you put your ordinary human bellybutton in and shake it all about

Fall storytimes went out with a bang last week!  Both storytimes were a total success.

Here's what we did for our "Colors" storytime:

Hello song

Itsy Bitsy Spider (same Laurie Berkner version as last week). They loved it just as much.

Quieting-Down fingerplay

Book - Pete the Cat: I Love My White Shoes

In both storytimes, I barely had the book held up before more than half the kids rushed to the front of the room yelling, "Pete the Cat!"  Because it took a moment to get quieted down after this, I asked everyone to help me look at all the shoes in the room to see if we could spot any white ones.  Thankfully, there was one pair of white shoes in the first storytime and two pairs in the second storytime.  This seemed to help everyone focus on the book and get settled down.  While we read the book, everyone had a great time talking about each thing Pete stepped in, yelling an emphatic "no!" when I asked if Pete got upset when he stepped in something, and yelling all the colors, including ones that weren't integral to the story, like the yellow duck on one of the pages. In my second storytime, a grandma sang with me and knew the book by heart.

Book - Green by Laura Vaccaro Seeger

Everyone was so excited about Pete the Cat, I wasn't sure it was wise to jump into a second book, but it was the last storytime, so I was determined to read all three books.  Thankfully Green has only one word on each page.  It also has some interesting holes that turn into things when the page is flipped.  For instance, there are fish-sized holes and lightning bug-sized holes.  The Pete the Cat fervor still hadn't died down when I opened the book and about five pairs of chubby little hands reached for those fish-sized holes and a collective "oooh" filled the air.  This provided the perfect opportunity for me to talk about how we need to be gentle with books so that we don't rip the pages and lose what makes a book special or lose the book completely.

Shaker eggs - We began with a shaker egg warm-up and ended with a charming song about careless driving by Michael Levine and Eric Litwin (heads up, the music video is a little disturbing):

 

I encouraged the toddlers to pretend drive and shake their eggs whenever they honked at anyone. Sadly, no one in the first storytime loved carelessly driving and honking as much as I do, so we sang Raffi's Shake My Sillies Out in the second storytime. This was a hit and the kids enjoyed having shaker eggs for this song.

Book - Freight Train by Donald Crews

Everyone liked this and yelled out the colors as we read the book. In the first storytime I asked what color the car was and then told everybody what kind of car it was. The name of the car was drowned out by kids still hollering about the color of the car.  So, in the second storytime, I told everyone what kind of car it was and then asked what color the car was.  This worked for about two pages. Everyone was just too excited to share their knowledge of colors. But that doesn't mean we didn't enjoy the book. Both groups were very interested in the page where the train goes through the tunnel. We had fun talking about that and also about how fast everyone thought the train was going. 

Hokey Pokey - I found a honky-tonk version of the hokey pokey, which I think is the bees knees. It includes putting your bellybutton in, which is an exciting addition.  I played it for the first group and it was just too different. There were some blank faces going on, so sadly, the honky-tonk hokey pokey is being shelved for the time being.  We sang the song without the music for the second storytime, bellybuttons included, and it was the best hokey pokey of the season. Sigh.  The ordinary hokey pokey is still the winner out of all the hokey pokeys.

This was our last storytime of the season so we are now taking our winter break, which means almost two months of storytime research. More specifically, hokey pokey research. No, really, I think I'll stick to the traditional hokey pokey for next season.  I am hoping to change up my hello/goodbye songs, introduce a couple new quieting down fingerplays, bring in more ASL, encourage children and/or their adults to say each child's name, offer stamps at the end rather than at the beginning with name-tags, and sing the birthday song for children who have birthdays that week.  This could change some once storytime evaluations are finished and shared with us.

I also subbed for a coworker's baby storytimes this week, but I still have mixed feelings about it and much to investigate and learn about before I sub for a baby storytime again. Because of this, I'm staying mum about it. I did have my first experience singing Brown Bear, Brown Bear with everyone, and it was just as magical as everyone says it is.

After the last storytime, a wonderful thing happened, and it was the perfect way to end a great storytime season. I came out of the back room after putting everything away from the second storytime, and was about to ask my coworker, who was manning the desk, if she wanted a break. A child bounded towards me and stammered, "you're...you're...you're the book lady!" She was totally starstruck! It was adorable. I asked her if she had a good time at storytime and what her favorite thing was (Pete the Cat, naturally), and we had a nice little conversation. It made my day.