Month: March 2014

Road Work Ahead!

This was a special program that I did during the Summer of 2013 for “Dig Into Reading!” Families with kids ages 3-7 were invited to spend an afternoon celebrating all things construction!

The Plan

Books

roadworkahead

Construction Countdown by K.C. Olson
The Construction Crew by Lynn Meltzer
Tip Tip Dig Dig by Emma Garcia

Extension Activities

Flannelboard: “Red Crane, Red Crane, What Do You See?”

Action Rhyme: “Cranes”
Cranes reach up,
Cranes reach down,
Cranes reach out,
And all around.
Credit: Pre-K Fun

Fingerplay: “Five Little Nails”
Five little nails, standing straight and steady
Here I come with my hammer ready!
Bam, bam, bam! That nail goes down.
Now there’s just four nails to pound.
(count down)
Credit: Mel’s Desk

Games

“Foreman Says”
You really can never go wrong with a special version of Simon Says. I gave the kids construction hats that I bought for the program to wear while we played. I put mine down at one point and wound up sitting on it, smashing it. I’ve never seen preschoolers erupt in such laughter.

“Dump Truck Relay”
The website linked above can give you full instructions, but basically I had two dump truck with packing peanuts that I had painted to look like rocks and two buckets. I divided the kids up into two teams and they raced to get their rocks from the trucks to the buckets. They had great fun with this one, even if I didn’t really “pronounce” a winner.

“Treasure Excavation”
Very simple way to hand out prizes. I had a bin full of shredded paper and let the kids dig using sandbox shovels for their ring pops. I figured that was as close to diamonds as I was gonna be able to afford!

Craft

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I got this craft from Kids Craft Weekly. I let the kids do their own cutting and I had plenty of parents around to help the youngest ones out. I did keep the hole punchers at a single table with the brads so that teen volunteers could help with the construction aspect.

How It Went

Did I mention the part where I sat on my hat? Basically, not even ring pops could compare with how awesome that moment was! Their favorite book was probably “Tip Tip Dig Dig” and they really liked that I used the same illustrations to make the flannelboard. The craft was definitely doable for the kids, but I had a few that struggled to use the scissors, which makes me all the more determined to give them more opportunities when possible!

March 12, 2014 6 Comments Short URL, Family Storytime

Guest Post: Sarah Bean Thompson!

My dear, dear friend Sarah is on the ballot for the 2016 Caldecott Committee. I think she’s an unbelievably passionate librarian and she sure knows her way around award committees! I am in love with the different ways she’s worked to introduce her patrons to Caldecott winners and honor books and I know that she would be a great asset to the Caldecott Committee! (She’s definitely got my vote!!)

But here’s her post in her own words!

—

Sarah Bean Thompson is a Youth Services Manager and blogs at www.greenbeanteenqueen.com She has served on the 2013 Printz Committee, 2014 Cybils, and is on the ballot for the 2016 Caldecott Committee.

One of my favorite parts of storytime is seeing the kids faces light up when I introduce them to a book and they get lost in the story with me. In honor of the 75th Anniversary of the Caldecott Medal, I knew I wanted to introduce Caldecott winners and honor books to my preschool crowd. So I themed my entire Spring storytime session around Caldecott titles. And I had a blast as the kids and I discovered Caldecott books and discussed what we thought of the illustrations in each one.

What surprised me the most was how much they responded to some of the older titles I read. I was never sure how the kids would respond to the older titles, especially since some of these don’t have bright, colorful illustrations.

One of their favorite books ended up being Frog Went-a Courtin’. They loved looking at the pictures in this one and seeing what animals were there. They thought the idea of a frog and a mouse getting married was hilarious and with the turn of each page, they kept asking “did they get married?” They were very engaged in this one and it was so fun to see.

Another book that surprised me was Play With Me. At the beginning of the book, I said how the girl only wanted to play with the animals. After each subsequent turn of the page, I had one preschooler call out “but she just wants to play!!” The rest of the group caught on and by the end of the book they were emphatically calling out that the girl just wanted to play with the animals! Of course they were thrilled when she got her wish and the animals came near here in the end.

I love watching how kids respond to picture books and I look forward to each storytime that I do because I think there’s nothing better than reading and sharing books with kids (and their grown ups!)

—

ALA Elections run from March 19th through April 25th. For more information, please visit ALA Election Information.

March 11, 2014 0 Comments Short URLAnnouncements

Dinosaurs!

