Preschool Story Time, 11/30/16 (Wheels Theme)

Last week's story time was very small - just two families besides my own - which was too bad, because I liked the plan I used. Hopefully in a few months, I can use it again with a bigger audience. (Note: I am not 100% certain of the order in which I actually performed these. I think I have incorporated all the changes I made on the fly, but it's possible that the windshield wiper rhyme and the traveling flannel board are in the wrong places in the line-up.)

Opening Song: Story Time is Starting

Book: What Do Wheels Do All Day? by April Jones Prince

Song: There's a Little Wheel a Turnin' in My Heart
I usually do the Laurie Berkner version of this song, but I changed it up to make a little more straightforward. These are the verses I used:

• ...little wheel a-turning
• ...little drum beating
• ...two hands clapping
• ...two feet stomping 

Book: Mr. Gumpy's Motor Car by John Burningham
I am puzzled as to why only my own children seem to love this book. This group generally seems to prefer books with plot, so I tried to give them this simple story, and they didn't really take to it.

Song: Twinkle Twinkle Traffic Light

Rhyme: I'm a Windshield Wiper 
I wish there were more to this rhyme. It feels so awkward when you come to the end of a single stanza and it's just done. I may need to write an additional verse if I want to use it again.

Song: Bumpin' Up and Down in My Little Red Wagon

I did my usual verses:

• Bumpin' up and down
• The wheels turn around...
• Waving to my friends...

Flannel Board Rhyme: We All Go Traveling By
I found this song at the last minute the night before story time and decided to give it a shot. It was the hit of the session and has become a favorite of my three-year-old at home as well. I chanted it for this session because I wanted to break up the singing, but would prefer to sing it.

Book: The Bus for Us by Suzanne Bloom
The guessing game element of this book has always worked really well for me, but it didn't grab this group. Even though the audience was small enough to gather around the book, the kids didn't seem to care much whether the bus ever came. Weird.

Song: The Wheels on the Bus

Book: Duck on a Bike by David Shannon
I wasn't sure the group thought this was funny, but it may have just been the small size of the group inhibiting their reactions overall. With some of the kids who normally come, but miss this session, it would have been a huge hit.

Goodbye Song: Chickadee
This is working less well as a goodbye song as time goes on. I may need to consider a new one for the new year.

January Story Time Themes

My favorite themes for January are related to winter weather (snowmen), the new year (calendar/seasons), Martin Luther King, Jr. Day (friendship), and flu season (sickness.)

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Snowmen

Suggested Books:

• All You Need for a Snowman by Alice Schertle
• Making a Friend by Alison McGhee
• Snowmen at Night by Caralyn Buehner
• Pip and Squeak by Ian Schoenherr

Extension Activities:

• Snowman, Snowman
• Five Little Snowmen Riding on the Sled
• Friendly Snowman

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Friendship

Suggested Books:

• Ribbit! by Rodrigo Folgueira
• Enemy Pie by Derek Munson
• Little Bitty Friends by Elizabeth McPike
• How to Grow a Friend by Sara Gillingham
• Yo! Yes? by Chris Raschka 

Extension Activities:

• May There Always Be Friendship
• Ten Little Friends
• Make New Friends

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Calendar/Seasons 

Suggested Books:

• Snowy Flowy Blowy by Nancy Tafuri
• A Year with Friends by John Seven and Jana Christy 
• Parade Day by Bob Barner
• Calendar by Myra Cohn Livingston
• Chicken Soup with Rice by Maurice Sendak

Extension Activities

• Seasons of the Year
• Twelve Months Song
• We Skate on the Lake

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Get Well Soon 

Suggested Books:

• Chu's Day by Neil Gaiman
• A Sick Day for Amos McGee by Philip C. Stead
• Imogene's Antlers by David Small
• Madeline by Ludwig Bemelmans

Extension Activities

• Wash Your Hands
• Monkeys on the Bed
• This is Dr. Bell 

Review Round-Up: Books for Beginning Readers, November 2016

Here is this month's round-up of reviews of easy readers and beginning chapter books. Enjoy!

Easy Readers

Guessing Geisel featured detailed posts about both Can I Tell You a Secret? and The Thank You Book.

Waking Brain Cells and Sal's Fiction Addiction reviewed Benny and Penny in How to Say Goodbye. Sal's Fiction Addiction also reviewed The Great Antonio.

Jean Little Library had two "Small Readers" posts: Rabbit & Robot and Ribbit and Ape and Armadillo Take Over the World.

Other reviews were: the Pigsticks and Harold series, reviewed by Books 4 Your Kids, Pig and Pug, reviewed by Provo Library Children's Book Reviews, and Finding Providence, reviewed by Semicolon.

