Dogs – Infant Storytime

Posted on April 2, 2013 by jeninthelibrary

We kicked off the Spring storytime session today with man’s best friend – dogs!

MOVEMENT: Welcome Song*

MOVEMENT: Peek-a-Boo*

BOUNCE: Icky Bicky Soda Cracker*

BOOK:

Domino by Claire Masurel

MOVEMENT: “Clap, Tap and Bend” from It’s Toddler Time by Carol Hammett and Elaine Bueffel

FLANNELBOARD:
Dog’s Colorful Day

Based on the book by Emma Dodd. Template from Storytime Magic: 400 Fingerplays, Flannelboards, and Other Activities by Kathy MacMillan and Christine Kirker

BOUNCE: “Smooth Road to London Town” from A Smooth Road to London Town: Songs from the Parent-Child Mother Goose Program by Kathy Reid-Naiman

BOOK:

One Two That’s My Shoe! by Alison Murray

TICKLE: Round and Round the Garden*

NURSERY RHYME:
Hey Diddle Diddle

Flannelboard from Little Folk Visuals

MOVEMENT: “Itsy Bitsy Spider” from Children’s Favorite Songs Volume 3 from Walt Disney

MOVEMENT: “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” from Songs for Wiggleworms by the Old Town School of Folk Music

MOVEMENT: Storytime’s Over*

ADDITIONAL MATERIAL IDEAS:

Where’s Spot? by Eric Hill
Dogs by Emily Gravett

HOW IT WENT:
After a session off, it always takes one to two storytimes to get into the swing of things again, and into the routine. I think most of this presentation went really, especially the book choices – One Two That’s My Shoe is short enough that it is great for infants who aren’t yet used to coming to storytime. And the pictures are wonderful. This was my first time telling “Dog’s Colorful Day” as a flannelboard story, so I think it was the least successful in this group. I actually used all ten colors on Dog, but I think if I was doing it again, I’d half that.

ATTENDANCE: 37 people

* For these songs, please see my page Storytime Movements & Music

Saint Patrick’s Day – Preschool Storytime

Posted on March 16, 2013 by jeninthelibrary

Hope you’re wearing green, because today we celebrated St. Patrick’s Day at storytime!

MOVEMENT: Welcome Song*

MOVEMENT: “Can’t Wait to Celebrate” from Jim Gill’s Irrational Anthem by Jim Gill

BOOK:

Good Luck Bear by Greg Foley

FLANNELBOARD:
Leprechaun’s Lucky Charms

Story inspired by K at Storytime ABC’s and her Leprechaun, Leprechaun, What Do You See? and Lucky Charms breakfast cereal (which makes this flannelboard magically delicious!)
Patterns via Google Images search and Microsoft Shapes tool on Word
I also found some glittery gold foam at Michael’s and stuck that on to some felt to make the gold in the pot sparkle.

Leprechaun’s Lucky Charms
Start with the leprechaun on the flannelboard. Add the other pieces where mentioned in the story.

Leprechaun, leprechaun
What lucky charms have ye?
I have a red heart here with me.

Leprechaun, leprechaun
What lucky charms have ye?
I have an orange star here with me.

Leprechaun, leprechaun
What lucky charms have ye?
I have a yellow moon here with me.

Leprechaun, leprechaun
What lucky charms have ye?
I have a green clover here with me.

Leprechaun, leprechaun
What lucky charms have ye?
I have a blue diamond here with me.

Leprechaun, leprechaun
What lucky charms have ye?
I have a purple horse shoe here with me.

Let’s see what colors we have – red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple.
What does that make?
A Rainbow!

And what can you find at the end of the rainbow?
Leprechaun’s pot of gold!

THEMED MOVEMENT:
“Dance, Dance Leprechaun Dance”
(to tune of “Skip to My Lou”)
Dance, dance, leprechaun dance.
Dance, dance, leprechaun dance.
Dance, dance, leprechaun dance,
Do a dance for me.

Bow…
Clap…
At this point I asked the kids in storytime what were some other things leprechaun’s did. Some of the answers I got were:
Search, search, search for gold…
Jump…

And I like to finish with…
Sit, sit, leprechaun sit.
Sit, sit, leprechaun sit.
Sit, sit, leprechaun sit.
Sit for our next story.

BOOK:

Green by Laura Vaccaro Seeger

MOVEMENT: “Shake My Sillies Out” from More Singable Songs for the Very Young by Raffi

FLANNELBOARD:
Leprechaun Where’s Your Gold?

