Baby/Toddler Story Time (Fourth of July edition, with ukulele), 7/3/12

Opening Song (with ukulele): Hello, how are you? 

Song: Stars Shining Bright 

Book: Night's Nice by Barbara Emberley and Ed Emberley (2008)
Some of the illustrations in this one aren't easy to see from a distance, and "night's nice" is hard to say several times over, but this was still a nice book about all the good things that happen at night - including fireworks.

Song: Head and Shoulders, Baby 

Book: Red, White, and Boom by Lee Wardlaw, illustrated by Huy Voun Lee (2012)
Bold pictures and rhyming text show kids the fun of celebrating the fourth of July, with parades, picnics, and trips to the beach.

Song: Fireworks Go Snap, Snap Snap
I turned this song into an action rhyme, and after the first time through, almost all the adults had learned the words. (The tune was familiar - Mary Had a Little Lamb.) It was the perfect complement to the story. 

Rhyme: I Asked My Mother for Fifty Cents
I wanted to read Mary Ann Hoberman's version of Miss Mary Mack, but we only have it as a board book, so then I decided to just shorten the rhyme and perform it with an elephant puppet in one hand and a flag on a popsicle stick in the other. It got the intended laugh from the adults, and kids loved the elephant.

Song: I'm a Little Teapot

Song (with ukulele): Yankee Doodle
People who did not grow up in the United States apparently do not know this song, as evidenced by the blank stares many of the nannies gave me. Oh well. 

Rhyme: Blue is the Lake 

Book: Picnic! A Day in the Park by Joan Holub (2008)
This is an easy reader, but it was perfect for this story time. A bunch of ants bring foods to a picnic, each of which rhymes with the name of the ant who carries it. A three-year-old came up to me after story time to tell me the book rhymed - mission accomplished!

Song: Baseball Player
The preschool boys who came to story time nearly exploded with happiness when we sang this one. 

Book: Take Me Out to the Ballgame by Ben Nussbaum (2006)
It was  hard to sing with this book, because the song moves faster than I could turn the pages. We sang it through twice - thank God some of the parents knew the words!  It does have a CD with it, but I haven't listened to it, so I don't know if that would have been better.

Song (with ukulele): ABCs

Goodbye Song: We Wave Goodbye Like This