Eight kids and their caregivers came to storytime today. We read five books, sang some songs, did some stretches and wiggles, and used glue sticks.

• Welcome and announcements
• “Hello Friends” song with ASL (Jbrary)
• Name song (“___ is here today”)
• Stretch
• Jump! by Tatsuhide Matsuaka: This board book opens vertically instead of horizontally, which is pretty unusual – but it has a good reason!
• Bear Came Along by Richard T. Morris, illustrated by LeUyen Pham: A newly-minted Caldecott Honor book that I’ve read at home, but this was my first time reading it aloud at storytime.
• Song cube: “ABCs”
• “The Kookaburra Song”
• Roly Poly Pangolin by Anna Dewdney: Many people are familiar with Llama Llama, but I love Dewdney’s shy pangolin just as much. We practiced rolling up into a ball by hugging our knees and tucking our heads down.
• Perfect Square by Michael Hall: Thanks to Megan Dowd Lambert’s Whole Book Approach webinar, I took some time to examine the cover of this book with the kids: What shape is it? A perfect square, of course! One of the kids knew the book already and noticed little details throughout, like the kite in the park.
• Song cube: “Zoom Zoom Zoom, We’re Going to the Moon”
• Yoga: mountain pose, forward fold, crossing the midline by touching opposite toes. Some of today’s kids were closer to 2 than 3, so I also have the option of touching the opposite elbow.
• A Parade of Elephants by Kevin Henkes: One of my favorite storytime books. I brought along my felt elephants, and the kids identified their colors, and we counted together. We also did plenty of marching, stretching, yawning, and trumpeting.
• “Goodbye Friends” with ASL (Jbrary)
• Craft: gluing paper elephants and paper stars to butcher paper.

I did a quick time check after our last round of yoga, and decided to skip Don’t Push the Button! and the Mouse House Game.

The same kid who participated during Perfect Square was also the only one to say her own name during the name song – and, this was the first time she’d used a glue stick (another point in favor of continuing crafts after storytime – not every kid is familiar with crayons, markers, glue, scissors, etc.). Her mom came up to me afterward and said how unusual this was for her; she’d been going to our storytime for birth-2 and always sat quietly without talking or singing at all. I love to hear that kids are coming out of their shells and feeling comfortable in the library!