Chapter Books

Redeemed Reader and Orange Marmalade reviewed Sam the Man and the Chicken Plan.

In "Series Thursday" posts, Geo Librarian highlighted Sprout Street Neighbors: Five Stories and Meet the Bobs and Tweets.

Adolescent Audio Adventures reviewed four audiobooks of titles in the Princess in Black series. Books 4 Your Kids also reviewed The Princess in Black Takes a Vacation.

Mom's Radius reviewed Little Shaq, Star of the Week and Bicycling to the Moon.

Other chapter book reviews were Mrs. Moody in the Birthday Jinx, reviewed by Ms. Yingling Reads, Dory Dory Black Sheep, reviewed by Sal's Fiction Addiction, Captain Awesome Meets Super Dude, reviewed by Provo Library Children's Book Reviews, and Bad Kitty Takes the Test, reviewed by Mom Read It.

Preschool Story Time, 11/16/16

Attendance was back down this week. This was partly because my moms group was on a field trip, so none of the members could make it to story time. I'm not sure why others who have previously attended didn't come, but the most likely theory is that it was one of the last reasonably warm days we're going to have. (I hope it's not that they were scared away by how big the audience was last time!) In any case, I enjoyed the story time, and I think the kids did as well. 

Opening Song: Story Time is Starting

Book: Hello, Day! by Anita Lobel
The audience agreed with me that rabbits do not make a sound. I'm still not sure what Anita Lobel was thinking. But this was a nice way to break the ice with a new group. Even the oldest child in the room, who was around six, got into making the animal sounds.

Song: When Pigs Get Up in the Morning
I forgot to bring stick puppets so I had to just hold flannel board pieces in my hands. I only had three animals with me, and that felt like too few, so I had everyone use their hands to make a duck for the final verse. Though it was a decision I made on the fly, I liked it a lot, and I want to make better use of "props" we can all make with our hands. Because I have to travel by bus to the story time, and I rely on a friend to transport my supplies, I've become a lot more interested in limiting the number of props I use.

Book: Bear's Day Out by Michael Rosen, illustrated by Adrian Reynolds
I like this book because it has great rhythmic refrains on every page that the kids can repeat. I was a little nervous that my small audience would be shy about repeating them but that was not the case at all.

Song: Sunny Day
I realize as I'm looking at this plan that I basically only read books and sang songs. I really should have switched this song out for a fingerplay or action rhyme, especially since this group has responded well to action rhymes. The song was fine, but I don't like the hand motions as much as I used to. Blue is the Lake would have been a good alternative.

Song: Mr. Sun

Book: Thank You, Thanksgiving by David Milgrim
I threw in one Thanksgiving book since we're not having story time next week. (This is the perk of doing volunteer story times: no obligation to have story time on days when it is unlikely anyone will show.) This book never seems to read completely clearly on its own, so I did a lot of additional talking about the details in the illustrations. I would have preferred a different book, I think, but it's hard to get holiday books from the public libraries so I made do with what was available.

Song: Thanks a Lot
In the past, I have done this Raffi song as a flannel board, but I needed an action song and decided to use simple motions instead of images. It worked really well. Everyone sang along and did the motions, and it was probably my favorite part of the whole session. Here are the motions we used:

Thanks for the...
...sun in the sky (hands over head in a round shape)
...clouds so high (raise hands in the air and wiggle fingers)
...whispering wind (finger to lips, say "shh")
...birds that sing (flap arms like wings)
...moonlit night (hands over head in a round shape)
...stars so bright (hands up, wiggle fingers) 

Song: Five Little Pumpkins Round
I have never done this as a fingerplay, and probably would not choose to do so again. Still, the kids liked counting the pumpkins/fingers and it filled just enough time to make the session last as long as I wanted it to.

Songs with Ukulele: ABCs / Twinkle Twinkle Little Star / Baa Baa Black Sheep
I'm going to take a break from the ukulele for a few weeks, mostly because I was having my friend keep it for me so she could shuttle it back and forth every week, and I was missing having it at home to practice and to use with my own kids. This medley is fine, but I don't need to rely on it to refocus the group like I did when I was doing story time at the library. I'd rather learn something new and interesting and reintroduce it in a month or so.

Book: Tell Me About Your Day Today by Mem Fox, illustrated by Lauren Stringer
I'm not entirely sure the meaning of the illustrations in this book translated to everyone in the audience, but it's a sweet book, with a gentle rhythm and reading it aloud was a pleasure.

Song: Goodnight
Since we sang good morning to the animals at the start of story time, we sang them to sleep at the end. We used the same duck technique as mentioned above.

Song: Chickadee
I'm not completely sold on this as a goodbye song. For some reason, this audience just doesn't seem to love it as much as previous groups. But I'm going to stick with it for now and see if it catches on more.