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
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.
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