Category Archives: Storytime

Feltboard, Storytime

Five Little Monkeys

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And another of my feltboard favorites, used often and with great gusto:  Five Little Monkeys Sitting in a Tree, which I sometimes use as a simple fingerplay, and other times use in conjunction with Eileen Christelow’s book of the same name.  The monkey that appears to be white in this photo is actually a pale blue (far more attractive).  When presenting the story on the feltboard, I always have the children in attendance help me count out the monkeys, and sometimes we also name the colors of the various monkeys. This feltboard story helps me to remember that simplicity is often the best approach when making felt figures.  Click on image to enlarge:

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Feltboard, Storytime

Bear Snores On

It’s time to update my online documentation of my library of homemade feltboard stories.  Today’s featured story is Karma Wilson’s Bear Snores On, one of my storytime favorites.  Notable in this feltboard interpretation are the awake bear’s moveable eyebrows, so that he can go from intimidating/scary to upset/crying to happy.  Unfortunately, these photos don’t do justice to two of my favorite figures in this story, the crow and the wren, who just look like a brown blotch and a black blotch in the photo but actually look pretty cool in person.  Click on image to enlarge:

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Storytime

Wardrobe malfunction

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Yup, even children’s librarians have wardrobe malfunctions.  But not quite like Janet Jackson’s…

In the middle of today’s Mother Goose on the Loose Storytime for the very youngest kids, I was singing my heart out while we all rang our jingle bells:  “We ring our bells together, we ring our bells together, we ring our bells together because it’s fun to do.  Ring them up HIGH!!!”  >kablam<  …bracelet explosion…

The glass bead bracelet that I was wearing literally exploded while my right arm was high in the air, waving the bell around.  Meaning that glass beads and the metal spacer beads went FLYING around the story room.  Nice choking hazard for the little ones, eh?

I think I turned BRIGHT red as I scrambled around the room to collect the rolling beads, dumping them in the storytime drum while trying to explain to the parents that my bracelet had just broken.

No harm, no foul – no one choked, no one stepped on a bead and took a header – but this definitely proved that old adage: “Expect the unexpected.”

Storytime

Library Lion

We had such a good time reading Library Lion by Michelle Knudsen in yesterday’s preschool storytime.  There was a small crowd (no doubt due to parental Christmas shopping and frigid weather), but the four children – two sets of siblings – who attended absolutely loved the story.  The youngest of the four did ask a lot of “Why?” questions:  “Why did the lion leave the library?”  “Why doesn’t Mr. McBee like the lion?”  “Why did Mr. McBee go find the lion?”, but we were able to answer the why questions and keep the story moving.

Another highlight of yesterday’s storytime was the appearance of the owl puppet to assist with the telling of Wow!  Said the Owl by Tim Hopgood.  Though the story doesn’t really lend itself to telling with a puppet, it gave me an opportunity to use my favorite puppet.  Owl, who once had a name but I’ve forgotten it, blinks his eyes and turns his head and is so realistic that I have actually fooled kids into thinking there’s a real owl in the library.  Owl also serves as my familiar when I dress up as a witch for Halloween.

Most of all, though, yesterday’s storytime was great because it was small and I could interact with each child in a meaningful way, answering their questions about the stories and even introducing the two sets of siblings to each other.  It was a lovely last storytime of 2009 – no storytimes for the next two weeks! – and we all left the story room happy.

Storytime

Puppets at storytime

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Anyone who knows my family knows that we have an odd affinity with puppets, and anyone who knows that wouldn’t be the least bit surprised to learn that I accumulated dozens of Folkmanis puppets in my tenure as manager of the Toy Shop.  (I even got to meet one of the Folkmanis puppet designers one day when he came to shop in the store, and I got all googily-eyed and star-struck and almost got up the guts to ask him to sign a couple of puppets for me.  Almost.  I still regret not asking him.)

But there’s a distance to travel from loving puppets to successfully integrating puppets into storytimes.  I’ve been working hard at using puppets in my storytimes, and have learned that I have to forget that I’m a self-conscious semi-middle-aged woman who has her hand up the hiney of a stuffed animal* in front of a crowd of adults and children.  The magic is hopelessly lost the minute I start thinking, “Geez, these parents must think I’m some kind of whacko.”  Conversely, the magic is created when I kick aside my pride and have fun with the puppet.  I’ve even seen some adults get sucked into the moment, giggling along with their kids when the monkey puppets clap enthusiastically for the crowd at the conclusion of “Two Little Monkeys” in the infant storytime.  And I’ve seen grown-ups react like their children when the cat puppet purrs or the dog puppet barks and pants or the lion puppet roars.