Inspiration and Story from Imagination Station.
Patterns via Google Search.

Before you start this flannelboard, hide the gold behind one of the colored pots
Leprechaun knows he has some gold, but he has so many different pots, he doesn’t know where it is! Let’s see if we can help him find it!

Leprechaun, leprechaun, tiny and bold.
Where, oh where is your gold?
What does the _(color)_ pot hold?

Leprechaun, leprechaun, tiny and bold.
I’m out looking for your gold.
What treasures does the _(color)_ pot hold?

VIDEO:

“Ruby’s Rainbow” from Max & Ruby: A Visit with Grandma

MOVEMENT: Storytime’s Over*

ADDITIONAL MATERIAL IDEAS:

Book: Clever Tom and the Leprechaun by Linda Shute
Book: The Leprechaun Under the Bed by Teresa Bateman
Book: St. Patrick’s Day Countdown by Salina Yoon (I should also make this into a flannelboard)
Book: Lucky Leprechaun
Flannelboard: Five Little Leprechauns
Flannelboard: Five Green Shamrocks

THOUGHTS ON THIS STORYTIME:
You know how sometimes you have a storytime where everything comes together and feels really good? That’s what this storytime felt like. It went really well, and helped give me that rush that comes from really connecting with the audience. We had a lot of younger children at this storytime (even though we call it Preschool, we usually end up with some toddlers at every storytime), so I chose stories that were on the younger side to tell. Foley’s Bear stories always entertain. I had never used Green before, and was a little bit worried about how it would work since there wasn’t a lot of text on the pages. I started by prepping the audience that there were a lot of different types of green and that they could guess what sort of green was coming up. It actually turned out to be a great choice for a storytime, because there were so many great opportunities for dialogic reading and audience interaction. Also I think the reason this storytime worked well was because of the flannelboards. I had made these last year, and was happy to have them to use. That’s the thing about flannelboards — they may take a while to make up front, but you will have them forever.
Also I had some familiar faces in the audience – a librarian friend brought her son, a friend who used to page here and her children, and a lovely family who used to attend my infant toddler storytimes – and that always helps make storytime better!

ATTENDANCE: 48 (adults and children)

*To see the words to these movements and activities I use frequently, please visit my A-capella Movements Section on my Storytime Movements and Music Page

Flannel Friday Birthday Extravaganza: Five Birthday Candles

Posted on March 15, 2013 by jeninthelibrary

This week we’re celebrating Flannel Friday’s 2nd Birthday!! I think instead of terrible twos we are in for some terrific twos.

To celebrate I’m sharing a flannel inspired by fellow Flannel Friday participant Katie.

Five Birthday Candles

5 Birthday Candles
wish there were more
Blew out one,
then there were 4.

4 birthday candles,
pretty as can be.
Blow one out,
then there are 3.

3 birthday candles,
Hope my wish comes true.
Blow one out,
then there are 2.

2 birthday candles
Birthday cakes are fun
Blow one out,
Then there is 1.

1 birthday candle,
the party’s almost done.
Blow out one,
Then there are none.

Today’s Flannel Friday roundup is hosted by Flannel Friday originator Melissa at Mel’s Desk. For more information on Flannel Friday, visit the Flannel Friday blog or Pinterest page.

5th Grade Storytime – St. Patrick’s Day

Posted on March 14, 2013 by jeninthelibrary

Yesterday a group of fifth graders came into the library for a class visit. Since Saint Patrick’s Day is coming soon, I thought we should celebrate with some Irish folktales and leprechaun stories.

BOOK:

Fin M’Coul by Tomie de Paola

BOOK:

VIDEO:

“Amazing Bone” from Strega Nona …and More Stories About Magic

There aren’t a lot of good Saint Patrick’s Day videos for kids. So I decided to show “The Amazing Bone” because it features a magical creature as well.

OTHER MATERIALS TO USE:

HOW IT WENT:
Because I have been working more frequently with younger kids lately (my colleague does the older class visits), fifth graders seem like they are adults to me. This storytime went pretty well, and Fin M’Coul got a few laughs. The kids really seemed to like “The Amazing Bone” as well. Though the audio in our storyroom was giving a lot of reverb and the deep stringed instruments in the soundtrack made them laugh and think of farts. Maybe that’s why they liked the video.

