Daycare Outreach Round-up, June 19 & 26

Though I don't have as much outreach going on in the summer as I did before school let out, I do still have two partnerships that will continue even though school is not in session. One is with the psychiatric institute, which I will visit in a couple of weeks, and one is with the daycare center at a local church. I have partnered with the church in the past to provide story time for two of their classes in the library. This summer, they invited me to visit their sites twice a month to have story time with all of their students from ages 2 to 5. I have gone twice so far, and seen four groups of kids each time. The center's theme for the month of June was the ocean, and they asked me to incorporate the theme into my story times. That was pretty easy to do - I'm a bit more worried about the July rainforest theme!

Week 1 (Wednesday, June 19)

Group 1 @ 10:00 a.m. (Ages 2-3)

Songs: The Waves in the Sea, So Many Fish in the Deep Blue Sea (based on Stars Shining Bright), The More We Read Together
Books: Over in the Ocean in a Coral Reef, Swimmy, At the Beach
Notes: This group was very enthusiastic and pretty advanced for their age. They knew all their colors, and by the second verse of any given song they had all the motions down. They had also read Swimmy before and were excited to hear it again. They also had a lot of fun with Over in the Ocean, pointing at the animals and even naming some of them without help! 

Group 2 @ 10:30 a.m. (Ages 4-5)
Songs: If You'd Like to Read a Book, Visor, Tee-shirt, Shorts and Shoes, These Are My Glasses
Books:  If You Want to See a Whale, Over in the Ocean in a Coral Reef, This is the Ocean
Notes: This is a huge group of pre-K and kindergarten-aged kids, and they were a really chatty and excitable bunch. I thought their behavior was perfectly fine and definitely age-appropriate but a teacher stopped me in the middle of the story time to shout at the kids for being rude. He  even told them I shouldn't be coming to their school, and that they should be going to the library! That was a bit alarming, but the session was otherwise great.

Group 3, @ 11:00 a.m. (Ages 2-3)
Songs: The Waves in the Sea, So Many Fish in the Deep Blue Sea (based on Stars Shining Bright)
Books: Over in the Ocean in a Coral Reef, Swimmy, At the Beach
Notes: This is the smallest group of the four, and the least verbal. I haven't expressly been told their ages, but they seem like they are mostly two years old, and only just. They are very busy and easily distracted, so Swimmy was  a bit much for them. I was also running behind schedule so this group got a slightly shortened session, which worked out fine for their attention spans.

Group 4 @ 11:30 a.m. (Ages 2-3)
Songs: The Waves in the Sea, So Many Fish in the Deep Blue Sea (based on Stars Shining Bright)
Books: Over in the Ocean in a Coral Reef, Fish Eyes, At the Beach
Notes: Group 4 is smaller than Group 1, but every bit as curious and excited to participate. They knew their colors, which was great, and wanted to know which fish was the mommy on every page of Over in the Ocean. They are also a group where kids claim they can't see the book, even when I'm showing it to them at that moment.

Week 2 (Wednesday, June 26)

Group 1 @ 10:00 a.m. (Ages 2-3)

Songs: What Can We See at the Beach? Sailing Out to Sea in my Number One Sailboat, The Waves in the Sea
Rhyme: Five Little Mermaids  Books: Senses at the Seashore, Little Tug, When Mermaids Sleep 
Notes: Since this group seemed so on the ball during the first week, I didn't hesitate to include a more poetic book, or a couple of activities involving counting. They did very well. They surprised me by singing along to every verse of What Can We See at the Beach? and their favorite book was Little Tug.

Group 2 @ 10:30 a.m. (Ages 4-5)
Songs: If You'd Like to Read a Book, Visor, Tee-shirt, Shorts and Shoes
Rhyme: Beach Bats
Books:  Bats at the Beach, All You Need for a Beach, Monster Beach
Notes: This group was a bit smaller this week than last, but still probably more than 30 kids. Different teachers came in with them, though, and I could  tell they were less  stressed out and more willing to participate with the calmer teachers. We did two movement activities, both of which got a lot of laughs out of the kids, and the only book I might not recommend using again is Monster Beach. It scared the kids, and only two or three of them seemed to get the ending.  The rhyming text is also really choppy and difficult to read aloud.

Group 3, @ 11:00 a.m. (Ages 2-3)
Songs: What Can We See at the Beach? Sailing Out to Sea in my Number One Sailboat, The Waves in the Sea
Rhyme: Five Little Mermaids
Books: Senses at the Seashore, Little Tug, The Old Ball and the Sea
Notes: This group was all over the place this time around! They like to sing, for sure, but having them listen to three books was not easy. I opted to read The Old Ball and the Sea instead of Where Mermaids Sleep because I knew they'd never make it through the more poetic story, and that turned out to be a wise decision. I also did If You're Happy and You Know It with this group because I was actually running right on schedule and I thought they would like to sing something familiar. It worked!

Group 4 @ 11:30 a.m. (Ages 2-3)
Songs: What Can We See at the Beach? Sailing Out to Sea in my Number One Sailboat, The Waves in the Sea 
Books: Senses at the Seashore, Little Tug, The Old Ball and the Sea
Notes:  This group was especially chatty. They started out wanting to tell me all about the shoes they were wearing, and they had tons of questions about everything that was happening in the books. There was again lots of complaining about not being able to see, and I kept having to turn back pages so kids could  tell me about something they had noticed. They kept asking if we could read more, but then their lunches came, and it was time to wrap things up.