Once I figured out how to use puppets in an adjunct way at storytimes – to introduce the theme of the week, or to supplement a finger play or song – then I started to tackle the issue of how to tell a memorized story with the help of puppets to preschoolers.  I began by using Margaret Read MacDonald’s Twenty Tellable Tales as my primary resource.  MacDonald has a lot of great stories here, and I’ve sucessfully told many of them, but I also struggle with combining the memorization with the puppet presentation.  Some weeks I’ve allowed myself to get nervous about getting the words exactly right, and then the whole story falls completely flat.  And then there are weeks when I just don’t have the time available to memorize a story, and I try to tell it from photocopied sheets laid on the table next to me.  Once again, hard to integrate the puppet presentation with reading my cheat sheet; at times the kids have become distracted by my reading and the magic, of course, is lost.

So I’ve tried something different the last two times I’ve done puppet stories at the preschool storytime: I’ve chosen simple picture books that feature animal characters for which I have matching puppets.  I don’t try to memorize the story, but rather I lay the picturebook flat on my lap (if the story can be told completely with the puppets) or I hold the picturebook up with my left hand and use my right hand for puppeteering (if the story needs the pictures and the puppets to be told).  This approach has worked better for me, and gotten a much better response from the audience.  The reason it works better?  I think it has to do with the stories, since I usually choose newer picturebooks that feature stories that are contemporary, not traditional.  Much as I love MacDonald’s book, some of her stories have that traditional folkloric edge that doesn’t sit well with today’s parents.  Today’s parents don’t like the scary or faintly macabre, and I know that, and get nervous when I use a tale that has those elements.  And today’s kids aren’t used to that type of story, and don’t respond as well to the traditional structure as they do to a newly published picturebook that is written in the style with which they are most familiar.

I’m still working out how best to use puppets in my storytimes, and how often to use them.  I’d love to hear from any of you who do use puppets – what works, what doesn’t, what’s awesome, what’s terrible.  Please share!!

*One of my best friends in college, Collin, used to make fun of my puppet usage by saying, “Ewwww!  That’s gross!!!!  You have your hand up the bear’s butt!!!!!  EWWWWWW!!!”  Collin’s words tend to echo in my head at storytime if I don’t block them out…

Picture book review, Storytime

Recipe for a great storytime

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Yesterday’s preschool storytime was a BLAST – for me and for the kids.  Here’s what made it so fun:

“Open, Shut Them” ~ The group has learned our opening song well, and everyone now sings along with me.

Otis by Loren Long ~ The kids really, really, really liked this book.  They listened with rapt attention; reacted with concerned faces when the calf is stuck in the mud pond; and nearly cheered when the calf got free.  When the story was over, I asked the group what they thought of the story, and they simultaneously yelled, “I LOVED it!!!!”  Though some reviewers indicated that this book might be more for adults than kids, my experience yesterday tells me that it will become a modern classic with kids.

Ready for Anything! by Keiko Kasza ~ A silly story that doesn’t push its message too much, Ready for Anything gently deals with a character who worries excessively.  The kids liked this book a lot (though not with the level of love they expressed for Otis), and we had a good time reading it together.  One girl even predicted the surprise ending, which was fun for us all.

“The Silly Dance Contest” from Jim Gill’s album, Jim Gill Sings the Sneezing Song and Other Contagious Tunes ~ We have all of Jim Gill’s albums in the library collection, and they’ve become so popular that I had to use some programming money from the Friends to buy copies exclusively for use in my storytimes.  These albums are popular for good reason: Jim Gill “gets” kids.  We had a great time yesterday bopping around to this song, giggling so loudly that the parents came to observe through the story room window.  My eternal thanks to Maureen A. for telling me about Jim Gill a couple of years ago!

Jeremy Draws a Monster by Peter McCarty ~ I was worried that this quiet story might not work well in a storytime, but it was a hit.  It even provoked a discussion about how Jeremy changes from the beginning of the book to the end (and a child started the conversation, not me). 

“The Itsy Bitsy Spider,” Abby’s version ~ This week I decided to add a few more layers to this song, going beyond Hugh Hanley’s “Huge Enormous Spider” and “Very Quiet Spider.”  Those two additions are so much fun that I added the very fast spider, the very slow spider, and the very loud spider (ending, of course, with the very quiet spider, for sanity’s sake).  The toddlers on Monday had a good time with these additions, but the preschoolers yesterday REALLY hammed it up. 

