bellybutton mania

Last week's storytime was pretty mellow.  Both storytimes were about two-thirds full and everyone appeared to be struggling with the dreary, rainy weather.

Our theme was all about getting ready in the morning and so I picked a peppy ABC song, which was received with total ambivalence repressed enthusiasm.

We did the rhyme, Grandma's Spectacles, and sadly there weren't any laughs this week.  This was followed by a new quieting down rhyme, one I used with much success last fall.

It goes like this:

Dance your fingers up
Dance your fingers down
Dance them to the side
and dance them all around
Dance them on your shoulders
Dance them on your head
Dance them on your tummy
and put them all to bed

Why did I change up our consistent quieting down song more than halfway through the season you ask.  Well... There are a few different ways to sing the quieting down song, "Open, Shut Them."  One way is to slow down the part where you sing, "open wide your little mouth," and another way to sing it is to continue with the same pace as the rest of the song.  I had only heard it the first way so I was quite surprised when pretty much everyone in the very first storytime sang it the second way.  So the following storytime, I sang it the faster way, while everyone else had decided to slow it down. This kept up week after week, everyone singing it different ways with confused but determined expressions on their faces. This week I finally decided I was over it.

Whew, storytime angst!

The first book we read, Getting Ready, was the favorite book in both storytimes.  It's a tactile book with a functioning zipper. That's right, a functioning zipper. Plus it has other fun things to touch - velvet cereal, a fuzzy teddy bear, and a swinging purple door.  It's one of the few books I have purchased for my own personal storytime collection and it turns out it was a great buy.  There's a lot to talk about - colors, the order of how everyone gets ready/dressed, what's in the sippy cup/bowl, and plenty of basic ASL opportunities.  After everyone who wanted an opportunity to zip/unzip the jacket had their chance, a girl in the second storytime would not let me keep reading without making sure the jacket was zipped up (the last person had unzipped it).  Priorities!

We also read, Wake Up Engines, which is a book I love, but everyone just felt so-so about.  The sounds/rhymes are so much fun in this book, but no one was having any of that.  Sure, they let me read the book with little fuss, but they weren't super engaged.



After the second book, we played with the rhythm sticks again with the same results as last week.  Everyone was really gentle and respectful with the sticks and thoroughly enjoyed them.  I plan on bringing them out one more time next week due to this continued success and enthusiasm. 

For our second quieting down activity we did a Kira Willey meditation, which wasn't a flop, but they definitely didn't love it.  We're going to return to the immensely popular finger fiddle activity next week.  

Here's the meditation we did this week, Lion Breath. I definitely think it's worth trying again.

The third book, Good Morning Superman, was a bit more successful than the second, and I had a great time pointing out the morning checklist in the back.  A checklist in a picture book YAAAS.  



We ended with the hokey pokey where something magical finally happened in the second storytime. It involved one of my regular families, a grandma and her two granddaughters, a toddler and a baby.  The baby has just learned to walk in the last month or so and is adorably wobbly and curious.  While we were all putting our bellybuttons in, the baby lifted her up shirt and danced around like a maniac.  Pretty much everyone started laughing, and naturally the baby gobbled up the attention and continued on with her bellybutton dance for the remainder of the hokey pokey.  It was definitely one of the top adorable moments of the season.

trapped in a crowd of hokey pokey enthusiasts

Storytime was a success last week!  We read books about families and did a bit of singing and dancing too.  Both storytimes were full and I only had a few rambunctious toddlers. 

We sang our hello song and the same Baa Baa Black Sheep/ABC song as last time.  We're all ready to move on to the next exciting ABC song. 

After our hellos and ABCs we did a fingerplay called, "Grandma's Spectacles."  I cannot find a video of precisely how I did the movements, because my version was a combination of several videos I saw. 

