Outreach Storytime, Frog

This is my last storytime at this location. I start my new position in 2 weeks, so I am wrapping up my storytimes and outreaches for the last time. *tear* I have been seeing this group twice a month for the last six months. I wanted to share some of my favorite spring books with them.


I had all of the kids stand up as we sang this one. Love the twist ending-the kids couldn't stop laughing.

Then we sang 5 green and speckled frogs. I made my frogs out of a paper towel roll similar to this one at Librarian vs. Storytime. I used clip art frogs and colored them brown and green.



I love these cumulative song stories.  They have one for each season and most holidays now; this one is about Easter. The little old lady eats a chick, some grass, an egg, etc. The kids started to sing along at the end.

Instead of reading our final book the kids asked me to re-read a book from the last visit.


The kids love it, and I love performing it. In high school, I was on the speech and debate team for 3 years, and I was absolutely horrendous at it. This book reminds me of speech performances, but in a good way. I love that I can be silly and yell and make awkward and generally unprofessional noises that would, under any normal conditions, be frowned upon.

I am excited and nervous about my new position. Hopefully it will be a good change! I will continue to update with storytime posts and programs once I get settled in to my new job!!

Outreach Storytime, Books on Books

Spring has not yet sprung in the lovely Midwest yet, and the heat at the preschool was leaking and had to be shut off this morning, so I attempted to do my outreach storytime in the gym. Large, open spaces are very distracting to classes of preschoolers, and taking them out of their daily school routine causes chaos. I don't want to say that my storytime today was a complete failure, but it was pretty close.

The first 5 minutes of my planned storytime was spent wrangling the kids to come and have a seat. Then we read:


This story has beautiful illustrations, and is a little longer  than some of my stories for this age group, but the rhyming and pacing is fluid and fast, making the story fly by at a rapid pace. The kids would normally be entranced by the illustrations of this book, but not today.

I handed out magnetic letters and sang the ABC song. When we got to their  letter they had to stand up and shout their letter along with the song. Magnets, however, like gyms, are easily distracting to children in general. We almost made it through the entire alphabet before letters started flying across the floor and had to be put away quite quickly. (I was planning on having them put themselves into alphabetical order, but that just wasn't going to happen today).

Then we read one of my favorite stories:

The kids couldn't get enough, The thought it was hilarious. I  had several kids ask me to read it again even before I was finished!

We usually do another rhyme and short book, but I spent so much time getting everyone seated and sitting that we ran out of time. I did my goodbye song and left, disappointed. Hopefully the heat will return and my visit in two weeks will go better than planned.  

Outreach Storytime, Green

With St. Patrick's Day just around the corner I wanted to read books about the color green today.



We discussed some of the more unfamiliar Irish terms in the story like laddies and lassies, shamrock fife and shillelagh. I enjoy this book for the rhymes and pacing of the story-short enough to read for storytime, but more difficult language than most of the books I share.

Song: 5 Green and Speckled Frogs from DLTK.
Five green and speckled frogs sat on a speckled log 
Eating some most delicious bugs -- YUM YUM! One jumped into the pool where it was nice and cool Then there were four green and speckled frogs.

I love using the Bear books in storytime, although this is not one of my favorites for storytime sharing. The i spy feel would work better for one on one sharing.

Song: 5 Green peas from Toddler Storytime.
Five little peas in a pea pod pressed. 
1 grew, 2 grew and so did all the rest 
They grew and they grew
And they did not stop 
Until one day, that pod went, Pop! 

I used 5 jumbo pom poms and threw them in the air at the end. We repeated this song 4 times. 

Outreach Storytime, Fractured Fairytales-Three Little Pigs

I took the format from last month and ran with it, the school-age kids seem to enjoy the fractured versions of their favorite tales.

I made craft stick puppets and had several 2nd grade volunteers help me tell the original story. Then we talked about what we could do to make the story different. I introduced words like protagonist, antagonist and point of view to determine who was telling the tale, and who is telling which tale.

Book:

We discussed the wolf's point of view and how different characters can see the same situation in different ways (I am still trying to come up with a great way to tie this into the topic of bullying, but I am drawing a blank so far.) We did discuss the actions that the pigs or the wolf could take to be a better friend.

