The one nice thing about our temporary story time location (the adult meeting room on the second floor) is that it has a lot of room for crawling. It was like a baby social today! Little ones crawled, danced, made friends and giggled their way through my 20-minute lap time.
Here is what we did:
Opening Song: Clap Along With Me
Book: A Good Day by Kevin Henkes (2007)
I read this book once before, at Baby/Toddler story time, and it was a huge hit, so I thought I'd try it again for babies. I'm not really used to the room we've been using this week, so my reading was slowed down a bit by my efforts to make sure all the little eyes in the room got to see the pictures, but the kids really enjoyed it. One baby in the front row, especially, thought it was quite funny, and laughed through the entire thing.
Song: If You're Happy and You Know It (a cappella sing-along because Miss Katie forgot her CD!)
If you're happy and you know it, clap your hands
If you're happy and you know it, clap your hands
If you're happy and you know it, and you really want to show it,
If you're happy and you know it, clap your hands
(We continued with beep your nose, tap your knees, and shout hooray. I would stomp with toddlers, but we didn't have a lot of walkers today, so we skipped it.)
Rhyme: Open, Shut Them
Book: Sheep in a Jeep by Nancy Shaw, illustrated by Margo Apple
This is such a clever book. I've known about it for a long time, but I don't think I'd ever actually read it - and the ending made me laugh out loud. Few authors can make rhyming text using the same sound over and over so creative, let alone funny. My audience was not as into it, mainly because our crawlers were all sprawled in the middle of the room by this point, checking each other out. But that was part of the fun, and I'm sure they still heard me, even if they were absorbed in other things.
Song: The Wheels on the Bus
Song: Bumpin' Up and Down in my Little Red Wagon
Apologies to Raffi, but I'm kind of proud of my version of this.
Song: Did You Ever See? (to the tune of Did You Ever See a Lassie / The More We Get Together)
I wasn't going to do this one again this week, and then I remembered how much they loved the puppets, and decided to do it again. That was a smart decision - this was a huge hit, and I have wonderful ladybug, bumblebee, and butterfly puppets that babies just love to look at.
Book: My First Nursery Rhymes illustrated by Bruce Whatley
(1999)
I have been experimenting with different ways to incorporate nursery rhymes into this story time, and it's just not working. The ones that have hand motions work really well, but the flannel board was too awkward, and this book was too... boring, I guess? The adults were lost in their own conversations, and I ended up skipping the middle 50% of the book.
Song: ABCD Medley by The Laurie Berkner Band (from
Whaddaya Think of That?)
This is a nice collection of songs - the ABC's, then Twinkle Twinkle, then Row your Boat, and then Frere Jacques. It's the perfect mid-story time break, and a great opportunity for dancing, as one big sister did, or crawling around the room and making new friends.
Song: I'm a Little Teapot
Song: This Old Man
There are pretty nice arrangements of favorite songs on this 3-disc collection, but it is published by a Christian organization, so you have to be a little bit careful and really listen to the end of the every song before using it at story time. This Old Man doesn't have any religious verses, but many of the other non-religious songs add in verses about God. Which is great for Sunday School/CCD teachers, but can be touchy for the public library! Also, this song moves too quickly for me to do the hand motions. (But the hand motions, which I got from
here, are perfect.)
Goodbye Song: We Wave Goodbye Like This
At the end, one mom stopped me and said that she and her son really like my energy! I am not known, outside of story time, as being all that exciting, but apparently, my onstage persona is appealing. Now if only I could get better at bantering with my audience... I mostly don't say anything, or even know what to say, and sometimes that is awkward.