This is how it goes:

Here are Grandma's spectacles
And here is Grandma's hat
And here's the way she folds her hands
And puts them in her lap
Here are Grandpa's spectacles
And here is Grandpa's hat
And here's the way he folds his arms
And takes a little nap

I spoke in a booming voice for grandpa in addition to giving grandma and grandpa different spectacles to wear.  I also changed how grandpa folded his arms.

This was a hit in the second storytime.  As soon as I began speaking in a booming voice, so did everyone else!  Plus a grandpa guffawed loudly about the nap part.  We will definitely do this fingerplay again next week.

After this fingerplay and our quieting down fingerplay, we read our first book, Hip, Hip, Hooray! It's Family Day!  This book includes ASL signs for each member of the family.  It was A LOT of signs to throw at them - family, mom, dad, grandma, grandpa, brother, sister, baby, cousin, aunt, uncle, dog, and cat WHEW.  We already learned the signs for dog and cat at other storytimes this season, but they are still quite puzzled about the sign for dog.  After reading this book, the signs I saw everyone repeating were "cat," "family," and "mom" so I will call that success.



It wasn't a particularly exciting book, so everyone was quite restless after we read it in the first storytime.  Only one child was up and moving around in the second storytime (rattling the locked cabinets, which is surprisingly an almost pleasant sound) so we read another book, The Grandma Book. 

After we read together, I brought out rhythm sticks (weapons of destruction muahaha).  Thankfully everyone was super well-behaved and respectful of each other and we had no rhythm stick issues.  I am still dancing a jig about this.  We did some warm-up activities with the rhythm sticks (tapping on the floor, up high, softly, and loudly plus scraping, counting, and tracing letters).  The second storytime was so excited about tracing letters we barely had time to sing the next rhythm stick song!  Most of the kids knew the first letter of their names and so that's what we did.  We traced the first letters of each other's names. After this, we sang a song to the tune of Frère Jacques.

This is how it goes:

After putting the rhythm sticks away, we read one more book, Love Makes a Family.  This was, hands down, the favorite book of both storytimes.  We had so much fun talking about all the beautiful illustrations and sharing the ASL signs we've learned so far.



Because we skipped a book in the first storytime, we had time to sing a very silly song, Gifts for Mommy, sung by Carol Hammett and  Elaine Bueffel, which is on a CD called Toddlers on Parade.  Sadly, I cannot find the audio.  

Here are the lyrics:

I'm bringing home a baby bumblebee
Won't my mommy be so proud of me
Oh I'm bringing home a baby bumblebee
Buzz buzz buzz buzz buzz!

*this first verse is followed by other scary things we brought home:

I'm bringing home a baby... Dinosaur...won't my Mommy hide behind the door? 
Clomp clomp clomp...
Crocodile...won't my Mommy wear a great big smile? 
Chomp chomp chomp...
Grizzly bear...won't my Mommy pull out all her hair? 
Rawrr Rawrr Rawrr…

Finding this version of the baby bumblebee song was such a relief!  Other versions have gruesome lyrics like getting stung (yipes!), squishing the bee, and then licking the bee guts off your fingers.  Nope, nope, and nope is how I feel about all that.  

We finished with the hokey pokey where I was totally danced into a corner by 16 excited toddlers in my second storytime.  Yep, they kept getting closer and closer as we sang the song.  By the time we got to the part where we put our whole selves in, I just stood there, trapped in a crowd of hokey pokey enthusiasts, unable to move even a pinky.

After we sang our goodbye song, I gave everyone stamps and then something wonderful happened.  While I was giving everyone stamps, two families started reading the books I brought to share with everyone.  I tiptoed out of the room quietly and waited a bit to put everything away.  It was some pretty adorable stuff.

I Am Light

I recently created a playlist I named, "Cheer Up Buttercup," and I've been getting a kick out of finding songs that light me up. When I listened to "I Am Light" recently, I wondered what emotion was dancing through my veins.  It was joy.  It was positivity.  Apparently I was feeling anxious or grumpy prior to listening to the song, and India Arie woke me up.  

India Arie also has a new album!

Texas!

