Let's Give the Library Three Big Cheers!

Today's storytime was much the same as this one about the library last year. We read Lola at the Library by Anna McQuinn, and I wanted to also read Dinosaur vs. the Library by Bill Shea, but it's overdue. (Grrrr)  However, I shared a great a new book, perfect for storytime, that has nothing to do with libraries.

The book is Oh No! written by Candace Fleming and illustrated by Caldecott winner Eric Rohmann. (Not to be confused with Oh No! and Oh No Not Again, by Mac Barnet and Dan Santat, which are also awesome.) This is definitely a Caldecott-worthy book. The quality of the production is outstanding, right from the dust jacket flaps and endpapers through the entire book.

A frog, chased by a tiger, falls into a deep, deep hole. He is followed by a mouse, a loris, a sun bear, and a monkey, and none of them can get out--Oh no!  Just when it looks like the tiger is about to pounce on his helpless victims, an unexpected visitor arrives to save the day. This is a perfect storytime read-aloud book.

 We also did part of the Library Cheer and talked about how great libraries are.

For our craft we made bookmarks like the one you see here.  You will need:

colored card stock
patterned paper cut a little smaller than the card stock
stickers or other cut-outs
ribbon
glue and hole punch

The stars (and hearts) were cut with the Cricut machine. I cut a lot of things out by hand, but for small pieces like this a Cricut is ideal. 
The kids glued their bookmarks together and wrote their names on the back. I told the kids that if they didn't need a bookmark themselves, it would make a good gift, and one boy decided to give his to his big brother, who reads longer books.

Sheep A-Leaping

The sheep were leaping at storytime today.  We read Sheep in a Jeep, by Nancy Shaw, and Where's the Green Sheep, by Mem Fox. We also read Here Are My Hands, by Bill Martin, but that had nothing to do with sheep. On the flannelboard we had Baa Baa Black Sheep, which I made several years ago based on the pattern in The Flannel Board Storytelling Book by Judy Sierra.

We've been singing A-Hunting We Will Go every week.  Each time I pick out four animals from my collection of about 20 laminated animal + rhyming thing collection.  This week it was sheep-jeep, duck-truck, goat-boat, and dragon-wagon. Then we talked about which animals they might see on a farm around here, and which one didn't fit on the farm.

Here's a fingerplay rhyme, slightly altered from Hubbard's Cupboard.  Sing it to the tune of Five Green and Speckled Frogs:

Five fat and fluffy sheep (hold up five fingers)
In the pasture fast asleep (hands under head, lean over)
Their wool kept them cozy all night long (hug yourself)
Snore! Snore! (make snore sounds)
The farmer slipped away with one (hold up one finger)
And clipped the wool till he was done (clap)
Then there were 4 fat fluffy sheep (hold up four fingers)
Baa! Baa!

For a craft we made the ever-popular cotton ball sheep. Luckily I had a teen helper to cut out the bodies, heads, and legs. Just add cotton balls and two eyes!

Hoppy September!

Today we had a hopping good time at the Library and at Head Start. Once a month I take my show on the road and go to Orland's Chapman Head Start site to do two morning sessions and two afternoon sessions. In between I do the regular library pre-school storytime. It's great practice!

Our books were:

Who Hops?/Quien Salta? by Katie Davis.  When I ordered this book I didn't know I'd be getting a bi-lingual version, but I'm happy I did. At one of the Head Start session a teacher read the Spanish while I did the English. Great!

Boing! by Nick Bruel. This is a fun story about a little kangaroo, who fails at hopping until she cleans out her pouch, which is overloaded with ribbons, marbles, toys, buttons, and assorted other stuff. Once she gets that taken care of she can Boing! with the best of them.




Of course, we did some hoppy songs, like "I Saw a Little Rabbit" and "One little, two little, three little bunnies."  Here's the words for the first one:

I saw a little rabbit come hop, hop, hop.
I saw his long ears go flop, flop, flop.
I saw his little eyes goes blink, blink, blink.
I saw his little nos go twink, twink, twink.
I said, "Mr. Rabbit can you stay, stay, stay?"
He looked at me, and then he hopped away!

On the flannelboard I did a great new game: Miss Mouse in the House. I thought that I got the idea from Mel's Desk (she has lots of flannelboard ideas), but she doesn't have a pattern, so I borrowed my mouse from Rain makes Applesauce.  Or here's another version.  Mine looks like this:

Hide Miss Mouse behind one of the houses as you put them on the board, then chant:
Miss Mouse, Miss Mouse, Are you in the ____ house?
 Look under the house, she's not there?, try again.  Kids LOVE this.  It was an enormous success.  I did three rounds of hiding Miss Mouse with each group, which means I played the Miss Mouse game 15 times. Or maybe more---I'm not sure.

