Or, what happens after a children’s librarian visits the rainforest?
I first explored a trees theme in Wonderworks in the Spring of 2013:
https://cultivatewonder.wordpress.com/category/trees/
Yesterday we revisited the theme with a different twist. On a trip to Costa Rica the previous week, I saw a kapok (ceiba) tree. Of course I’m familiar with Lynne Cherry’s The Great Kapok Tree(Harcourt Brace…
The morning of this storytime, Wednesday, March 11 at 11:30 a.m., I checked the NASA site looking for a good video clip to show to accompany the books I had chosen. Turns out, NASA was conducting a solid rocket booster test, broadcast live, at 11:30 a.m.! I couldn’t believe my luck! So I pulled up the link on the new SmartBoard, Internet was working beautifully, and had the NASA TV live…
are so much fun! You can catch me blogging about a recent STEM storytime on wind today over on the Westerville Public Library Kids Blog: Feel the Wind http://blog.westervillelibrary.org/kids/?p=2957
You can also find out about some of other preschool STEM themes on the kids blog. They include:
Trees (Trees in the Library! http://blog.westervillelibrary.org/kids/?p=2917)
Bones (The Foot Bones Connected to the Ankle Bone: http://blog.westervillelibrary.org/kids/?p=2866)
Building/Construction: http://blog.westervillelibrary.org/kids/?p=2777
Birdwatching (This one’s for the birds! http://blog.westervillelibrary.org/kids/?p=2743)
Bridges (Marshmallow Bridges & Building Fun: http://blog.westervillelibrary.org/kids/?p=2484)
Shapes: Circles (Round in a Circle: http://blog.westervillelibrary.org/kids/?p=2317)
During Thanksgiving week, I shared a feast of stories and songs. Food-related storytimes are almost always crowd-pleasers (in my experience anyway!). We started 
with Anne Shelby’s Potluck (Scholastic, 1991) in which friends with names from A to Z bring dishes (alphabetical, of course) to a potluck. I began by asking who knew what a potluck was — and neither the group of first graders nor the all-ages group knew. So that was fun to explain. We sang “Jelly Jelly in My Belly” from Sharon, Lois & Bram’s The Elephant Show. It’s a cumulative song, with new foods being added with each verse, then returning to the chorus of “Jelly, Jelly in My Belly, hip, hip, hip, hooray!”
Song: “Jelly Jelly in My Belly” from Sharon, Lois & Bram’s The Elephant Show
Book: Let’s Eat by Ana Zamorano (Scholastic, 1997)
A family story as much as a food story, with phrases in Spanish sprinkled through the text. Each day of the week a family member is missing (for various reasons — sister is practicing dancing, grandfather is in the middle of telling a story) and each day the mother sighs, “Que pena!” I had the children repeat the mother’s phrase so they were ready on Saturday, when the mother is absent, to fill in for her, just as the boy in the story does.
Action Rhyme: Peanut Butter and Jelly
Peanut, peanut butter and jelly
Peanut, peanut butter, and jelly
First you take the peanuts and you pick em, pick ‘em, pick ’em,
Next you take the peanuts and you smash ‘em, smash ‘em, smash ’em
Then you take the peanuts and you spread ’em, spread ‘em, you spread ‘em out (slowly)
Repeat chorus
Now you take some grapes and you pick em, pick ‘em, pick ’em,
Next you take the grapes and you smash ‘em, smash ‘em, smash ’em
Then you take the grapes and you spread ’em, spread ‘em, you spread ‘em out (slowly)
Repeat chorus
Now you take the sandwich and you bite it, you bite, you bite it, bite it, bite it
Next you take the sandwich and you chew it, you chew it, you chew it, chew it, chew it
Then you take the sandwich and you swallow it, you swallow it, you swallow it all.
Repeat chorus last time – but hum it this time!
Book: Arroz con Leche/Rice Pudding: A Cooking Poem by Jorge Argueta (Groundwood Books/House of Anansi Press, 2010)
This bilingual poem makes making rice pudding seem like an adventure. There are milk waterfalls, singing rice, dancing salt stars and sugar snow, and “foamy waves and clouds” that “turn the pot into sea and sky.” The language is lovely and the illustrations by Fernando Vilela, in muted tones with interesting perspective and bold outlines did capture the children’s attention.