ATTENDANCE: 18 people

Flannel Friday: What Flannel Friday Means to Me

Posted on March 8, 2013 by jeninthelibrary

To celebrate the second anniversary of Flannel Friday, bloggers who to post or use Flannel Friday are answering the question:

I haven’t been active with Flannel Friday as a blogger for that long, but I have been a user of Flannel Friday posts and pinterest for a while. For me, what I get from Flannel Friday is:

INSPIRATION, PROFESSIONAL GROWTH, COMMUNITY, and CONFIDENCE

This may seem like a lot from weekly blog postings, but it’s all true. It’s nice to know small things like sharing ideas can have such a large impact. (In fact, the idea that sharing ideas can have a large impact is one of the reasons I became a librarian in the first place.)

Doing children’s programming is wonderful, but after a while it can become stale if you do the same thing time after time. Flannel Friday helps expand my repertoire of storytelling ideas and themes. I get great ideas not only for flannelboards to make, but also different prop stories I may not have tried before, different books to use that work well, and different themes. It was Flannel Friday posts, in fact, that made me want to try my hand out at blogging. I thought if I was getting so much out of posts that others were writing, maybe someone out there would benefit from my ideas.

This, in turn, leads to my growth as a professional. Be it growing as a storyteller to try new things I may not have thought of without the group, or growing as a blogger who writes about her day-to-day work with youth, Flannel Friday is making me better at my job.

And it’s nice to realize that there are others out there who are concerned with the same things you are. The community around us librarians who want to make the library a fun, exciting place for children is great. I’m fortunate that I work at a library location where I am with a staff of great people who are dedicated to serving youth. But sometimes it’s nice to look outside our own organizations to grow, and Flannel Friday helps do that for me. It lets me know that as much as we are encouraged (and I want to) grow and develop and pursue and advance up the library ladder, there is beauty and satisfaction in the day-to-day of working with books and youth. And I’m not the only one who sees that.

Finally, Flannel Friday helps give me confidence. I posted my first Flannel Friday post on January 4, 2013 (I told you I’m new at this!). As anyone who has posted to the group knows, you wait with bated breath that first time to see your post go live, and then see how many people are visiting your blog. Then you get comments saying that your ideas will be useful to others! There’s a fantastic rush that goes along with that. And it’s also nice to hear others say, even if they don’t comment on your blog, that they like it and use what you’ve posted there. Another reason I like being a librarian is because I enjoy helping others, my blog feels like an extension of that in some way.

So thanks, Flannel Friday, and all you bloggers, readers and commenters out there. You’ve inspired me, helped me grow, expanded my community, and helped me gain confidence. I am so so grateful to you! You are awesome!

Today’s Flannel Friday roundup is hosted by Sharon at Rain Makes Applesauce. For more information on Flannel Friday, visit the Flannel Friday blog or Pinterest page.

Family Storytime – Dr. Seuss

Posted on March 5, 2013 by jeninthelibrary

To celebrate Dr. Seuss’s Birthday on March 2, we held a special version of our preschool storytime honoring his works. My supervisor and I worked on this program together, so we tagged-teamed on the storytime.

MOVEMENT: “Shake My Sillies Out” from More Singable Songs for the Very Young by Raffi

PROP READING:
We started off with a prop-filled presentation of:

Green Eggs and Ham.

I portrayed Sam-I-Am, and my supervisor was the friend unwilling to try the titular treat. We had a table set up with all the props we needed for the story including:

Green Eggs and Ham (Color photo-copy laminated)
Here or There (Color photo-copy laminated, found via Google Image Search)
A House (made from Lego)
A Mouse (Puppet)

A Box
A Fox (he looks a little tired, I know, but it’s a fox from our puppet collection)
A Car
A Tree (Also from the library’s puppet collection)

This next row is a bit more… creative…

A Train (train whistle, I made the noise each time the book said “train”)
Dark (a black piece of construction paper with the word “dark” on it)
The Rain (a squirt bottle filled with water, that I misted every time the word “rain” was said. This got a good laugh, and was a great idea from my supervisor)

A Goat
A Boat

Since Sam-I-Am is the one who introduces the different props, I would hold up the item in question as I mentioned it. Then, my supervisor read off the answers of where the green eggs and ham would not be enjoyed, I held the item in question up again so that the audience could say it aloud. She also showed the illustrations of the book as well so those could be seen by the audience.

FLANNELBOARD:
Colorful Eggs (No Ham)

I stole this brilliant idea from this post at Mel’s Desk.

