In the Trees Drop-In Story Time, 8/30/13

 In the Trees Drop-In Story Time, 8/30/13

This story time was fun to set up. I drew four trees on the whiteboard then placed a clipart image on each one to indicate what type of tree it was. I introduced each tree with a song, then read a book to go along with each one.

Song with Ukulele: Here We Go 'Round the Apple Tree
We sang four verses of this song, which goes like this:

Here we go round  the apple tree, the apple tree, the apple tree
Here we go round the apple tree gathering the apples!

We gathered leaves from the maple tree and acorns from the big oak tree.

Book: The Apple Pie Tree by Zoe Hall
I was disappointed by how little they paid attention to books in general, in this session. This book had almost everyone's attention, but it kind of unraveled from there.

Rhyme: Way Up High in the Apple Tree
The kids got really into this, and some of them seemed to remember the words!

Book: The Red Lemon by Bob Staake
I chose this book because it rhymed, and made the conscious decision to cut out a lot of the text on the red page because I thought the group would be antsy. Unfortunately, even the shortened version didn't really seem to grab anyone this morning. 

Rhyme: Lemons in the Bowl
This was a new rhyme and I really liked how it went over. It might have gone on a little long for the babies, but the bigger kids were with me right to the end.

Book: Red Leaf Yellow Leaf  by Lois Ehlert
I am hereby retiring all Lois Ehlert books from story time. I don't like them, and the kids don't seem to "get" her illustrations.

Song: The Trees Are Growing Tall
The kids were great at showing me how tall their trees could grow, and touching their toes when it was time to sing about roots.

Book: The Busy Little Squirrel by Nancy Tafuri
I tried to get the grown-ups to join me on the refrain of this book, and to make all the animal sounds, but they pretty much just tuned me out.

Song: Brown Squirrel, Brown Squirrel
We pretended to be brown squirrels, then gray squirrels.

Song with Puppet: Mr. Sun 

Song with Ukulele: ABCs / Twinkle Twinkle Little Star / Baa Baa Black Sheep

I use the same hello and goodbye songs at almost every session. Click here for the tunes and words. For descriptions of each of my story times, click here.

Baby/Toddler Story Time (Tree Theme), 8/21/12

Opening Song: Hello, how are you? 

Book: Hello, Goodbye by David Lloyd, illustrated by Louise Voce (1998)
I did a lot of different things with my voice, depending on how the different characters in this book spoke, and got the adults to do it with me. I wish I could keep their attention beyond just one story, because this was really great!

Rhyme: Two Little Robins (based on Two Little Blackbirds)

Book: Little Robin Redbreast by Shari Halpern (1994)

Song: Where is Big Cat?

Song: The Trees are Growing High

Song: Ooki Na Kuri No Ki No Shita De (Under the Big Chestnut Tree) by Elizabeth Mitchell
I only sang the English this time.

Book: The Busy Little Squirrel by Nancy Tafuri (2007)
Song: Brown Squirrel
I use to do this with a stick puppet, but I did it as an action rhyme and it was much better.

Song: Here We Go Up, Up, Up

Book: The Pie in the Sky by Lois Ehlert (2004)

Song: Four Red Cherries

Song: Sunny Day

Goodbye Song: We Wave Goodbye Like This

Baby/Toddler Lap Time, 4/27/12 (Arbor Day)

I am writing this post days after the fact, so this is probably not the exact story time I presented on Friday. But it's still pretty close. The theme was trees, because it was Arbor Day.


Opening Song: Hello, how are you?

Rhyme: Blue is the Lake

Book: Fall is Not Easy by Marty Kelley (1998)
I read this in the Fall and got no real response to it. This time, the kids liked looking at the various patterns for the leaves and the adults got the punchline much more quickly than in October. 

 Song: One Seed by the Laurie Berkner Band

Song: Head and Shoulders

Book: We Planted a Tree by Diane Muldrow, illustrated by Bob Staake (2010)
This book is kind of sappy, but the illustrations are big and bold. Most of the kids seemed interested.

Rhyme: Chickadee Tree 
This was a new rhyme. The ending got no response, which I sort of expected. I might leave the ending off next time, and just do the three motions for the first three birds.


Song: I'm a Little Teapot 

Book: Hello, Goodbye by David Lloyd, illustrated by Louise Voce (1998)
Flannel Board Song: Here Stands a Robin
I did this with three birds rather than five - and got a much better response.

Song: Chickadee

Song: Mr. Sun

Goodbye Song: We Wave Goodbye Like This