Song: “Spaghetti Legs” by Jim Gill
Other fun food books are Mouse Mess by Linnea Riley (Blue Sky Press, 2007) and One is a Feast for A Mouse, by Judy Cox (Holiday House, 2008). What are your favorite food related songs and stories?
Today’s Rhyme Time, storytime for children 18 months through 3 years, featured rhymes, songs, and books about fall.We started out with David Ezra Stein’s Leaves (G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 2007.) This is bear’s first year and he is disturbed by the leaves falling off the true. Not so upset that he can’t go to sleep though. And when he awakens in spring, new leaves welcome him. Another book with a similar theme is Carin Berger’s Little Yellow Leaf (Greenwillow, 2008), which is about a leaf that just keeps hanging on . . . even until there is snow on the ground. I appreciated the careful word choice in this one, “Not ready, thought the Little Yellow Leaf as a heavy harvest moon bloomed amber in the starry sky.” Berger’s illustrations are also 
notable, and the book is beautifully designed and printed on thick, heavy paper. For preschoolers there is also Leaf Trouble, by Jonathan Emmett, illustrated by Caroline Jayne Church (Chicken House/Scholastic, 2009) about a little squirrel who is also disturbed by the leaves falling and tries to put them back on the trees. Though the illustration styles of all three are very different, they are all very appealing.
We sang “Falling Leaves” to the tune of “Frere Jacques”:
Falling leaves, falling leaves,
All around, all around,
Twirling twirling twirling
Twirling twirling twirling
To the ground, to the ground.
We also did the “Furry, Furry Squirrel” action rhyme from Early Literacy Storytimes @ your library. I introduced this one by saying it was a rhyme about a squirrel and asking the children if they had seen a squirrel and what it looked like. I had three puppets hidden under a blanket (a raccoon, a skunk, a squirrel). We talked about how squirrels have fluffy tails, so we looked at each tail to find the squirrel.
Furry, furry squirrel
Hurry, hurry hop
Scurry up the tree trunk
To the very top.
When you reach the branches
Hurry, turn around
Furry, furry squirrel
Scurry to the ground.
Additional books for preschool and older children include Leaf
Jumpers by Carole Gerber, illustrated by Leslie Evans (Charlesbridge, 2004), Leaf Man by Lois Ehlert (Harcourt, 2005), with the latter inspiring children to make their own leaf creatures.
This week I finished up the summer session of Mother Goose Time, a storytime for young children ages 18 months – 3 years. I tried to include more interactive elements this session, to encourage parents and caregivers to play and explore with their children. One new theme I tried was shapes. Before the program began, I outlined a large square and triangle in masking tape on the carpet. This was relatively easy to do since the carpet of the activity center is already divided into squares. The fi
rst book I introduced was Michael Hall’s second picture book, Perfect Square (Greenwillow, 2011). As the children entered the room they gathered three paper shapes – a red square, a yellow circle, and a blue triangle. Before beginning to read, I had them all hold up the red square and we counted the edges together.
I used the Humpty Dumpty rhyme from Saraj Ghoting and Pamela Martin Diaz’s Early Literacy Storytimes @Your Library: Partnering with Caregivers for Success (ALA, 2006). For this rhyme, children curve each hand into a half circle. They put their hands together to make an egg (a long circle shape), bring them apart when Humpty falls, and at the end, after “all the king’s horses and all the king’s men couldn’t put Humpty together again” shout “But I can!” and bring their hands back together. Repeat. And repeat again.
We counted the sides of the square again and of the triangle. We talked about how the circle had one side that kept going around and around, which they traced with a finger. I asked children 
hold up the yellow circle before we read part of Roseanne Thong’s Round is a Mooncake: a Book of Shapes (illustrated by Grace Lin, Chronicle, 2000) and they looked for the round moon and other round objects in the pictures.