The Plan

Books

dinossummer14

Dini Dinosaur by Karen Beamont
Dinosaur Vs. the Library by Bob Shea
Inside-Outside Dinosaurs by Roxie Munro
Shape by Shape by Suse MacDonald

Extension Activities

Flannelboard: “Ten Little Dinosaurs”

Action Rhyme: “Dinosaur, Dinosaur”
Dinosaur, dinosaur, turn around
Dinosaur, dinosaur, touch the ground
Dinosaur, dinosaur, reach up high
Dinosaur, dinosaur, wink one eye
Dinosaur, dinosaur, touch your nose
Dinosaur, dinosaur, touch your toes
Dinosaur, dinosaur, slap your knees
Dinosaur, dinosaur, sit down please
Credit: Modified from Childhood

Action Rhyme: Dinosaurs”
Spread your arms, way out wide
Fly like Pteranodon, soar and glide
Bend to the floor, head down low
Move like Stegosaurus, long ago
Reach up tall, try to be
As tall as Apatosaurus eating on a tree
Using your claws, grumble and growl
Just like Tyrannosaurus on the prowl
Credit: Children Museum of New Hampshire

Craft

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I bought Crayola model magic in a classroom pack and let the kids create their own dinosaurs. I still think mine looks more like a cat than a dinosaur, but that’s life. The kids had a great time and they really enjoyed creating one dinosaur to mash it up to create another.

How It Went

Thursday morning
Dinosaur themed storytimes are a guaranteed crowd-pleaser. I had a lot of success this time with “Dini Dinosaur”. But…Bob Shea always steals the show when it comes to dinosaur books. This group was super settled today and had a lot of parent involvement which was good because I had nearly thirty kids there!

Friday morning

My Friday morning group is always so pumped for storytime! I love how excited they are about reading. Again, Bob Shea stole the show but this group also loved “Inside Outside Dinosaurs.” And I love reading a book like that because of the great vocabulary that the kids get with the dinosaur names.

March 10, 2014 8 Comments Short URL, Family Storytime

ALSC: Play in the Library!

newalscblog

Yesterday, I posted over at the ALSC blog about an easy way to incorporate play in the library. Also, you can see a picture of part of my new library!

March 9, 2014 2 Comments Short URLALSC Post

In Case You Missed It: Winter 2014

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It’s baaaaack! The hiatus of ICYMI was almost entirely accidental. Summer reading planning hit, my sister got married, my grandfather fell and was diagnosed with Parkinson’s, I decided to job search and then got a new job and now here we are.

I had been saving stuff since NOVEMBER in my Feedly reader. I decided to just do 2014 posts and wipe the slate clean. I’m hoping to make this seasonal since it’s such a time-intensive post to write, but obviously I want to keep sharing the AMAZING things that my INCREDIBLE colleagues are doing in their libraries.

So, without further ado…In Case You Missed It!

    ALA Elections

  • 3.7.14 Kelly is on the ballot for Printz Committee this year. She lays out all the reasons why you should vote for her and I’ll add my own here: I served with Kelly on Outstanding Books for the College Bound and can personally attest to her dedication and incredible value as a committee member. Kelly is someone you want on your team because she truly gives it her all. I know she’ll be an asset to her fellow committee members, her chair, and that she will give careful, serious consideration to all books nominated.
    Libraries & Librarianship

  • 2.12.14 Abby got tips and tricks for reading aloud! A must-read for new and seasoned librarians.
  • 2.19.14 Marge encourages and reminds us to share what we know with others. This really resonated with me; I never intended Storytime Katie to be a resource for others but my life is richer because of the online connections that I’ve made because of the blog. I don’t know what I would do with you all!
  • 3.5.14 Amy writes at Storytime Underground about how the YS profession needs to start shouting that our work has value and is important and that we need to share it if we’re going to change how people perceive us. So, arguably the single most important post in this round-up.
    Outreach & Partnerships

  • 1.13.14 Marge partnered with a local yoga instructor (full disclosure: my dear, dear friend Rachel!) to collaborate on a yoga storytime. I love this kind of unconventional partnership and already have this in the works at my new library!
  • 1.30.14 Brooke gave us the rundown on her preschool tour, based this year on Dinosaur Vs. the Library!
  • 2.18.14 Marge talks about her library’s new program that encourages all staff members to get involve in programming. A circulation staff member reached out to international students from the local university and had a wonderful global countries & cultures program for the kids!
  • 3.5.14 Lisa created an AMAZING Kindergarten Literacy Night based around The Pigeon. It was held in the library, but I’m counting it as outreach since it was a partnership/school-requested event. I love the activities that Lisa planned, especially that sweet Pigeon flannelboard!
    Preschool Programming

