Friday, September 13, 2019

adventures in songwriting, bellybuttons, and living the dream


I couldn't have asked for a better preschool storytime to start the fall season. Everyone enjoyed the books and activities about counting and there were zero meltdowns and lots of participation.

Here's how it went:

I wrote my very first hello song and I was super nervous about it being too difficult for everyone, but it went as smoothly as a song can go when you're learning it for the first time. You may be asking why the heck I would write a song when there are so many good hello songs out there. Sign language is pretty important to my crowd and one of the few things I get feedback on. I wanted to find a way to incorporate six relevant signs kids can benefit from learning. Hopefully the signs will also help them communicate when verbal communication is tough. It took me awhile to settle on a handful of words. I decided against food, water, yes, and no because those are easier to communicate whether kids use the signs or not. 'Want' and 'thank you' are two other words kids usually have down. I see these signs all the time so I left those out as well. I received a lot of pressure encouragement from my musically-gifted father to be a musician when I grew up. I rebelled for years of course, pursuing the public library path instead. But I finally came around and wrote my first (and perhaps, last) masterpiece.

Here is the hello song, which is sung to the tune of "I had a little turtle." The ASL words are in bold.

Hello to all our friends
Welcome to storytime
We’ll listen to lots of stories
And sing and dance and rhyme

If you’re happy and excited
Or you’re sad and feeling blue
There’s fun for everyone
And smiles and laughter too

We’ll play with all our friends
Learn more and more and grow
Count 1, 2, 3, 4, 5
And share the things we know

Now we’re ready for a story
Let’s all play along
Sit down quietly
And finish up our song 

Quieting down fingerplay:

I have ten fingers 
and they all belong to me.
I can make them do things -
would you like to see? 
I can shut them up tight. 
I can open them wide. 
I can put them together. 
I can make them all hide. 
I can make them jump high. 
I can make them jump low. 
I can fold them up quietly. 
and hold them just so. 

First book:

Pretty Kitty by Karen Beaumont and Stephanie Laberis
Early literacy skill: "Saying a repeated phrase together is an exciting way to have fun with books. In Pretty Kitty we’re going to pretend to be grumpy and repeat the phrase, "I don’t want a cat” lots of times together."


This book was a HUGE hit in both storytimes. Each time we came to the part where the man says, "I don't want a kitty cat," we all repeated it together. This kept everyone engaged and they were excited to use their pretend grumpy voices. I thought about the way Robert says it to me at least one a week and I channeled his grumpy voice.

Magnetic board activity - Elephants Hanging on a String (I stumbled on the original here):

Here is my version:

Five Silly Elephants

1 silly elephant 
hanging on a string,
Whoopee, whoopee!
It’s such a funny thing.
He thinks to himself, 
“It’s amazing to fly!”
So he calls another elephant to swing on by.

2, 3, 4…

5 silly elephants hanging on a string. BOOM!! Too many things!



I brought three books but we were only able to read two in both storytimes. Everyone was pretty excited and unable to sit still after Pretty Kitty. Thankfully I brought Elephants Hanging on a string. I had some help from Robert with this magnetic board activity. I couldn't find magnets that were strong enough to hold the string up. I also needed to be able to pull the string out when I got to five elephants, which took some tinkering. Once it finally worked I realized that the original rhyme - elephants adding their feet - didn't work because I attached the elephants to the string by their backs. So I had to rewrite the rhyme, which was thankfully easy to do. I made the elephants out of scraps of gray paper and the inside of Yogi tea boxes, which is one of my favorite patterns.  The kids loved this rhyme so much I plan on bringing it out this fall any time there's an elephant in a book. Only one child was distraught that all the elephants ended up on the floor. She handled the situation waaay better than I ever would though. She simply jumped up and went about picking up the elephants and restoring order.

Instruments (aka reveling in the delicious joy of making an obscene amount of noise in the library):

The Shakers on the bus go 
shake-shake-shake
Shake-shake-shake
shake-shake-shake
The Shakers on the bus go shake-shake-shake
All through the town

Sticks – Tap
Bells – Jingle
Sand Blocks – Scrape
Clatterpillar – Clack
Drum – Boom
Tambourine – Ting
Cymbals - crash

After our magnetic board activity we all played instruments for a few minutes. My library branch owns a box of drums, maracas, clatterpillars, bells, etc. and it's a lot of fun for the kids to choose an instrument and sing a song. I didn't try too hard to get the kids to play their instrument during the part of the song that called for it. That didn't work for me last time and a parent was a little cranky about it afterwards. This time I set aside one of each instrument, and I played the instruments when they came up in the song so the kids could make the connection. I saw a few kids get this and they waited until their instrument was featured in the song to play them. The rest of the kids were broken up into two groups - Too Shy to Make Noise Even Though Their Grownup was Encouraging Them To Do So and Let's Make as Much Noise as Humanly Possible. Harmony!

Quieting Down Fingerplay (a favorite from a previous season):  

my hands upon my head I’ll place
on my shoulders
on my face
at my waist and by my side
then behind me they will hide
then I’ll raise them way up high
and let my fingers fly fly fly
now clap 1 2 3 
and let’s see how quiet they can be

Second Book

20 Big Trucks in the Middle of the Street
Early literacy skill: "Talk about activities in the order that they occurred. In 20 Big Trucks in the Middle of the Street, in what order do the trucks appear?"



They liked this book but didn't love it. We did spend a little time talking about ice cream trucks, which was fun.

Song Cube (I stumbled on this idea here):


What's a song cube? It's this giant inflatable dice I found that I taped six familiar songs to. I roll it across the floor (a little like bowling if the kids don't move out of the way), and we sing whatever song it lands on. The songs are all ones I hear kids singing all day long in our activity space. My cube is a little larger than normal (and not only a pain in the butt to store but also bigger than our toucan puppet), so I may try the kleenex box version next spring.

Hokey Pokey:

The most exciting moment that happened during hokey pokey came during the bellybutton part of the song. A little boy nearly ripped his shirt off so he could shake his bellybutton all about without his shirt cramping his style. The song actually came to a halt for a couple seconds while we all shared a giggle.

Goodbye Rhyme:

See you later, alligator
Gotta go, buffalo
See you soon, raccoon
Take care, polar bear
Hit the road, bumpy toad
Bye bye, butterfly
Toodle-loo, kangaroo
Time to scoot, little newt
Adios, hippos
Blow a kiss, goldfish


My coworker did a variation of this rhyme for preschool the last few seasons and I wanted to continue the tradition but choose and make my own animals out of my paper scraps. The best part happened with the goldfish. Nearly everyone blew kisses. It was an unexpected and delightful surprise. Some of the paper scraps I used for this rhyme are pretty special. At the last library branch I worked at the patrons always brought us donations in the prettiest shopping bags. I always nabbed them for collage projects. Now that I'm at a different branch a friend who still works at that branch sends me the prettiest bags. A couple of the animals have scraps from those bags. The fish is made partly out of a chocolate wrapper that I loved but never found a use for. And possibly the best paper story is the polar bear. One of my favorite library volunteers makes artistic cards to sell. She will often give me the scraps leftover from making cards that she cannot use. This volunteer used to work at my previous branch but now works at my current branch! When I showed her the polar bear she was touched that her paper went on to live yet another exciting life. First, a message to let a person know someone cares. Then, a polar bear for kids to enjoy. This is the stuff of happiness right here!

1 comment:

  1. Wonderful post!!!

    It's so heartening to know you're out there imbuing childrens' experience with such empathy and enthusiasm! I imagine many will remember you all their lives.

    ReplyDelete