Post-Thanksgiving, we had a big group again, with more than ten kids (plus baby siblings) at the beginning of our Step Into Storytime program for 2- and 3-year-olds. Given these numbers, we skipped the name song that we often sing after the hello song if there are fewer than ten kids.

I started off with a long-ish book, Toys Meet Snow by Emily Jenkins, because it’s one of my favorites and because we did have snow recently (and our craft was to do with snowflakes). It went okay, but may be better for a preschool group. The favorites today were (I think) Oh No, George! and Monkey and Me.

• Hello song with ASL
• Toys Meet Snow by Emily Jenkins, illustrated by Paul O. Zelinsky
• Yoga cube (three poses)
• Oh No, George! by Chris Haughton
• Song cube: “I Had A Little Turtle”
• Bark, George by Jules Feiffer
• Yoga cube (three poses)
• People Don’t Bite People by Lisa Wheeler, illustrated by Molly Idle
• Song cube: “I’m A Little Teapot”
• Matilda’s Cat by Emily Gravett
• Yoga cube (three poses)
• Still Stuck by Shinsuke Yoshitake
• Monkey and Me by Emily Gravett
• Goodbye song with ASL
• Snowflake craft: White butcher paper taped to the floor, die-cut snowflakes in light blue and dark blue, glue sticks, blue/purple/white/silver crayons, blue and gray markers. Nine kids stayed for the craft and a few stayed for a long time!

I had thought about reading Cub’s Big World after Toys Meet Snow, but I think I’ll save that for next week’s lead-off book, especially if we have snow between now and then. They All Saw A Cat and A Greyhound, A Groundhog are on deck too. Often the most successful books are the ones with some humor in them (like The Wonky Donkey and Grumpy Pants from last week). Do you have any favorite funny books for this age group? Please share!

It was a cold rainy Monday the week of Thanksgiving, so attendance was a little sparse, but we had five kids in our target age range, plus two baby siblings, and we had a great time! I introduced my new creation this week: a yoga cube, made from the illustrations in the endpapers of Yoga Bunny by Brian Russo. I showed the book but didn’t read it, explaining that it’s a little long for two-year-olds. We tried out the yoga cube and it went really well – I brought it out three times during storytime and we did about three poses each time.

I also lucked out and found a big donkey puppet in the closet, so I used that to accompany my lead-off book, The Wonky Donkey by Craig Smith. Hee haw!

• Hello song with ASL
• Name song (including the grown-ups, as we only had six total bodies in the room at the beginning)
• The Wonky Donkey by Craig Smith, with puppet. Definitely made at least one parent giggle.
• Introduced the yoga cube and did three poses together
• Grumpy Pants by Claire Messer: this one is a hit every time. It is just the right length for a group of 2-3-year-olds, and just the right concept too – sometimes you can be grumpy for no reason and just need a bath to cheer you up. (A nice cold bath, in Penguin’s case.)
• Song cube: “If You’re Happy and You Know It, Clap Your Hands”
• Carrot and Pea by Morag Hood: Another perfect book for this group, and a nice friendship story that emphasizes how difference can be good.
• Yoga cube
• I Feel Teal by Lauren Rille: I love this book, and it seemed to go over okay, but it may be that this age group doesn’t quite get linking colors and moods, they are still too literal (“I’m wearing green!”)
• Song cube: ABC song
• 88 Instruments by Chris Barton: I hadn’t planned to include this one, it was one of my backup books, but the kids in I Feel Teal play musical instruments on one page of that story so my storytime kids got excited about that too. I pulled the jingly things out of the closet and we made some noise! The jinglers aren’t especially loud, which is good, because there aren’t good prompts built into the book to tell you when to make noise (you could jingle at every page turn, though).
• Song cube: “Zoom Zoom Zoom, We’re Going to the Moon”
• My Heart Is Like A Zoo by Michael Hall, with flannel board. I pointed to the flannel animals before starting the book and asked the kids to point or raise their hands when one of our flannel friends showed up in the book. It worked – with help from grown-ups.
• Yoga cube
• Roly Poly Pangolin by Anna Dewdney: This is a cute story about an unusual animal overcoming his shyness and making friends, plus it comes with a coloring sheet, so that’s what we did for our activity.
• Goodbye song with ASL
• Clean up mats, pass out coloring sheets, set out bowls of crayons

And that’s it for this week. Happy Thanksgiving!

 

It was a rather dreary 50-degree morning and storytime was packed! There were at least 15 kids in the 2-3-year range, plus several younger siblings, including babies. We skipped the name song, but along with announcements, I pointed out the five early literacy practices that I always put up on the board – Read, Talk, Sing, Play, Write – and reminded caregivers and parents that doing those five things every day build the skills that will help kids learn to read.

• Hello song with ASL
• Sam and Dave Dig A Hole by Mac Barnett and Jon Klassen: This went over okay, but I think it’s a better one-on-one book, or maybe a better read-aloud for the preschool group. The illustrations are a bit subtle from a distance.
• Song cube: “I Had A Little Turtle” – We had a lot of littler ones this time, and grown-ups were great about chiming in and singing.
• Where’s My Teddy? by Jez Alborough: This was a bit better, and I had a prop, thanks to a toddler who dragged in one of our larger stuffed bears.
• “Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes” – Very good! Every kid knew the song and did the motions as best they could.
• Handed out scarves for Have You Seen Elephant? by David Barrow, which has a hide-and-seek element. Again, this one might have been better for a slightly older group; it’s very good one-on-one, as the elephant is usually pretty obvious and the kids have fun pointing it out in each picture. Collected scarves.
• Song cube: “Zoom Zoom Zoom, We’re Going to the Moon” – at least one kid was super excited about this song. I do it twice, in case it’s unfamiliar to anyone and they miss the countdown/blastoff bit at the end the first time through.
• Thank You Bear by Greg Foley: Simple, sweet, and just right for this group today. Bear finds a box that he wants to give to his friend Mouse, which makes it a great segue into…
• Not A Box by Antoinette Portis: Also just right for this group! Someone checked it out after storytime. (I always put all the books I read to the side so people can check them out afterward.)
• Song cube: “I’m A Little Teapot”
• One Pup’s Up by Marsha Wilson Chall and Henry Cole
• Wow! Said the Owl by Tim Hopgood: This one is short and lends itself to being read with plenty of expression; it was pretty well received and a good one to end on.
• Goodbye song with ASL
• Clean up mats, put on music, dance in bubbles!

Next week we’re closed on Monday for Veterans’ Day, and I’m hoping that by the week after that I’ll have my yoga cube ready to go so we can do some yoga poses in storytime. I also want to make sure I have a more diverse batch of books next time; I try to keep a 50/50 gender balance but today’s books were more by male authors.