  • 1.22.14 Amy rocked out with the parachute play program and managed to make a program work even when the iPod didn’t!
  • 2.7.14 Amy gave us a way to get out that winter cooped-up energy with her Preschool/Toddler Obstacle Course! I think I need to start hoarding Baker & Tyler boxes and shelving boxes and all those boxed that the library sees every day.
  • 2.10.14 Anne shared her awesome Mother Goose Games program and all I can say is: I know what I’m doing Summer 2016.
  • 2.12.14 & 2.13.14 Lisa writes up her latest Play to Learn program, based on Go Away, Big Monster! She also posted about the creation of the color wheels featured in the program in another post. I want to steal this program SO MUCH. What a great literacy program!!
  • 2.13.14 Meg isn’t afraid to embrace STEM anymore with her shapes PreSchool Explorers program! I love Meg’s willingness to step out of her comfort zone to do a great program for her kids.
  • 3.5.14 Amy did a great hands-on art program: Little Learners. After a special message to the parents to remember their patience, Amy gave the kids scissors to make some Kandinsky inspired pieces. I think Amy’s book choices were spot-on and I’m sure the kids had a great time!
    Storytime

  • 1.6.14 Kendra revamped her Baby Storytime. And I definitely going to use the Smooth Road bounce considering we’re entering pothole season in Illinois!
  • 1.6.14 & 2.3.14 Erin is posting a new series called “A Few of My Favorite Themes.” THEMED STORYTIME PACKETS AVAILABLE FOR DOWNLOAD. January’s theme was snow and February’s was Valentine’s Day!
  • 1.24.14 Anna told her how she re-vamped (in mid-program!) an unruly storytime program.
  • 2.13.14 Lindsey finished her Toddler Storytime planning series. It is basically the only thing you’d need to read to start up Toddler Storytime in your library. And it has been my biggest how-to source to do the very best toddler storytime I can at my new library.
  • 2.19.14 Mollie and Leah answered a reader-submitted question: how do you do storytime on a tight budget? Their recommendations are perfect and easy to implement for any librarian.
  • 2.24.14 Amy blew my mind with a ballet storytime featuring a REAL-LIFE BALLERINA. Four-year-old Katie is wishing for time travel to be a real thing already.
  • 3.7.14 Melissa and Lisa want to know about the average storytime workload. If you do storytime at your library, would you mind stopping by to take their survey?

For more awesome round-ups, please visit Stacked’s Links of Note, Jbrary’s We’ll Link to That!, and Storytime Underground’s Coolest Thing on the Internet.

March 8, 2014 4 Comments Short URLAnnouncements

Flannel Friday: Ten Little Dinosaurs

This week, I bring you a flannelboard I’ve used ridiculously often since dinosaurs are a favorite storytime theme of mine: Ten Little Dinos! And it even fits into the science theme, though it isn’t chemistry or physics.

I use this flannelboard with this song:

Ten Little Dinos
One little, two little, three little dinos
Four little, five little, six little dinos
Seven little, eight little, nine little dinos
Ten little dinos for me!

I cannot find the pattern for these dinosaurs in my files, but Melissa also has an awesome pattern available on her website. I would totally recommend using hers, especially since she had a Pterodactyl.

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Amy will be hosting the round-up today! You can also check out our website, Pinterest, or Facebook!

March 6, 2014 10 Comments Short URLFlannels

Pajama Storytime (August)

pajamastorytime
 
After the library stopped hosting “Afternoon Storytime” and a trial program of “Starry Night Stories”, I made the decision to start a monthly “Pajama Storytime” session at the library. I wanted to give families the chance to enjoy hearing stories together — and especially wanted to try again to host an evening program. Our suggested age range is ages 0 to 7 and their families, which means I sometimes get a few older siblings. The goal in this program is simple: foster a love of reading and particularly of reading together as a family!

