It’s a rainy day, so I looked for Christian Robinson’s book Rain, but it was out. I went with my original lineup, including some books about bugs and eggs hatching. Maybe because of the weather, we had a slightly smaller group today, about 12-13 kids.

• Welcome, announcements (no storytime next Monday because of Patriots’ Day)
• “Hello Friends” song with ASL from Jbrary
• Name song (“____ is here today”)
• Interstellar Cinderella by Deborah Underwood, illustrated by Meg Hunt: This might’ve been too much of a reach for this group. The story is in rhyme, but it’s a little on the long side, or maybe there just isn’t the familiarity with the classic Cinderella tale yet, so it’s harder to enjoy variations. Some of the grown-ups liked it, though.
• Song cube: “Where Is Thumbkin?” “ABCs”
• We All Went On Safari by Laurie Krebs and Julia Cairns: Today we focused on the counting aspect of this book, but you could easily focus on animals instead.
• Yoga flow
• Bug puppets! We had a big basket of them in the closet, so I pulled them out and we looked at them one by one. One of them was even a caterpillar/butterfly, so the kids could see the transformation. We also had a ladybug, an ant, a spider, a fly, a monarch butterfly, a praying mantis, and a grasshopper. This was a perfect lead-in to…
• Some Bugs: words by Angela DiTerlizzi, bugs by Brendan Wenzel. I love this book for storytime or one-on-one: it rhymes and moves quickly, and the illustrations are bright and interesting.
• Song cube: “Itsy-Bitsy Spider,” “Row Row Row Your Boat”
• Shake A Leg, Egg by Kurt Cyrus: One of my favorite springtime books, though maybe better one-on-one than in a group; the author/illustrator uses some really different perspectives, and there’s plenty of detail in the realistic illustrations. But I do love saying the first line (“Hello in there!”) like Miracle Max in The Princess Bride.
• Speaking of eggs…time for shaker eggs and “Shake Your Sillies Out”!
• Grumpy Pants by Claire Messer, with penguin puppet. Most of the kids came up to pet and hug the penguin, which helped its grumpy mood. There’s also counting (“One, two, three…SPLASH!”).
• Yoga flow
• There’s A Bear On My Chair by Ross Collins: Kids’ attention was starting to wander a little but the ending got a laugh from a couple grown-ups.
• “Goodbye Friends” song with ASL from Jbrary
• Clean up mats
• Handout for grown-ups: Great books to share with two- and three-year-olds
• Drawing with crayons on butcher paper on the floor

Next Monday we’re closed for Patriots’ Day, but I’m covering another Step Into Storytime this Friday and might debut a flannel cake and candles I just made to go with When’s My Birthday? Stay tuned!