Flannel Friday: Good Morning by Muriel Sipe

Today's Flannel Friday contribution is an adaptation of a poem by Muriel Sipe called Good Morning, which can be read here courtesy of Google Books. I read this particular poem to my daughter a lot because I like the repetition and the rhyme, and I think it would make a great weekly opening for a baby story time.

To effectively share the rhyme with babies, you need large, simple images, preferably in contrasting colors to the background you'll be using. In addition to showing the images on the flannel board, consider providing a set of stick puppets of the images to every child/caregiver pair in the group so the babies can see them up close. Another option would be to cut the animals out of construction paper and glue them to a black, blue, or other dark-colored background so they still stand out, but each pair can still hold their own copies. You could also give the materials to the adults along with a copy of the text so they can share the poem again at home.

Each of the four animals in the poem is shown below, along with the sound it makes. Each animal was created using a silhouette from Google Images which I recolored using MS Paint. You can download a set of the final images in a .pdf document here. Use them as is, or use them as templates for cutting out felt pieces.

Downy Duck
Quack, quack, quack.

Timid Mouse
Squeak, squeak, squeak.

Curly Dog
Bow, wow, wow.

Scarlet Bird
Cheep, cheep, cheep.

Flannel Friday is hosted this week by Meg at Miss Meg's Storytime. For more about Flannel Friday, visit the official website.

At the Children's Desk: A Day of Questions Volume III

In the weeks before I left my job, my duties away from the reference desk began to dwindle, and I started really focusing my attention on answering questions. There were several days in September and early October where I was on the desk more often than I was not, and on those days, I took notes, keeping track of every question I was asked, and by whom. Today's post focuses on the questions I handled on the afternoon of Thursday, September 26. I mostly let the questions speak for themselves because they're more interesting - and funnier - that way, but I have included some notes in brackets where necessary.

1:30 p.m. - 3:30 p.m.

• Parent: Do you have any books on changing leaves?
• Adult:  Where is the October 2003 story time schedule? [I think she meant to say 2013.]
• Adult: I heard you guys cancelled story time? [We had not.]
• Parent: Do you have to register for any of these story times?
• Adult: What is the library near 20th street where the story time is in the morning and the lady is good? What is the librarian's name? Is she almost white with braids? Could you write that down for me? What bus could take me to that library? I can borrow your pen, right? Actually, better make it a pencil. Do you collect pencils? Are the hours on the door your new hours? Are these the new hours here? 
• Adult: How does it work with reciprocity with [neighboring library system]? What do I need to get a card?
• Child: Can I call my mom?
• Middle schooler: Can I borrow headphones? [Comes back moments later with two open Oreo packages.] I found these on the floor- where do I put them?
• Adult: What are these? [They were suggested reading lists by grade level.] Who puts them together?
• Middler schooler: Is it appropriate for [girl's name] to watch a cat giving birth?

4:30 p.m. - 5:30 p.m.

• Child: Where is Super Chicken Nugget Boy? What about Captain Underpants?
• Child: Where are the Alvin Ho books?
• Parent: Uh... Mysteries of Droon? Or something?
• Parent: Do you have any Ninjago books?
• Child: Yesterday, I put a hold on The Encyclopedia of Me. Where is it?
• Child (roughly 10 years old): Do you have any songs for a two or one year old?
• Child: Printing is free?!
• Parent: Can I put a hold on a book that's not here? Gregor and the Prophecy of Bane? Do I still have a Cornelia Funke book checked out?

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5:30 p.m. - LIBRARY CLOSES

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For more questions from the children's desk, check out A Day of Questions Volume I and A Day of Questions Volume II.

Connect with Story Time Secrets via Social Media

Now that I have consolidated my blogs, I have a bit more time to keep up with social media. Here's where you can find me.

On Facebook, I make daily updates to the Story Time Secrets page, which include story time songs and rhymes of the day, quotations from and about children's books, links to interesting library and literacy related articles, and story time outlines from my archives relating to upcoming holidays and events. I'm also starting to invite more comments and interactions from my followers.

On Twitter, I am @mrskatiefitz. I retweet interesting comments and links from authors, publishers, and librarians, and share my comments on things like the ALA Youth Media Awards, Cybils, and other major news in the kidlit world. I also talk a little bit about parenting my two-month-old.

On Pinterest, I have a visual archive of all my reviews and every story time I performed in 2013, along with story time activities (flannel boards, crafts, rhymes, etc.) sorted by theme. I also curate boards about babies, homeschooling (for future reference), and writing, and I pin to two boards for The Library Adventure: Library Adventure Contributors and For Librarians Only.

On Goodreads, I keep track of every book I read and give star ratings. I try to post comments there on books I don't have time to blog about, and I also provide links to reviews on this blog.

I'm also slowly getting used to using Sulia, Google+, and Tumblr, and you're welcome to follow me in any of those places as well!

Flannel Friday: Mother and Father and Uncle John

 

If you use bounces in baby story time, you probably know this one:

Mother and Father and Uncle John
went to town one by one.
Mother fell off!
Father fell off!
But Uncle John...
went on and on and on and on and on and on!

(If you're not familiar with it, you can see the ladies from JBrary perform it here.)

Today's Flannel Friday post will show you how you can share this same rhyme with an older (preschool) audience using the flannel board.

Though the rhyme doesn't explicitly say how the family is traveling to town, it's pretty likely to involve a horse, so you can begin with Mother, Father, Uncle John, and their horse on the flannel board. (The people in this photo are clipart images from kizclub.com and the horse can be found here. The "flannel board" is actually just a piece of felt stapled to a file folder, which is all I had at home, but it does the job!)

To emphasize the rhythm of the rhyme, clap or tap as you say it and invite the kids to do the same. After saying the rhyme a couple of times to get everyone familiar with it, start to get the kids involved. Give each child a turn to name another way that Mother, Father, and Uncle John might travel to town. If you have a good assortment of transportation-themed flannel board pieces, the kids probably won't name anything you don't have on hand, but if you want to limit the selections a little bit, you could have them either choose from a pile, or give each child a piece on the way in to story time and call each child up to identify the one he or she was given when it's his or her turn.

Here are Mother, Father, and Uncle John riding some vehicles that typically fascinate three and four year olds: bulldozer, motorcycle, cement mixer, ambulance. Others would probably include school bus, pick-up truck, dump truck, garbage truck, and car.

To really personalize the kids' choices, and to add some variety to the rhyme itself and not just the visuals, you can also substitute the child's name into the rhyme and ask the child who he or she would like to ride with him or her. You might wind up changing the rhyme to "Sarah and Alice and Santa Claus..." or  "Dylan and Aidan and Knuffle Bunny..." or any other number of fun combinations.

If you decide to provide options for the kids to choose from, or if you just want to end the presentation of the rhyme on a silly note, you can also bring out some unlikely choices. Below, Mother, Father and Uncle John travel by elephant and unicorn. If you're working with an animal theme, you could easily substitute other wild animals like a cheetah, giraffe, or zebra, for the elephant.

By adapting this rhyme for preschoolers, you provide them with opportunities to strengthen their transportation (or animal) vocabulary, to take an active part in the events of story time, and to share their own interests and preferences in an organized and controlled way.

Flannel Friday is hosted this week by Christine at Felt Board Ideas. For more about Flannel Friday, visit the official website.