The Plan

Books

pajamastorytime-august

Goodnight, Goodnight Construction Site by
Go to Bed, Monster by Natasha Wing
Llama Llama Red Pajama by Anna Dewdney
Tiger Can’t Sleep by S.J. Fore

Extension Activities

Flannelboard: “Four Little Stars”

Rhyme Wheel: “Baa Baa Black Sheep”

Action Rhyme: “Big Yellow Moon”
Big yellow moon shines so bright, (circle overhead)
Glides across the starry night (arms left to right)
Looks down at me (hand shades eyes)
Asleep in bed, (head on hands)
Whispers, “Good night sleepyhead.” (shh)
Big yellow moon, your turn is done (move arms down)
Here comes Mr. Morning Sun (circle overhead)
I wake up. (arms stretch out)
You go to bed. (head on hands)
“Sleep well, Moon, you sleepyhead.” (shh)
Credit: King County Library System

Rhyme Card

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Since we don’t do a craft at Pajama Storytime, I decided to create a little something for my families to take home and I came up with the idea of rhyme cards on a laminated ring. Each month will have a different rhyme that we do at storytime and then send parents home with the words. This is a picture of the rhyme cards after quite a few months. This first month, I did Baa Baa Black Sheep.

How It Went

The absolute, hands-down favorite book was “Tiger Can’t Sleep.” The kids thought it was hysterical that Tiger was having such difficultly sleeping. This session was a good deal of older kids (6s and 7s), so they really appreciated the humor. All in all, it was a good launch to the program!

March 5, 2014 2 Comments Short URLFamily Storytime

Bugs!

The Plan

Books

bugssummer14

The Ant and the Grasshopper by Ed and Rebecca Emberley
Bugs By the Numbers by Sharon Werner
Butterfly, Butterfly by Petr Horacek
I Love Bugs by Emma Dodd

Extension Activities

Flannelboard: “Five Hungry Ants”
Five hungry ants, marching in a line,
Came upon a picnicwhere they could dine.
They marched into the salad,they marched into the cake,
They marched into the pepper….uh oh, that was a mistake!
AHHHH-CHOOO!
(count down)
Credit: Miss Mary Liberry

Flannelboard: “The Very Hungry Caterpillar”

Action Rhyme w/ Puppet: “Flutter, Flutter Butterfly”
Flutter, flutter butterfly
Floating in the summer sky
Floating by for all to see
Floating by so merrily
Flutter, flutter butterfly
Floating in the summer sky
Credit: Best Kids Book Site

Action Song: “Ants Go Marching”
The ants go marching one by one, hurrah! Hurrah!
The ants go marching one by one, hurrah! Hurrah!
The ants go marching one by one, the little one stops to suck his thumb
And they all go marching down to the ground, to get out of the rain
Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom
(Two/tie shoe; Three/climb a tree)
Credit: Childhood

Craft

For the first summer reading session, I went with a craft where I could easily have extras available in case we got swamped with registrations: scratch art! This is what my demonstration art looked like. I scratched some simple lines for the kids and showed them how you could write as well. I had a lot of preschoolers practicing their letters while my smaller kiddos worked on making the colors come out.

How It Went

Thursday morning

The kids absolutely loved “Five Hungry Ants” on the flannelboard. (Both groups did, but the Thursday morning kids were especially excited by the flannels.) The biggest book success of the day was “Bugs By the Numbers.” The kids loved the big fold-out pages and the different kinds of bugs. I chose to only read the main fact on each page, making it a great storytime read instead of being too long.
Bugs!
Friday morning

This group loved “The Ant and the Grasshopper” and “Butterfly, Butterfly.” But their absolute favorite was “The Ants Go Marching.” They got really into playing around with me and acting out the song. I took it to five ants since they were having such a good time, though I was pretty darn tired by the end of it!

March 4, 2014 4 Comments Short URL, Family Storytime

Just Moved!

justmoved

Just in case you’ve noticed a lack of post or tweets in the past couple of weeks, I wanted to go ahead and post a quick announcement: I’ve accepted a new job at a new library!

I’ve been at my new position for a week today and everything is going swimmingly. I’m very happy to be there and excited to work with my new patrons, co-workers, and community.

For you, dear blog readers, that means a plethora of clean-up posts from my previous library. (Seriously, I have the whole Summer 2013 storytime session to post and all of Winter 2014 and seven months of Pajama Storytimes that you’ve never seen and four months of Explore the World and a ridiculous amount of Flannel Fridays. And outreach visits and special programs, yikes! Also, I found even more Growing Readers pictures/literacy activities that never went up. And a few Picture Book City posts to do too.)

That also means the start of a new storytime series that I’m calling “Storytime Essentials” — my most favorite storytime activities, hopefully complete with some video performances so that my old co-workers can learn from me even though I’ve changed libraries.

And, once I get myself settled, a ton of brand-new storytime plans and early literacy amazingness. My first tasks include doing Toddler Storytime during the spring session and working to add new activities to our early literacy/family space.

So, please be patient as I work on getting everything out! Thank you for reading!

March 3, 2014 20 Comments Short URLAnnouncements

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