We just got back from a fun vacation in Texas.  We visited my brother, Jason, for a few days and went to Dallas for a couple days.  



We did some hiking...



But mostly we hung out and relaxed and cuddled all the dogs.  Ella came with us on the trip, but Margo and Josie stayed behind.  They're not quite ready to travel yet.  They're still hooligans who haven't learned all their manners.  With Rachel and Ella is Cooper on the left and Spanky on the right.  

Visiting with Jason was the best part of our trip, but we also enjoyed Frisco, TX because of its stellar library and train museum.

spiders and dinosaurs

Last fall, one of my poems, Writing Spider, was published in a favorite journal of mine, I-70 Review.  Please support their awesomeness and buy a copy (Summer/Fall 2018).  If you are family, I may have a couple extra copies ; ).  

This poem is extra special to me because it began with a beautiful spider who scared the crap out of me at work one day.  I asked a coworker about it, because he's a smarty about creatures, and before I knew it we were reading books and sharing spider facts.  We had a lot of fun reading all the spider books we could find at our library branch.    

Also, here is my new dinosaur dress.  Isn't it amazing?

hokey pokey, the song that breaks phones

I'm happy to say that both storytimes were a success this week! 

We sang our hello song and then tried a new ABC song, which begins with Baa Baa Black Sheep and ends with the ABCs.  It wasn't a hit, but it didn't stuptefy the toddlers like the 80s ABC song did.

It's sung by Karen Banks-Lubicz.



We did our quieting down fingerplay and read the first book, We Love Dinosaurs by Lucy Volpin. This was the favorite at last fall's dinosaur storytime and the first storytime's favorite last week.

After the first book, we read another book in the second storytime. They were such good listeners! The second book, Dinosaur Roar, was a favorite book last spring during a storytime about opposites. During last week's storytime, a girl shouted out the colors of each dinosaur, which was adorable.



I brought out the shaker eggs and we did our shaker egg warm-up activity followed by Roly Poly and "Everyone Can Shake Shake Shake."



In the first storytime all the toddlers ran around the room shaking the crap out of their shaker eggs while the adults tried to engage them in the activities.  The second storytime was a completely different story.  They loved both shaker egg activities. I would say participation was at 90%. It was super cool.

After we put the shaker eggs away and did the enormously popular fiddle fiddle meditation we've been doing the past couple weeks, we read Crunch The Shy Dinosaur.  This was the second storytime's favorite book.  It's an interactive book that really focuses on audio levels.  For example, everyone says hello to Crunch in a soft voice and a medium voice, each with entirely different and pretty funny results.  In another part of the story everyone sings happy birthday to Crunch, and in the second storytime we sang so loud I thought I saw the window drapes move a little.



Sadly, the first storytime was just too wound up to enjoy this book. I ended up skipping pages and when I closed the book, I immediately played a song without telling them what I was doing.  This was surprisingly effective. Everyone stopped, looked around, and then got jiggy with it.

I couldn't find the song on youtube, which is by by Carol Hammett and Elaine Bueffel, but here is the general idea.



We finished with the hokey pokey, which has now advanced to curse word status for me.  I usually remember to take my phone of my pocket for storytimes because of all the dancing.  This time I didn't. As we were doing the hokey pokey in the second storytime, my phone flew out of my pocket and the screen shattered into a hundred pieces.  No one was injured, unless you count the phone, which died a terrible death. The last words it ever heard were, "you put your bellybutton in..." sung shrilly by a flock of gleeful toddlers, all completely unaware of its demise.

Katydid

After three embroidery flops, this katydid emerged victorious and splendidly dressed in red french knots.

maybe 80s music isn't the best way to start the day

"Boxes" was the theme for last week's storytime, but "train wrecks" may have been a better theme.

My "boxes" storytime was one of those storytimes I put a lot more work into than others.  I made two brand new activities to share with them.  I fiddled with the new activities and practiced every spare minute I had at work.  