Then I passed out ribbons for a free dance to Greg and Steve’s “Round in a Circle” song, from the CD We All Live Together, Vol. 1. We then all (parents, caregivers, children) joined hands in making a big circle, doing “Circle Songs from Long Ago” which includes Ring around the Rosy and Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush (from Hap Palmer’s Early Childhood Classics: Old Favorites with a new Twist, 1998).
Our last book was Kevin Henkes’ Kitten’s First Full Moon(Greenwillow, 2004). 
Children held up the triangle for the kitten’s pointy ears and the circle for the moon or the bowl as I read the story.
At the end I brought out a tunnel for the children to crawl through and a pop up tent in the shape of a triangle so that they could explore being in a circle or being in a triangle. They were also encouraged to stand in and walk around the shapes on the floor. So we explored shapes in many different ways: visually, kinetically, spatially — looking at shapes, tracing shapes, making shapes with fingers (small motor skills) and with body parts (large motor), being inside shapes, and dancing and singing and reading about shapes.
The shapes storytime was much more fun that I had initially thought it might be. It turned out to be one of my favorite, and most successful, storytimes of the year. I also reminded parents that children have to learn shapes before they can learn to recognize letters. It’s a great early literacy skill!
If you haven’t seen Perfect Square yet, check out this trailer:
I love nonfiction and have been wanting to try reading a nonfiction picture book aloud at a storytime for a little while now. I’ve been collecting ideas and looking at nonfiction with this in mind and thinking of compiliing a list of great non-fiction read alouds. I read non-fiction with my children quite often — they love Steve Jenkins and Seymour Simon, books like Move! and Animal Dads and A Drop of Water and Starry Messenger and . . . you get the idea! I’ve booktalked nonfiction to second and third graders. But one-on-one reading is different than reading to a group. A big, lively group of children ages 2 to 5. So today I read What’s Up,What’s Down? by Lola M. Schaef
er, illustrated by Barbara Bash (Greenwillow, 2002). I started by opening the book to the title page and asking them what was different about it. Most caught on right away — it’s sideways! Oh, so there’s something different about this book. We followed the arrows up . . . and then on the page with the moon you turn the book around to “go down.” Again I asked them, what’s different about this page and they noticed the upside down writing. I asked if we should stand on our heads to read it, but they suggested turning the book over instead. This book does a wonderful job of conveying perspective through layout. And the slight text that accompanies it is beautifully worded . . . each word has clearly been chosen with care. We then played with concepts of “up” and “down” through the rest of the program. We ended with Laurie Berkner’s song “Running down the hill” in which a wildflower comes to life when the children aren’t watching and runs, dances, jumps and spins down the hill. The song begins very quietly and this is quite a lively program, so we started by pretending to be seeds under the ground, lying down and closing our eyes (so as not to get dirt in them!) and then slowly getting up and dancing around. The book introduced this new perspective (it opens with a mole digging through the earth) and then the children were able to act the song out. and return to being a still flower in the end. They really seemed to enjoy it — which made it so much fun!
On the 4th Friday evening from April – September, the city of Westerville has an community block party uptown. The library participates by reading stories to kids and families inside a local furniture company (nice rocking chairs!) The August theme was “Dog Days” and people were encouraged to bring their dogs. So of course we brought along lots of dog-themed books! It’s not a formal storytime, but we just read as people stop by, usually allowing the children to choose from the books we’ve brought. We even had a few dogs stop by!
I knew there were lots of books about dogs before I even started choosing books, but even so I underestimated just how many there are. I’ll just highlight a few favorites here.
Bark, George! by Jules Ffeffer (HarperCollins, 1999) is one of the best read-alouds of all time. It’s hilarious, so improbable and outrageous (which kids love), such appealing pictures — it can’t miss.
Officer Buckle & Gloria by Peggy Rathmann. (Putnam, 1995) Pictures are integral to the text in this book (winner of the Caldecott), so make sure kids have time to look at them. Kids will love Officer Buckle’s safety rules (no standing on swivel chairs) and Gloria, just as the kids in the story itself. Also a fine video version from Weston Woods.
The Stray Dog by Marc Simont (HarperCollins, 2001). An all time family favorite, I was delighted to see how well this worked as a read-aloud and how much children enjoyed it. It is a lovely story, with very evocative pictures that extend the simple, moving text. Discover how Willie, a little stray dog, captures a family’s heart and gains a home.