I took her suggestion of making it into a game, so on one side the eggs are a nice and normal yellow. On the other, wild colors! I started with all the yellow yolks up, then turned each one over at the appropriate time as I recited:

I-am-Sam.
Sam-I-am.
I do so like ____
eggs and ham.

(filling in the blank with the audience of the color of the egg). From this activity I learned that my pink egg (second from the left on the top row) really looks like an orange egg from afar and not like the hot pink it looks up close.

BOOK:

One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish by Dr. Seuss

My supervisor just read an except of this one, up until the “goodnight” part. It worked really well shortened like that.

MOVEMENT: “If You’re Happy and You Know It – PS Version”
My supervisor does this one a little differently, so check out my A Capella Movements page for the PS version.

VIDEO:

“Zax” from Seuss Celebration: 9 Favorite Televised Classics

Many of the Seuss videos are 25 minutes long or so — “Zax” worked well for storytime since it was only 3 minutes or so.

TREATS:
What would a birthday celebration be without a sweet treat? After the movie, we all sang “Happy Birthday” to Dr. Seuss, and then it was time to let them eat cake!

(I forgot to take a photo of the cake before it was devoured! But as you can see, at least we had a lot of interest!)

ATTENDANCE: 38 people

HOW IT WENT: I think this was a really fun unique storytime. Other than joining in on storytimes as an intern, I’d never done a joint storytime before. I think it went really well, and that we both were able to highlight the places where we shine in storytime to make it a success. I think if I were going to do this program again, I might have a larger table on which to place the props — since Seuss changes the patter of the objects in Green Eggs and Ham that might make it easier to do. Another Idea I had for that would just be to used laminated images for all the objects like I did for the green eggs and ham. Then I could just have a stack put together and go through the stack in order as the items were mentioned.

How did you celebrate Dr. Seuss’s Birthday or Read Across America?

3rd Grade Storytime – Folktales and Food

Posted on March 2, 2013 by jeninthelibrary

Sorry I haven’t posted in a while — things have been rather busy here at work as the whole staff has shifted their work areas. That, and I haven’t done a lot of storytimes in recent weeks. But here I am, back with a recent class visit.

I do programming more frequently for the preschool and under set, and while I love working with school-aged children, I still find myself rather intimidated by them. I’ve found that folktales are the perfect way to connect with these kids — and a great way to highlight what a great folktale collection we have!

BOOK:

Love and Roast Chicken by Barbara Knutson

FLANNELBOARD:
The Three Wishes

Patterns and Story from The Flannel Board Storytelling Book by Judy Sierra.
Patterns can be found on page 97 of Sierra’s Pattern eBook.

This is a great story about a woodcutter who is granted three wishes, and the way he and his wife foolishly use them. It’s a good one to use to spark discussion.

MOVEMENT: Aroostacha*

BOOK:

Ananse’s Feast: An Ashanti Tale retold by Tololwa M. Mollel

VIDEO:

“Strega Nona” from Strega Nona …and More Stories About Magic

OTHER MATERIALS TO USE:

Mrs. Chicken and the Hungry Crocodile by Won-Ldy Paye (one of my favorite folktales, but I read it to them last year)
Sausages by Jessica Souhami (This is a book version of The Three Wishes)
Fat Cat: A Danish Folktale by Margaret Read MacDonald
Pancakes for Supper by Anne Isaacs
Gator Gumbo by Candace Fleming

HOW IT WENT:
Pretty well! This third grade class is really wonderful, and always such fun to read stories to, mostly because the teacher is really involved with her class and you can see she enjoys it as well. I think, since Love and Roast Chicken is so long, I might have done another movement, then the flannelboard, then Aroostacha, and then the movie.

ATTENDANCE: 21 people

*To see the words to these movements and activities I use frequently, please visit my A-capella Movements Section on my Storytime Movements and Music Page

1st Grade Storytime – Valentine’s Day

Posted on February 6, 2013 by jeninthelibrary

One of the measurements I use to judge how successful my Valentine’s Day storytime is with an elementary school group is how many “ewwww”s it evokes. ‘Cause there is nothing early elementary kids like better than romance. Judging on that criteria, this storytime seemed like a hit.

MOVEMENT: My Wiggles

BOOK:

Froggy’s First Kiss by Jonathan London

FLANNELBOARD:
Vincent’s Valentine Animals

Patterns and Story from A Storytime Year, by Susan M. Dailey.
For the story, see this blog post.

