Baby & Toddler Storytimes

Song: Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star Story: Lights Out, Nights Out by William Boniface. This scanimation features owls, wolves, bats and frogs, such exciting critters for babies. Song: Down by the Banks of the Hanky-Panky followed up, with a little ribbity practice. Story: Papa, Please Get the Moon for Me by Eric Carle.  I have a beautiful new copy which I've reinforced where the pages open! I do love this book.            Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown.  Such a classic. I know everyone in the world should have heard it by now.             Kitten's First Full Moon by Kevin Henkes. A little mewing and talking about kittens.  When I have 25 babies in the room, I keep in mind that introducing books and art and authors is more important than trying to read the text verbatim.  Song: Two Little Clouds in the sky so blue Oh, we had a good time today! All kinds of weird new toys! And some happy faces....

Stories: Max's Ride by Rosemary Wells. I introduced this story by zipping three little airplanes into the air, a red one, a blue one and a yellow one. One went UP, one went OVER, and one I let plummet DOWN. Nothing like flying airplanes to get babies' attention! Then I read this particularly cute board book, with its emphasis on UP, DOWN, and UNDER, demonstrating each one.  Short and fun! Freight Train by Donald Crews. I printed out all the train cars courtesy of the wonderful folks at KIZCLUB  -- imagine making all the pictures of some of the greatest kids' classic available for download, what a great idea. I wish I could say that I then took the trouble of stretching up my clothesline and told the story that way, but I'm afraid that'll have to wait till Friday. I learned the hard way that the train is quite a long one and will NOT fit on top of my easel! In the Driver's Seat by Max Haynes lends itself perfectly to a great interactive storytime readaloud. Fr...

Stories:   Silly Faces See Me...Go! We started storyhour with this silly book, holding up the book to Sophia & Ryan & Wisdom and other friend's faces and Seeing Them Go! (I won't say they made silly faces -- they took it very seriously.) Clickety Clack by Rob and Amy Spence is great to read out loud because you can start quiet, get faster & noisier, and then quiet down again. But it is a bit of a challenge for the babies and the timing was off. Next year: In the Driver's Seat by Max Haynes: even more action, and shorter text. Play: I did my first clothespin story! I did Hillenbrand's Down by the Station , and I loved the dimensionality of it. That said, I don't think I did it very well. Next year, first hang up the animals, and ask what they are. Then talk about where they might be going. To the zoo? How are they going to get there? Then start singing the song and loading up the animals on the cars. Flannelboard: I asked the babies to move along with...