house
…frog…put him on a log
…goat…put him in a boat
…bear…put him in a chair

The kids didn't quite get the ending to this book. I thought it was hilarious, and Karma Wilson is one of my favorite authors. The kids love the Bear series, but not so much this title.

I got out the iPad next and played the animal sounds app. 

The kids love singing along and making the noises for each animal. I come up with a different hand motion to go along with the sound too. (Note to self: find more books that I can sing.)

Outreach Storytime, Animal Sounds

The word of the day is kerfuffle.

We usually go to this outreach at 9:30, and another staff member was scheduled to go. Due to a series of miscommunications, I arrived closer to 10. We usually see 3 groups of kids in 3 different rooms. The little ones have storytime from 9:30 to 9:50 and the two older groups go from 10:00 to 10:30 and 10:30 to 11am.

Today, the two smaller classes were lumped together and the older group was in a program and had to miss storytime today. :(

Since I had about 5 minutes notice before I had to leave, I grabbed a few books from a planned outreach for next week and a few books from the shelves.

We read: Dog's Noisy Day and The Seals on the Bus
 

We had fun naming animal noises with the Animal Sounds app on the iPad.

Outreach Storytime, Transportaion

Theme: Transportation

Books:

Songs: Wheels on the Bus, Down by the Station and I'm a Little Piece of Tin

*The 24 kids at this outreach are 3-5 years old. I try to keep the storytime at 30 minutes, with a good mix of movement activities. We managed to get through all four books today (we only got through half of Shark vs Train before some of the kids started to wiggle) and they loved 'reading' along with Moo!

Frozen party

This movie is such a huge hit, I knew we had to capitalize on the popularity of the books and movies and do a progam based on the characters! I set up eight stations around the room for this party.

Station 1: Roll a Snowman Game: I found this printable from Come Together Kids.

Station 2: Olaf Cup Toss: I found 3 white styrofoam cups and 6 snowflake cups in a craft cabinet, and I decorated the white cups similar to these from Growing a Jeweled Rose.

Station 3:Sven handprint craft: I set out craft sticks, tape, scissors, pencils and brown construction paper and let the kiddos make these aweome reindeer hats, minus the faces.

Station 4: coloring pages: Found a TON of Frozen-themed printables here.

Station 5: Thaw a Frozen Heart: This one I came up with on my own, it takes a little more prep work. I cut out heart shapes from my leftover felt collection and froze them in ice cube trays overnight. I put each ice cube into a sandwich bag and let the kids melt them and take the 'frozen heart' home.

Station 6:Build Kristoff's ice tower: We recieved about 500 of these small white paper boxes as a donation almost two years ago, and I have less than 50 left to use! (Stay tuned for more crafts on small white boxes, I am determined to use every last one of these). I set about 30 of these bad boys on a table and we have a tower-stacking contest!

Station 7: Frozen Fractals: paper snowflakes from scrap paper are so much fun, but oh my the mess we made!

Station 8: pom pom pickup: Set up two bowls of pom poms and two hand shovels. The goal of the game was to get as many pom poms into the bucket in 30 seconds as possible. Without opening your eyes. Using only the shovel. Hilarity ensues.

Things I would do differently: I might reconsider doing a Friday evening program in the future. We marketed this program for a start time of 4pm, knowing that our library closes at 5:30; however, people kept coming in the door until 5:25 and got upset when they weren't able to participate. We had to turn lights off in order to get people out of the doors at 5:31. Not ideal. I didn't have time to clean up the program room or anywhere else for that matter. Paper snowflakes are fun to make, but there was a light dusting of paper scraps surrounding the table all night.

Why a blog?

I am starting my first blog-all about my successes and failures as a newer librarian in a public library. I spend quite a bit of time at home after work looking at what other librarians are doing, I felt that it was only fitting to have a place to thank all of the wonderful people who give me inspiration for library programs, and hopefully I can share my awesome (to me, at least) programs with others