Baby Lap Time, 4/22

I didn't have a theme for this week, and actually even deviated from my plans. It's Spring Break here, so many siblings and older kids came along to story time, and it was tough to keep everyone focused on what I was doing with so much chaos all around. We did our best, though. Here's what we sang and read.

Opening Song: Clap Along With Me
I've been experimenting with different opening songs for this group, and I think I've finally settled on one I like.
 
Song: Numbers Are Our Friends

Song: ABCs (a cappella sing-along)

Book: A Was Once an Apple Pie by Edward Lear, illustrated by Suse MacDonald (Orchard Books, 2005)
This book is pretty long, but I wanted to do an alphabet book and this is the only that has been checked in for weeks and weeks. I probably could have done just a few letters, but I did read the whole thing. The babies seemed drawn to the illustrations, and I probably could have done more with the rhythm if not for the aforementioned chaos.

Song: The Wheels on the Bus
This is not the most baby-friendly song in the world, but I needed something high-energy to bring everybody back after that long book!

Song: Itsy Bitsy Spider (a cappella sing-along)
This was great! Every adult in the room sang along, and the babies loved watching our fingers climbing up and up.

Book: Uh-oh! by Rachel Isadora (Harcourt, 2008)
We watch as a baby goes through the day making mess after mess. A perfect book for babies, but not really for older kids. The big kids were bored and restless. It's fun to say "Uh oh" over and over again, though. It has a nice sing-song rhythm to it. Some of the moms jumped in on the refrain, too, which added to that effect. Rachel Isadora is one of my go-to story time authors.

Song: I Know an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly
Using the flannelboard cut outs I found on kizclub.com yesterday, I sang this song with no musical accompaniment. I decided to forgo the usual version where the refrain is, "Perhaps she'll die" and changed it to "Oh me, oh my." This is a trick I picked up at the Wimpfheimer Nursery School, when I worked there back in college. The nannies and moms adjusted quickly and sang right along with me. At the end, when she eats the horse, we sang, "She had a tummyache of course!" It was almost perfect, except that an older sibling got right up in the front of the room and announced, "Actually, she died." Too funny! Oh well. I don't have an objection to the death theme, I just felt weird singing it to babies.

Song: I'm a Little Teapot

Song: Head and Shoulders Knees and Toes

Song: Tony Chestnut Knows I Love You 

Book: Blue Chameleon by Emily Gravett (Simon & Schuster, March 2011)
A lonely chameleon changes shade and shape to mirror potential friends - a yellow banana, a brown boot, a swirly snail, etc. Nothing seems like a good fit, though, until he meets another chameleon. Then they both shine bright with all the colors of the rainbow. The chameleon's comic little face draws you into the story, and the illustrations - including the one showing the white chameleon on a white background - are gorgeous and fun. Even the big kids got into this one. If you read this to a group, don't forget to show the end papers - the chameleon looks drab at the start of the book, and bright as can be at the end. A new favorite.

Song: Old MacDonald Had a Farm

Song: We Wave Goodbye Like This