And, for our final story, I pulled out my feltboard version of The Very Quiet Cricket by Eric Carle.  And the zebra finger taster puppet somehow thought that each child yesterday tasted like a kind of bug – butterfly, mosquito, dragonfly… – which made for a lot of final giggles before we all belted out “If You’re Happy and You Know It.”

Storytime

Shortage at MGOL

Here’s a definite sign of the poor economy: attendance at my two infant storytimes has picked up significantly.  Parents obviously can’t afford to pay for infant music classes, so they’re coming to the library; while at the library, they’re finding that their local children’s librarian offers a curriculum-based, fun, educational, and very social program.  For free.

The Tuesday morning Mother Goose on the Loose storytime used to have an average attendance of twenty adults and kids, but in recent weeks the average attendance has been thirty-five.  The Wednesday morning MGOL program has traditionally been rather small, sometimes only five attendees, but this fall it has blossomed into a strong program, too, with current average attendance close to thirty.  With this number of attendees, there’s absolutely no spare room in the story room, and I’m actually wondering whether I need to think about moving the program up to the very large program room upstairs.  Or, perhaps, I need to add another MGOL program to spread out the attendees and keep the program in the child-friendly space of the story room.

And one more problem has arisen.  I don’t have enough musical intruments to accomodate everyone.  On Tuesday, I had to rethink my lesson plan mid-way through the storytime, when I realized that there were more than twenty-four people in the room, and I only had twenty-four wooden rattles to offer to the crowd.  Quick switch then to the jingle bells (we own thirty-six bells), and we used all but one of those.

I’ve decided that it’s time to use some of my program budget from the Friends of the Library to purchase more musical instruments and scarves from Musikgarten.  With about half of my program attendance coming from storytimes, this seems like a very prudent use of the funds available for programming, especially considering that with proper care these instruments will last for many years (as opposed to hiring a performer – when the performance is done, it’s done).  And the instruments are really lovely, very well-made, very durable, very easy to wash and maintain.

As for the sudden surge in attendance – will people continue to come to the library for infant programs, even if the economy recovers?  I think so.  The parents who are attending my storytime have compared it to ones they used to pay money for, and they’re happy enough with what I offer to recommend it to their friends and family.  Free is good, but free with quality and educational value is even better.

Children, Picture book review, Storytime, Teaching

Preschool Storytime & Circle Weave

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Yesterday was an art week for the preschool storytime, and for our project I chose “Circle Weave” from MaryAnn Kohl’s book Preschool Art, my favorite resource for great art ideas for ages four to seven.

Before the project, though, I read three books to the kids.  I realize I’ve been remiss lately and haven’t been reporting on what books have been a hit in storytime, so here is a brief rundown on the books I used yesterday and the reactions of the kids to each book:

First up was Scaredy Squirrel at Night by Melanie Watt.  I broke the cardinal rule of storytimes, and didn’t preview this book before I read it aloud.  Big mistake. Though cute, this book doesn’t lend itself well to a storytime read aloud (which I should have remembered from reading the first two Scaredy Squirrel books to storytimes in the past).  Too many little details in little pictures – the kids had a tough time seeing what was going on in the pictures and also understanding the story line.  I’d still recommend this book, but for a lap sit reading with one or two children; in a lap sit, kids would be able to really study the pictures and also ask questions about what is happening in the story.

The kids were an exceptionally patient, sweet group, though, and lasted well through the first story, even though they weren’t totally engaged.  Next up:  Rhyming Dust Bunnies by Jan Thomas.  I love Thomas’s illustrations, and I love the all-out goofiness of the storyline: four dust bunnies finding rhyming words – all except Bob, who keeps saying things that don’t rhyme, like “Look out!”  Bob, of course, is the voice of reason, trying to warn his fellow dust bunnies that there is a broom and a vacuum cleaner after them.  I thought the kids would find this situation funny, but in fact several were deeply disturbed (and I do mean deeply disturbed) that the dust bunnies were being harmed.  I tried to explain that dust bunnies are just bunches of fluffy dirt that we all clean up, but my explanation was met with furrowed, worried brows.

After that flop, I was ready to move right on to the art project, but H. pointed out that I still had one book left to read.  So we read Potato Joe by Keith Baker, a book that I had put in my preschool storytime pile a couple of weeks ago.  I don’t know what I was thinking.  The book is just too young for this crowd, and though they were patient with it, and counted the potatoes aloud with me, they were clearly bored by it.  I’m not condemning this book, though; it would be an excellent choice for my toddler storytime, and I will definitely use it for that group in the future.