Both storytimes were filled with super rambunctious toddlers with grabby hands and an insatiable delight for life, overturning furniture, and completely poopooing all my fun activities.  

After our hello song, I sprung an 80s ABC song on them that had this groovy instrumental piece between the first and second time we sang the ABCs.  I told everyone to get out their best dance moves and dance with me.  It was the longest ten or fifteen seconds of my life.  In my second storytime, my favorite nanny saw that no one was going to dance with me and quickly jumped up and got jiggy with it.  Surprisingly, this only made it more awkward. All around the room toddlers stared at us with faces filled with scorn and judgement. Ok, maybe that's a bit strong, but they certainly did not get up and dance with us.  

We did our quieting down fingerplay and read Big Box, Little Box, which briefly saved the day.  This book was the favorite thing in both storytimes.  I was astounded (and still am actually) that a kid in each storytime had parts of the book memorized.  Two kids had a fairly new book memorized!  Go parents!  

After I read the book I tried the activity, "puppets in a box," but with ready-to-go sounds.  This failed because everyone was way too rowdy.  I totally think there's a possibility it could work with a calmer, smaller crowd.  When I saw, or heard rather, the second round of kids and parents getting their nametags for storytime I quickly got out the scarves as a backup plan.  

This is the "Puppet in the Box" activity.  Imagine a bigger box and puppets, really obnoxious sounds lovingly handpicked from youtube videos, and a large grownup trying not to blubber when no one gave a toot about any of the puppets, not even the elephant, which was the loudest.

My "Fox in a Box" activity also failed, but only in my first storytime.  As soon as I brought out the magnetic pictures, six pairs of hands emerged, ready to grab them.  I couldn't keep the hands off the magnetic pieces long enough to get through the activity and and cut it short.  Thankfully, in my second storytime I did not have any grabby hands.  

We read What To Do With a Box, did the hokey pokey, and sang our goodbye song.  Only the hokey pokey was well-received.  

  

After work on Thursday I went home and climbed straight into bed.  My other option was to find a hole to bury myself in until I found something positive to say about the storytime (I was worried this would never happen).  It took me a couple days to process my emotions.  I initally thought I was being too hard on myself, but then realized the true reason for feeling so low about this storytime.  It was so simple.  I walked away from storytime feeling like I didn't engage everyone.  It felt like there was always at least one toddler running wildly around the room, completely lost in their own world.  There were also a couple toddlers I just simply couldn't connect with.  I've been fortunate I've been able to connect with so many toddlers and caregivers in my recent storytimes.

After a couple days of searching for positivity and ways to grow, I can say I am proud of myself for bringing out the scarves for the second storytime.  Everyone needed to have an outlet for all that energy between books, and my initial activities weren't the right ones for that.  Going forward, I will always make sure I have something ready just in case everyone's struggling to focus.  

I am also always going to have an interactive book in my pile to read.  Big Box, Little Box was the perfect book for both storytimes and a great reminder that interactive books work well in rambunctious storytimes.  

After much reflection, I'm ready to move forward.  Next week we're going to read books about dinosaurs and I've got a brand new dinosaur dress and a brand new attitude.  More importantly, we've got a brand new ABC song that has absolutely no beat, so nobody has to bust any moves during the alphabet.  

Early March Romp

Last weekend I was very thankful we were able to squeeze in a romp through the woods before our next snow and frigid temperatures.

Margo's collar is pink and Josie's collar is blue.

We had a surprisingly good time fetching rocks. Josie, the one bringing me a rock in the next picture, was much more skilled at rock fetching. Margo would like to point out, however, that it was all about size over quantity.  A couple rocks she brought me were about half her size.

For me, this next picture is the current picture to beat.

But I also really love this picture of Margo.

