Today we had a big group – at least 15 kids but I think closer to 20, including a couple of older and younger siblings, plus the grown-ups of course. I had a little bit of a cold so I explained that my voice was not going to be as loud, and on we proceeded as usual. Many helpful grown-ups who bring their kids regularly helped out with the familiar songs – thank you!

• “Hello Friends” with ASL
• Name song (“____ is here today, ____ is here today, let’s all clap our hands, ____ is here today”) (at this point we had 11-12 kids but more continued to trickle in throughout)
• Hello Hello by Brendan Wenzel, one of my favorite lead-off books. It’s simple but visually interesting and there are lots of opportunities for movement (wiggling like an octopus, etc.).
• Yoga cube (three poses)
• I Don’t Want to Be Big by Dev Petty and Mike Boldt: We did I Don’t Want to Be A Frog three weeks ago and I Don’t Want to Go to Sleep two weeks ago (last week was a Monday holiday). These books are great, but they don’t have any textual indication of who’s speaking (e.g. “Dad frog said…”) so I sometimes add those in or at least point to which character is speaking as I read aloud.
• Song cube: “Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes”
• Where Is the Green Sheep? by Mem Fox and Judy Horacek: I made felt sheep for this story a while ago, so I put the yellow, pink, and blue sheep on the flannel board and hid the green sheep behind it. It worked out that one of my regulars spotted it, so I let her pull it out of hiding and stick it on the board at the end of the book. Perfect!
• Yoga cube (three poses)
• Bark Park! by Trudy Krisher and Brooke Boynton-Hughes: a newer book and a great simple one for storytimes, especially for the younger kids. I got everyone to “Bark, bark, bark!” with me at the appropriate times.
• Song cube: “Shake Your Sillies Out” (with shaker eggs)
• Where’s Walrus? by Stephen Savage: I wasn’t sure how well a wordless, hide-and-seek book would work at storytime, but this one definitely did! The walrus isn’t too hard to find on each page, and there isn’t a lot of visual clutter, plus I had two kids on the older end of our range, who always pointed right away.
• Yoga cube (three poses)
• Lots of Dots by Craig Frazier: Our library’s copy has had a page ripped out since I last used it, but other than that blip, this is always a good one – we always look around the room for polka dots and buttons on clothing, and it ties in to the dot craft.
• “Goodbye Friends” with ASL
• Clean up mats
• Spread butcher paper on the floor and tape it down, put down a bowl of glue sticks, and throw a bowl of colored paper dots in the air! Commence gluing dots. Ask for grown-ups to help keep track of caps.