On to “Circle Weave.”  For this project, I pre-cut a couple of dozen five inch diameter circles from poster board of various colors.  I also pre-cut two foot lengths of yarn; I had bought yarn in five different colors, two of which are cool multi-color skeins of varying shades.  Before embarking on the project, I introduced it to the kids by showing them the pile of poster board circles.  Then I showed them a circle with six small triangular slits cut around the edge (see Kohl’s book for an illustration and details on how to do this).  We talked about how the circle with the slits was different from the other circles, and I told the kids that their first assignment was to cut their own slits.

This proved to be way too much of a challenge for the kids.  I had incorrectly assumed that parents would come in to the room to help out with the slit cutting, but many of the adults had very young children they needed to watch and thus were unable to assist.  Luckily, none of the kids had a meltdown when they struggled with cutting, and luckily, I was able to quickly cut slits in stacks of circles.  But there were ten dicey minutes at the start of this project where I thought for sure it would be an absolute failure.  All of the kids were frustrated with the cutting, some of the kids were having a really tough time with taping the ends of yarn to the back of their circle (one boy pulled off two feet of scotch tape and looked up at me with puzzled, desperate eyes), and one little boy totally didn’t understand that we only need to use one piece of yarn at a time.

But suddenly the tide turned, and everyone started to have fun.  Some kids did straight weaving, lacing the yarn in and out of the slits, but other kids got incredibly creative.  We had necklaces, earrings, bracelets, and paper dogs being walked on yarn leashes.  We had letters woven on to the circles.  Each child kept asking for another circle, please, and each child made at least five woven circles.  One little boy kept leaving the room – I thought he was bored and leaving, but he was actually delivering woven circles to his mother, then he’d come back to make another.  The kids kept at this project for a full half hour, and only stopped when their parents came in to say it was time to go.

This art project was a very good lesson for me as a teacher/facilitator: don’t give up if you think the project isn’t working.  Have patience, let it evolve, let the children be challenged for a bit, and allow them to come up with their own solutions to the difficult task given to them.  If you give the kids the space and freedom to work, they will end up surprising you with their creativity and artistic joy.  And then everyone leaves happy: teacher, children, and parents.

Book groups, Library events, Storytime

Busy busy busy

This was an unusually busy week – four storytimes, two book groups, Game Hour, and a special Halloween program with Greg McAdams.  Which is really only two more programs than a usual week, but it felt like a lot more than that!

Jennifer is on vacation this week (I hope you’re having a great few days off, Jennifer!), so we decided that I would meet with her 4th grade book group so that they could have a meeting in October.  They are a terrific bunch of kids, and we had a very productive discussion about Patrick Carman’s The Dark Hills Divide.  The kids and I agreed that the first half of the book is a bit slow, a bit tedious, and a bit boring, but the second half of the book gets creative, fast-paced, and interesting.  Personally, I felt like the book was an awfully tough slog, but the kids seemed to mostly like it.

That was Monday’s book group – Tuesday’s book group was the 5th graders, and we discussed E. Nesbit’s Five Children and It.  I’ve used Five Children and It for book group discussions before, partly because I enjoy introducing kids to an author they most likely won’t discover on their own, and partly because the book generates great discussion.  For this meeting, I also played a portion of the movie of Five Children and It (starring Kenneth Branagh and Freddy Highmore), and we spent a fair amount of time talking about why the movie people changed the plot and setting of the story so much from the original.  This 5th grade group is another terrific bunch of kids, and I really enjoyed hearing their thoughts on this book and literature in general.

Then there were the storytimes…  I’ve been mixing in new Toddler Storytimes here and there with the ones I’ve already created (usually four weeks of established lesson plans, then one week of a new plan, then back to old plans), and somehow I managed to schedule a new Toddler Storytime for this week, when I already had two book groups to prepare for and only Sunday off.  Bad planning, which resulted in me working all day Sunday and then skipping my drawing class on Monday night.  But in the end, this Circus storytime worked out quite well, though there was an added element that day: an early intervention teacher came to storytime to observe one of her students.  I wasn’t bothered by her presence, but I found myself observing this teacher while she observed her student, which distracted me a wee bit. 

Tuesday’s Infant Storytime was full to bursting, and it was one of those storytimes where I finished really feeling like I was on my game, that I had turned out a pretty successful program.  There was a lot of positive energy in the room that day, and most of the kids were about the same age, which always makes the program run more smoothly.  Not to mention that there was a great bunch of grownups in the room who stayed on top of monitoring their small charges.  I really appreciate it when the other adults in the room keep the kids from crossing my “invisible line” that runs just in front of my feet, because it is SO hard to stay focused on my presentation when there is an adorable little person trying to dig one of my stuffed animals or musical instruments out of the bags by my chair.  Thank you, everyone!