Dogku by Andrew Clements, illustrated by Tim Bowers. (Simon & Schuster, 2007.) Another story of a stray dog finding a home, wreaking a bit of doggy mischief, and indulging in doggy delights told entirely in haiku. Fun concept, nicely executed.
“Let’s Get a Pup!”said Kate by Bob Graham (Candlewick, 2001). Okay, I love almost everything Bob Graham does. His stories are sentimental without being cloying, his families are real and fun and young (mom has a nose ring in this one), the feelings are true. The family visits a shelter to choose their dog — and ends up with a bit of a surprise. If you just can’t get enought, there’s a sequel, “The Trouble with Dogs” said Dad (Candlewick, 2007). Hurrah!
Good Boy, Fergus! by David Shannon (Blue Sky Press/Scholastic, 2006). Though Fergus doesn’t come when he’s called, or really do any of the tricks he is asked to do, he is still a “good boy” throughout.
Maggie’s Ball by Lindsay Barrett George (Greenwillow, 2010). Maggie has a ball, but needs a friend to play with. A great read-aloud for toddlers and younger preschoolers.
Dogs by Emily Gravett (Simon and Shuster, 2010). Gravett’s illustrations of dogs are a treat to behold.
Other doggy t
ales:
Little Dog Poems by Kristine O’Connell George. Illustrated by June Otani. (Clarion, 1999).
Biscuit in the Cupboard by Barbara Nichol, illustrated by Philippe Beha. (Stoddart Kids, 1997). Delightfully funny poems about dogs.
Wet Dog! by Elise Broach; illustrated by David Catrow (Dial, 2005).
Dog and Bear: Two Friends/Three Stories by Laura Vaccaro Seeger (Roaring Brook, 2007) and Dog and Bear: Two’s Company (Seeger, 2008) and Dog and Bear: Three to Get Ready) (Seeger, 2009).
Dogs, Dogs, Dogs by Leslea Newman (Simon and Schuster, 2002).
Whistle for Willie by Ezra Jack Keats (Viking, 1964).
I’ve always loved Fred Astaire. To me, h
e will always represent the essence of grace. And he was funny and endearing as well — with a smile that was contagious. So, in honor of Fred Astaire’s birthday, May 10, here are a few books and ideas for a toe-tapping storytime.
Footwork: The Story of Fred and Adele Astaire by Roxanne Orgill (Candlewick, 2007).
Dance by Bill T. Jones & Susan Kuklin (Hyperion, 1998.) Dynamic and striking simple photographs illustrate Kuklin’s poetic text to convey the feel of dance .
Elephants Cannot Dance! By Mo Willems (Hyperion, 2009) Encourage children to try movements as piggy & elephant do. This is a great time to talk about opposites.
Choose a poem to share from Song and Dance Poems selected by Lee Bennett Hopkins (Simon & Schuster, 1997).
Have children count along with Arthur Dorros’ Ten 
Go Tango (HarperCollins, 2000).
Color Dance by Ann Jonas (Greenwillow, 1989). Introduce children to the wonderful vocabulary of color with words like chartreuse & vermilion. Bring colorful scarves and have them dance to music -– I like something lively and jazzy like Louis Prima’s “Sing Sing Sing”.
More books about dancing are:
Ackerman, Karen. Song and Dance Man. Alfred A. Knopf, 1988.
Cooper, Elisha. Dance! Greenwillow, 2001.
Dillon, Leo & Diane. Rap a Tap Tap: Here’s Bojangles – Think of That! Blue Sky Press/Scholastic, 2002.
Esbensen, Barbara Juster. Dance with Me. HarperCollins, 1995.
London, Jonathan. Sun Dance, Water Dance. Dutton, 2001. (great for summer storytime)
Martin Jr., Bill and John Archambault. Barn Dance. 1986.
Ryder, Joanne. Earthdance. Henry Holt, 1996.
Shields, Carol Diggory. Saturday Night at the Dinosaur Stomp.Candlewick, 1997.
Wahl, Jan. Bear Dance. Creative Editions, 2008.
Bookmuse 