Book:

I love the rhymes in this book. And Dan Santat is my hero-his picture book The Adventures of Beekle is the 2015 Caldecott Award winner. We discussed the similarities and differences between each book and the original story and made a triple Venn diagram on giant post-it note posters.

Outreach Storytime, Monkey

The schools in the county have had a 5 day weekend due to the deep freeze this winter, so I made sure to do a lot of movement activities with the preschoolers this week during outreach. Nothing says winter like -20 degree wind chills and no recess for weeks.

Opening song: If You're Ready for a Story Take a Seat

 
This is one of my favorite books lately. I love the audience participation aspect and the vocabulary.

Go bananas song- this is a boy scout camp song, the kids just go crazy once I explain to them what it means to 'go bananas'. The song is super long so I pick and choose what lyrics to sing.

Form banana, form form banana. (Arms above head in banana shape.)
Form banana, form form banana.
Peel banana, peel, peel banana. (One arm down.)
Peel banana, peel, peel banana. (Other arm down.)
Go bananas! Go, go bananas! (Jump up and go bananas.)
Go bananas! Go, go bananas!


This is such a classic, but one that doesn't get enough attention. The smallest ones can sing their ABC's but can only pick out the letter in their names, so we are working on letter recognition the next few months.

I wanted to get the kids up and moving, so I handed everyone a magnetic alphabet tile and we put ourselves in alphabetical order. Some kids had the same letter, but we sang our ABCs several times while getting into line.

 

With below zero wind chills for the last week and a half, I needed to get everyone up and moving, so I brought out the parachute as we chanted 'Five Little Monkeys Jumping On the Bed'. I have a smaller parachute, so I had one group sit under the parachute while the other group bounced our finger puppet pals.

Goodbye song: G-O-O-D-B-Y-E

Outreach Storytime, Fractured Fairytales-Cinderella

I do a joint K-1-2 storytime once a month, usually the 3 classes equal about 50 kids. We meet in the hallway between the gym and the rear entrance to the school (not my choice, it is freezing!). While this is not ideal, the kids are fantastic. This year I wanted to focus on comparing and contrasting skills, so we stared with discussing the Cinderella story. We talked about characters and basic plot. Then we read Cinderella's Rat by Susan Meddaugh.


We discussed how the story and characters were different from the Cinderella story we told at the beginning. This led to a quick discussion about multiple viewpoints.

I brought out the giant post-it note pad and tried to play the ABC animals game (naming an animal that starts with each letter of the alphabet), but some of the older kids got a little too rowdy, so we didn't get to finish.

We moved into reading Seriously, Cinderella is so Annoying by Trisha Shaskan.



We talked about how different characters had different viewpoints and how a single story can be distorted depending on who is telling it.

We ran out of time before I could tell the 'piece de resistance'- the tale of Rindercella. I was introduced to this story by a worship leader in college who would tell this story at the beginning of every year to get a few laughs and introduce himself. The origins of this story come from Matthew Goldman, and is called a spoonerism tale; many of the first letters of words are mixed up. It is difficult to read, but so exciting to say out loud. It is by far my favorite story to tell with the school-age kids (I think I tell it at least once a year).

Outreach Storytime, Love

This week's outreach storytime theme is Valentines Day/Hearts/Love



Tony Chestnut song from The Learning Station.
Tony Chestnut knows I love you. 
Tony knows.
 Tony knows.
 Tony Chestnut knows I love you. 
That’s what Tony knows.



Skinnamarink from Wikipedia.
Skinnamarinky dinky dink
Skinnamarinky do,
I love you!

Skinnamarinky dinky dink
Skinnamarinky do,
I love you!

I love you in the morning,
And in the afternoon
I love you in the evening,
Underneath the moon…

Skinnamarinky dinky dink
Skinnamarinky do,
I love you!



*Note: My kids weren't quite feeling the love today. Several were fairly vocal about expressing their opposition to me interrupting their day with 'gross kissing books' and 'i don't wanna's' today.

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!