Wednesday’s infant storytime wasn’t such a success, though.  I don’t know what it was, maybe it was leftover migraine ditziness from the afternoon before, but I was just not as good as I’d like.  Same exact lesson plan as Tuesday, but I didn’t do as well with the material as I did on Tuesday.  Go figure.

And then there was the Preschool Storytime on Thursday.  Usually I have a good sized crowd for this storytime, and since it was week three of my rotation – the most popular week, art week – I thought I’d have a full house.  But the weather was unseasonably lovely, and I think everyone decided to go to the playground.  In the end, only one family attended: two siblings of the right age for the storytime, a much younger sibling, and their nanny.  The nanny, who I’ve gotten to know in the past few weeks (she’s new to the family, but clearly not new to being a nanny), did a great job of sitting with the youngest sibling through the stories, then subtly removing him and herself from the room once it was time for art.  And the other two siblings and I had such a giggly good time creating “Pumpkin Mystery Faces” from MaryAnn Kohl’s book.  First I showed them how we could play around with the pumpkin’s features by using my felt board (I had figured this would be the best way to introduce the art project to the group without prejudicing their art, since felt is definitely different from paper), then we moved over to the tables and cut out black construction paper eyes, noses, and other shapes.  I had already primed our bucket full of paper shapes, so once the kids were ready to move on to the actual project, it was easy enough for them to root around in the bucket (no peeking!) and pull out shapes to plop down on their orange paper circles.  We laughed and laughed at the funny faces we made, and then eventually I brought out the glue so that each child could take a pumpkin face home.  The sister, who is five, made a very recognizable jack o’ lantern, but the boy, who is just four, had a massively good time layering on as much glue and black paper as he could, until the orange circle was heavy with both.

Game Hour was run by four fabulous teen volunteers, so that I only had to keep an ear and eye out for the group to make sure that everything was going well in there.  We’re getting quite a group of Game Hour regulars, and boy do they have a great time playing games together.

And last, but certainly not least, Greg McAdams came on Wednesday to present his Halloween Magic Safety Show.  Greg has come to the library two other times in my tenure, and each time I’ve been very impressed by his ability to establish good behavior ground rules in a way that is firm yet funny.  And I love that Greg mixes in a healthy dose of humor and talk about books and libraries with his magic.  I had wondered how Greg would mix Halloween safety messages into his show – would it be too didactic? – but his talk about safety was very subtle and spot-on.  I saw a lot of parents nodding happily when he talked about staying with your group when you’re trick-or-treating, letting your parents check your candy before you eat any of it, using a flashlight, and not talking to strangers.  Thanks Greg – you did an awesome job!

Of course there was a lot more to my week than these eight programs, but it’s almost eight and I haven’t had dinner, so you’ll just have to wait for the funny and cute stories from the rest of my week.

Librarianship, Storytime

surreal

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Tuesday morning I had a moment in the midst of storytime.  We were doing a lap bounce (“The Grand Old Duke of York”) and somehow I went on autopilot while leading the group and took in the scene as if I were an outsider.  A semicircle of adults around the room, singing while bouncing and lifting their children in unison, following my lead and my rhythm as I demonstrated the lap bounce with Pepper the border collie puppet in my own lap.  How frickin’ surreal.  I mean, seriously.  Five years ago I would have laughed if you had told me I’d be leading a large group in song while bouncing a dog puppet in my lap.  And here were all these sincere faces following along with me.  Not a single person on the verge of laughing.  Seriously.  Part of me wants to videotape myself leading one of these storytimes, just to see what it’s all about, really; but I know that any confidence I currently have would be totally shattered by watching a video of myself.  So I’ll leave my observations of myself to the odd surreal out-of-body moments like yesterday’s.

And then, fast forward to this evening, at my first meditation class: we had just finished a walking meditation around the room, and had eased back to our chairs.  “Stand in front of your chair,” said our instructor, “but don’t sit down yet.”  Which is what I say as a lead-in to “Handy Spandy” in the infant storytime.  It was all I could do to hold back from launching into the rhyme: “Handy Spandy, sugary candy, we all jump IN.  Handy Spandy, sugary candy, we all jump OUT.  Handy Spandy sugary candy, we all jump UP.  Handy Spandy, sugary candy, we all sit down.”  Thankfully, I was able to restrain myself, but how odd that my first reaction in that situation was to want to take charge and lead a sit-down action rhyme.

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[For those of you who might be wondering, I LOVE my meditation class.  LOVE IT.  A great bunch of people (we shared a huge laugh together, which is the best kind of bonding experience), and, most importantly, meditation actually seems to work for me.  Yay.]