I’ve missed two weeks of storytime – there was a snow day on March 4 and last week I was on vacation – and it felt like ages! It was good to be back today and see some familiar faces and some new ones. Today’s books were mostly on the shorter, simpler side, so we managed seven(!), as well as lots of songs and yoga.

• Hello, welcome, announcements
• “Hello Friends” song with ASL from Jbrary (skipped the name song because we had a big group – about 15)
• Hello Hello by Brendan Wenzel: Still one of the best lead-off books I know of – so many opportunities for getting kids engaged (“Who’s wearing stripes? Who’s wearing spots? Can you wiggle like an octopus?”)
• Yoga flow: resting pose, mountain pose, forward fold, tree
• Goose by Laura Wall: This went over splendidly. It has the perfect amount of text on each page for this group, and the simple illustrations on brightly-colored backgrounds work really well for a group.
• Song cube: “If you’re happy and you know it,” “I had a little turtle”
• Shh! We Have A Plan by Chris Haughton: I’ve done Oh No, George! several times in storytime but this was the first time I did Shh! and it was excellent! There is “shh”ing of course, which keeps things quiet, but also counting, and also pointing (“Where’s the bird? Did they catch it?”), and it’s funny.
• Yoga flow
• Carrot and Pea by Morag Hood
• One Little Blueberry by Tammi Salzano, illustrated by Kat Whelan
• Song cube: “Itsy-bitsy Spider,” “I’m a little teapot,” “Zoom zoom zoom, we’re going to the moon”
• Oh No, George! by Chris Haughton: We were running ahead of schedule and I had a little extra time, so I used this one from my pile of backup books. Always a favorite. What WILL George do?
• My Spring Robin by Anne and Lizzy Rockwell
• “Goodbye friends” song with ASL from Jbrary
• Clean up mats
• Coloring sheet: I traced the robin from the last page of My Spring Robin, enlarged it by 20%, and made copies for kids to color with crayons. (One kid didn’t want the robin so I gave him a leftover Wonky Donkey. Leftovers never go to waste!)

It really was good to be back. And here’s one more new resource I heard about through one of my book groups: Diverse BookFinder. If you’re looking for picture books featuring people of color or indigenous people of color, this is a tremendous resource, including books from 2002 to the present. The design is clean and clear and easy to navigate, and I’m looking forward to discovering new picture books using the Diverse BookFinder.