It has been a very wet and windy April, but today was sunny and we had a slightly smaller group – I imagine some others were taking advantage of the weather to go to the playground. But we had a great time at storytime, with several regulars, a couple of younger siblings, and a pair of older kids (older kids are almost always less shy and more able to answer questions like “What’s this animal?” so I like having them in the group).

• Welcome, announcements
• “Hello Friends” song with ASL from Jbrary
• Name song (“___ is here today”): I usually do this if there are 10 kids or fewer, as was the case when we started today (a couple more came in later)
• Hugs From Pearl by Paul Schmid: I chose to use this as a lead-off book because it’s on the longer side for this age group, but it’s got a gentle humor and shows good problem-solving.
• “Sun and rain yoga”: stretch up to the sun, then bring the sunshine down to your toes; stretch up to the rain, bring the rain down to your toes
• Huff and Puff by Claudia Rueda, with scarves for the huffing and puffing parts. (We keep our scarves stuffed into empty tissue boxes.)
• Song: “Where is Thumbkin?”
• Song: “Kookaburra” (I put the words up on the whiteboard, along with a picture of a kookaburra)
• Pete’s A Pizza by William Steig: This one is fabulous for incorporating movement into the story, as the kids pretend to knead their pizza dough, toss it in the air, spread oil on it, decorate it with tomatoes, sprinkle it with cheese, and slide it into the oven. Yum!
• “Pizza yoga”: sit in a forward fold and “spread” oil, sauce, cheese, and toppings over your legs
• Bark! Park! by Trudy Krisher: Simple, minimal words but plenty going on in the pictures, and an opportunity for kids to join in (“Bark, bark bark!”). Someone actually checked this out afterward, hurray! I brought out four dog puppets/stuffed animals for kids to come up and pet before and after the story.
• One Very Tired Wombat by Renee Treml: They were super wiggly and kind of noisy during this one; I’m not sure how much is due to the book itself (a kind of counting book of Australian animals, with illustrations in mostly black and white, and somewhat detailed) and how much it had to do with the book’s place near the end of the lineup.
• Song: “Kookaburra” reprise, to start cementing it in memory so it becomes part of our regular rotation. Maybe I will make a new song cube…
• Spots in a Box by Helen Ward: A favorite, with simple text and a lot of visual interest, and a nice message as well: “So the best spots to choose if it’s friends that you seek, are the spots that you find put a smile on your beak.”
• “Goodbye Friends” song with ASL from Jbrary
• Clean up mats
• Spots/dots craft: using gluesticks to stick spots to butcher paper