February Reads Part 2

Meet the Austins by Madeleine L'Engle (Juvenile Fiction)

Meet the Austins is a quiet read with the faintest of plots humming along in the background of wonderful descriptions, a strong sense of family and security, and characters I grew more and more fond of as the book progressed. Because there's not much story happening - with most of it focusing on whether Maggy will stay with the Austins or be adopted by her grandfather - I always closed the book wondering if I would come back to it. But L'Engle's strong descriptions of the family, and their home and routine, plus the delightful treat of visiting their grandfather on an island in the last pages of the book kept me coming back. Simple everyday activities in the late 1950s, such as preparing for an ice storm, battling the measles, and enjoying meals, music, and reading together were captivating and charming. If you're looking for a book to sweep you away with a strong story and lots of action, this will surely disappoint you. However, if you are looking for a book that creeps up on you like the tide and quietly consumes you with the ordinary pleasures of day-to-day life in a close-knit family during the 50s, then this is your kind of book.

Pretty Kitty by Karen Beaumont and illustrated by Stephanie Laberis (picture book)

Can a grouchy old man find room in his heart for 10 displaced kitties who keep showing up on his doorstep? I won't give away the ending, but you will know how it ends when you get to the page where 10 kitties are sitting on the old man's mat, all with the most forlorn expressions on their faces. The illustrations are comical, the man is adorably cantankerous, and there's a surprisingly tender moment when the man is staring at the pictures above his fireplace (but I won't say anything more about that because I don't want to spoil it for you).

Sonya's Chickens by Phoebe Wall (picture book)

This picture book doesn't shy away from the sometimes unpleasant side of nature. A fox eats one of Sonya's chickens but her papa explains that the fox was trying to feed his family - "'what might seem unfair to you might make sense to a fox.'" I thought the illustrations were going to be my favorite thing about Sonya's Chickens, but even though they're vibrant and detailed, the honesty and deliverance of the message is my favorite thing.

Backyard Fairies by Phoebe Wahl (picture book)

Wahl's illustrations have the power to transport you to a world where fairies exist. I love how each page has so many things to find and discover. Her attention to detail is incredible. The stone fairy is my favorite. Covered in moss and lichens and wearing a mischievous grin, he looks like the most fun to meet.

10 Years of Gratitude Journaling Part 3

This gratitude journaling post is from my second gratitude journal, which is small, rather ordinary red leather journal I found on clearance at Anthropologie (well-made and a pretty ruby shade of red, but definitely not picture-worthy).  In my second gratitude journal, I begin adding ephemera - tickets, pictures, a feather from a boa I wore on a birthday, that sort of thing.  

Most of my gratitude journal entries are very ordinary.  The small things like tuna mac, a good yoga workout (my current obsession is Yoga with Adrienne because her dog reminds me of Walter the Farting Dog), and cuddling my goldens, are the big things in my life.  

I chose this page because it has a lot of that everyday charm.  I also have not ironed anything in many years. Robert and I simply don't have clothing that needs ironing anymore. I wonder what other unnecessary tasks we are doing that can be replaced with more cuddle time with the dogs?

This is also most likely the beginning of my Julia Child obsession, which is ongoing.  

February Reads Part 1

February was a great month for reading kid's books.  Nearly every kid's book I picked up dazzled me in some way.  February will be a double post.

Hi-Five Animals! by Ross Burach (board book)

Here's a book you can high-five. Each page is a different animal asking for a high five. Spoiler alert there's an octopus so it gets a little crazy.

Littles and How They Grow by Kelly DiPucchio and illustrated by AG Ford (picture book)

I have read this book a handful of times and love it more each time I read it. The families and babies are beautifully illustrated and the sing-songy rhyme celebrating unconditional love is such a sweet message for littles to hear.

How Do Dinosaurs Eat Their Food? by Jane Yolen and illustrated by Mark Teague (picture book)

This is definitely a contender for my favorite Yolen/Teague dinosaur book. The Quetzalcoatlus dinosaur might be my new favorite dinosaur after reading this, The illustrations are particularly funny in this book - flying spaghetti, a dinosaur's nose full of beans, and orange juice freshly squeezed by dinosaur toes.