MOVEMENT: We Work With One Hammer*

BOOK:

The Yuckiest, Stinkiest, Best Valentine Ever by Brenda A. Ferber

VIDEO:

“Valentine’s Day” from Little Bear: Little Bear’s Band

OTHER DVD IDEA:

“One Zillion Valentine’s” from The Valentine’s Collection DVD

HOW IT WENT:
This was a pretty fun storytime. It’s always great to hear the reaction of the kids when you read Froggy’s First Kiss and get to the kissing scene. Since The Yuckiest, Stinkiest, Best Valentine Ever is a new book, this was my first time trying it out with a group, and I really thought it worked great. I think I can use it as a second grade pick as well. I need more Valentine’s stories for the older groups – a lot of what I’m familiar with is for the young ones. In hindsight I think I should have shown One Zillion Valentines as the movie, because Little Bear was a little too young for this group.

ATTENDANCE: 20 people

Librarian Organizing – Books

Posted on February 5, 2013 by jeninthelibrary

I don’t know about the rest of the Children’s Librarians out there, but I seem to accumulate a lot of stuff. Books, flannelboards I’ve created, flannelboard ideas I want to create, DVDs for programs, fingerplays, puppets, realia, the list goes on… All of it is important to my programming, but all of it has to GO somewhere. And more importantly, I’ve got to be able to find it when I need it! With this in mind, I thought I would share a little bit about how I organize my materials.

It probably goes without saying, but I love children’s books. I enjoy purchasing some of my favorites to have them on hand at all times for storytimes or other programs. I do this for a few reasons:

I like knowing I have something there at all times to use (in case of a last-minute program!)
I don’t have to check-out a library book and keep others from it.
I like that the book I have on hand will be clean, with all of its pages intact.
Books go out of print so quickly that if I really love a book I want to know I can have it for all time.

However, when I had purchased a book I already had – on at least two separate occasions – I realized I might need a better method of keeping track of what I already owned.

I already kept a spreadsheet of my titles at work, but I wanted something portable I could take with me and check when I was at the bookstore. I tried Goodreads for a while, because I used that anyway to keep track of what I’ve been reading, but it wasn’t a perfect fit. So, I decided to explore the world of apps. And I found one that I’m pretty happy with:

My Library

I like that this not only helps me keep track of my books, but my DVDs as well. (It also works with music albums, but I haven’t used that part yet). The app allows you to add books to your library either manually or by scanning the barcode.

Using the barcode scanning option, you can even scan multiple titles. (Sometimes the scanning isn’t always 100% accurate, and you’ll have to go back and correct some of the data). The app gives you a few different options of how to display your books including by author, title, series, genre and more. I usually default to author:

I like that this app shows cover photos as well, a feature that wasn’t always available on the couple apps I tried.

It also has the option for sorting your items into different collections. This allows the user to filter your items into different collections, or look at everything at once. I have a few different ones as you can see here.

I haven’t had this app very long, but so far I’m very pleased with it. And hopefully, I won’t ever buy duplicate books by accident again!

Have you ever had problems keeping straight the books in your collection? How do you organize your professional book collection?

Flannel Friday: I Saw a Giraffe Drive By

Posted on February 1, 2013 by jeninthelibrary

When I was in library school, we had an assginment to make a booklist centered around a theme — any theme we wanted. My theme was “Animals and Their Vehicles”. Ever since that booklist, I’ve had a soft spot for animals taking a spin, and I’ve used it as a storytime theme a few times. Here’s a great flannelboard that goes with it.

I Saw a Giraffe Drive By
May be sung to the tune of “Down by the Bay”

Poem and Patterns from Toddler Storytime Programs by Diane Briggs

One sunny day I saw a giraffe drive by,
In a shiny car and a big bow tie.
Then I saw a sheep,
Riding in a jeep.
Then I saw a duck,
Driving a truck.
One sunny day.

One sunny day I saw a platypus,
He was going for a ride on a little orange school bus.
Then I saw a goat,
She was rowing a boat.
Then I saw a bear,
Flying through the air,
One sunny day.

Oh, me, oh, my,
What a lot of funny animals went by!

I’ve mentioned before that I got a lot of flannelboards from my mom when she retired. This is another one of those, and I think it’s among my favorite. My mom somehow cajoled my dad into making her flannelboards for her, so when I use them it’s like using a small piece of family history as well.

Today’s Flannel Friday roundup is hosted by Anne at so tomorrow. For more information on Flannel Friday, visit the Flannel Friday blog or Pinterest page.

Jen in the Library

Storytimes, Programs and Library Thoughts