Outreach Round-Up, 10/17/12 - 10/26/12

Rec. Center Cooperative Play Program: Wednesday, 10/17

• Books: Will You Be My Friend?, Frogs Jump, Pumpkin Day, Pumpkin Night
• Songs: If You’d Like to Read a Book, Sing a Happy Song, Chickadee, Brown Squirrel, These Are My Glasses
• Rhyme: Way Up High in the Apple Tree 
• Notes: Will You Be My Friend? is really an easy reader. Weird for Tafuri.  Frogs Jump is too repetitive - I got sick of repeating myself. Brown Squirrel is not a hit this year. Might be time to scrap it.

Public School Pre-K: Wednesday, 10/17

• Books: Extra Yarn, Naked Mole Rat Gets Dressed, Jennie’s Hat, Pete the Cat: Rocking in my School Shoes
• Songs:  If You’re Like To Read a Book, Hat, Coat, Pants, and Shoes, These Are My Glasses
  Rhyme: Hats on Everyone
• Notes: Extra Yarn is my new favorite book. Hat, Coat, Pants, and Shoes was a huge hit. I have never seen kids laugh so hard. They also loved Hats on Everyone.

Catholic School Pre-K: Thursday, 10/18

• Books: Extra Yarn, The Little Old Lady Who Was Not Afraid of Anything, Jennie’s Hat, Pete the Cat: Rocking in My School Shoes
• Songs: If You’d Like to Read a Book, Hat, Coat, Pants, and Shoes, These Are My Glasses
• Rhyme: Hats on Everyone
• Notes: This was not a very memorable visit. I need to get into a more interesting routine!

Catholic School 5th Grade: Thursday, 10/18

• Reader's Theater: The Hidden One
• Notes: The kids loved this, though it was a bit below their reading levels. They all wanted to look at The Rough-face Girl afterward, since it's a picture book of the same folk tale.

Catholic School Kindergarten: Friday, 10/19

• Book: The Little Old Lady Who Was Not Afraid of Anything
• Song: Hat, Coat, Pants, and Shoes

Catholic School 1st Grade: Friday, 10/19

• Book: The Little Old Lady Who Was Not Afraid of Anything
• Song: Hat, Coat, Pants, and Shoes

Public School Pre-K/KAfter Care: Tuesday, 10/23

• Books: Let’s Go For a Drive, The Little Old Lady Who Was Not Afraid of Anything, Pete the Cat and His Four Groovy Buttons, The Eensy Weensy Spider Freaks Out Big Time!
• Songs: Hat, Coat, Pants and Shoes, These Are My Glasses 
• Rhyme: This is Big, Big, Big
• Notes: Let's Go For a Drive has the flattest ending, which is a shame because the rest of it is really great for story time. 

Catholic School 5th Grade: Thursday, 10/25

• Short Story: “Will” by Adam Rex (from Guys Read: Funny Business)
• Notes: This is the second time I've read this story to this grade level. This time, after I closed the book, one of the boys shouted, "That was awesome!" 

Public School Pre-K: Friday, 10/26

• Books: Yoko, Mr. Brown Can Moo, Can You?, The Pirate of Kindergarten
• Songs: Hat, Coat, Pants, and Shoes, These Are My Glasses 
• Notes: This is a lovely group. Their teacher requested five senses books, so that's how I chose these titles. All were great successes, though The Pirate of Kindergarten was harder for them to understand than I realized.

Preschool Story Time, 10/19/12

I am really anxious to improve upon my preschool story times to really make them more supportive of early literacy in a pro-active way. That's why, for this week, I tried some new things. I'm pleased to report that they all went very well!

Flannel Board: HAT
I asked the kids to help me identify each letter, then I modeled sounding it out. Since most of the kids are a little young yet to be sounding words out on their own, I didn't linger over the reading too much, I just sounded it out twice, then said, "The word is hat! And you helped me figure it out!"

Book: Do You Have a Hat? by Eileen Spinelli, illustrated by Geraldo Valerio
Before we started reading, I asked the kids if they have any hats at home. Most did, and they were happy to share about their baseball caps, winter hats, and cowboy hats. Then we read about the different hats worn by people in the book - all of whom are famous historical figures and talked about whether we did or did not have hats like theirs at home. (We decided that Francisco de Goya's candle hat was not safe.)

Rhyme: Hats on Everyone

Activity: Whose Hat is That?
This started out as a flannel board, but when the color copy machine broke down, I had to change tactics. I wound up hunting down black and white clip art  images of various types of hats (firefighter, astronaut, baseball, cowboy, etc.) and printing them to our staff printer. Then I printed two versions - one labeled, and one unlabeled, and stapled each version of each hat on either side of a black piece of construction paper. I held up the unlabeled side to initiate conversation, asking the kids to tell me who might wear each hat. Then when we had figured it out, I turned it around to show the words for each hat-wearer. My very last image was of  the hat belonging to Dr. Seuss's Cat in the Hat, which led us right into our next book.

Book:  The Cat in the Hat by Dr. Seuss
Boy, is this book long. The intended age group loved it, but the toddler siblings and random walk-ins who kept coming in and out of the room really made it hard for them to listen. I had to stop several times to ask adults to gather their little ones, and  even then, it was difficult. The kids liked the book, though, and most of them agreed they would not tell their mothers about the cat's mischief.

Song: Hat, Coat, Pants, and Shoes
There is a definite difference between ages 3 1/2 to 4 and ages 5 to 6. Kids under five love this song; kids older than that still do it, but they don't giggle nearly as much. (It was a hit with these preschoolers.)

Book: Caps for Sale by Esphyr Slobodkina
The kids loved this one, especially the few who had read it before and knew when to shake their fists and say "Tsz, tsz, tsz!"

This was the best preschool story time I have done this Fall. I think the others were fine, and just as fun for the kids, but this one was more intentionally educational and intentionally supportive of print awareness, letter recognition, and print motivation. I have just learned that I will be assuming full responsibility for all programming from birth to 5th grade starting in mid-November, so my hope is to develop a routine for preschool story time especially, where the sessions will look similar and focus on more of these early literacy skills.


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 Lap Time, 10/18/12

Rhyme: Cheek Chin

Rhyme: This is Big Big Big

Book: Big Fat Hen by Keith Baker (1999)

Song: Where is Big Toe? 
I almost always sing this song at the end of story time, and it made me smile when one of the nannies, who is especially on the ball, said, "Already?" when I announced the next song. I love it when they pay attention - and that'll teach me to deviate from routine!


Song: All the Little Babies

Flannel Board Song: Mary Had a Little Lamb
Mary had several little lambs. Their fleece was white as snow, red as a rose, blue as the sky, and green as grass.

Song: Tony Chestnut

Book: The Wee Little Woman by Byron Barton


Song with Puppets: Do You Know the Little...?  
I changed "mission bay" - the name of the library whose website I got the song from to the name of my neighborhood, which the parents all loved.

Song: I'm a Little Teapot


Song: Itsy Bitsy Spider

Song: ABCs

Song: If You're Happy and You Know It 

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.

Pajama Story Time, 10/17/12

Book: Extra Yarn by Mac Barnett, illustrated by Jon Klassen
This is my new favorite preschool read-aloud. I love this book, and so does everyone else I've shared it with. 

Book: The Quilt Story by Tony Johnston and Tomie dePaola
This was one of my favorite books when I was a kid. I used to read it to myself over and over again in the mornings before anyone else in the house was awake. I still love that page where  the mice move into the blanket and chew up the shooting star. The kids seemed to like it, too, though I made sure to explain that the quilt belonged to two different girls, something that was not always clear to me.

Song: Sing a Happy Song


Rhyme: Two Little Teddy Bears

Book: Flora's Blanket by Debi Gliori
Every family can relate the bedtime hunt for a favorite toy or blankie, even though the kids in this group claimed it has never happened to them. 

Song: Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star 

Song: Moon Moon Moon

Book: A Hat for Minerva Louise by Janet Stoeke
I have never read Minerva Louise books in story time because I always think the humor is too subtle. This one is one of the more straight-forward ones, and it did get some good laughs.

Song with Puppets: Goodnight by the Laurie Berkner Band


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.