Make your own Miss Mouse, and have a fun time at storytime!

Other voices, other blogs

Here at the Orland Free Library our homepage is our blog page. The library's homepage is actually a Wordpress blog, with links to the catalog, research resources, and other pages about the library.

Each of us on the staff takes a weekly turn to write for the blog. Wednesday is my day. Yesterday, since Google told me that it was the 100th anniversary of the birth of Julia Child, I decided to write about that icon of cooking, and highlight the books and videos we have about her in the library.

The majority of people who see these blog entries are people who get on the public computers, so I have always figured that no one reads the entries; they just breeze right on past in their haste to check their e-mail or Facebook. So I wrote the entry and went to lunch, just pausing a moment to take Julia's Kitchen Wisdom off the shelf, thinking I might check it out later.

Halfway through my lunch a co-worker came into the break room to ask if she could loan out the Julia Child book on my desk. "Of course," I answered.  Someone had actually read the blog entry and wanted the book! I was amazed---I never knew anyone read those entries. It was worth giving out the book to learn that someone had read what I wrote.

Garden Variety Librarian is not my only blog---I also have one called goldfields that I write about John Bidwell and northern California history. It has about the same number of subscribers, which is to say, very few. But if you are interested in Bidwell and the history he lived, take a look.

Great Big Basket o' Veggies!

It's harvest time in the garden again, and everything is producing. Every year in August I bring a big basket full of fruits and vegetables to the library to talk about with the kids. I have some great veggie eaters in my storytime group. Judging from their responses, they like every kind of fruit and vegetable.

Everything in the basket pictured here grew in my garden, except for the carrot. That came from the Farmers' Market. (There were two carrots, and more peppers and squash before I cut them up for the craft.  I should have taken the picture before storytime instead of after.)

Most of these items I picked just this morning. You can see corn, onions, zucchini, cucumbers, green beans, tomatoes, peppers, basil, peaches and plums. And a cantaloupe. We talked about the different shapes and colors, about how not all tomatoes are red, and how peppers come in almost all colors.

We read two of my favorite veggie tales: Up, Down, and Around, by Katherine Ayres, and Growing Colors, by Bruce McMillan. On the flannelboard I put up pictures of fruit and we sang:

Strawberries, Peaches, Watermelon too
Good for me and good for you.
They are yummy, they are sweet,
They are such a tasty treat.
Strawberries, Peaches, Watermelon too
Good for me and good for you.   (sing to the tune of "Twinkle, twinkle, little star")

Then I held up various vegetables and we sang:

"Tomatoes, corn, and green beans too . . . "  and then  "Cucumbers, cantaloupe, peppers, too. . . . "  There's no end to the combinations you can sing about.  Seems to me this would be a good song to sing when you want to get your kids revved up to eat their vegetables.

We made zucchini prints for our craft. See last year's entry for pictures and instructions, including how to make paint stamp pads that can be stored in the refrigerator.

Owl in the Treetop

Last week our storytime was about owls and other creatures of the night. 

Probably my favorite song for learning the kids names is "Owl in the Treetop," sung to the tune of "Skip to My Lou."  Goes like this:

Owl in the treetop, hoo-hoo-hoo  (kids love hoo-hooing)
Owl in the treetop, hoo-hoo-hoo
Owl in the treetop, hoo-hoo-hoo
Who-who-who are you?

Point to a child and have them respond with their name, then sing again. I f you have too many kids to sing this for each child, put two or three together: "Who-who-who are you (response), and you (response), and you (response)?"

We read the books Quiet Night by Marilyn Singer, and I'm Not Cute, by Jonathan Allen. A couple other good books for this theme are Little Owl's Night, by Divya Srinivasan, and Owl Babies, by Martin Waddell.

 

The craft was a paper bag owl.  To make your owl, start by cutting the open end of a brown lunch bag down three inches and around three sides.


Fold the sides of the flap to make a triangle and fold down.  Stuff the bag lightly and then glue the flap down.  Now you are ready to "decorate" your owl.  Add eyes, beak, tummy, wings, and feather "ears." 

We have sheets of left over round white stickers from the labels that we put on CDs. I colored (well, I had a teen volunteer do it) the stickers yellow. The kids stuck the yellow stickers on little white paper circles and then colored in the eyes.    And there's your owl!!

The Great Stuffed Animal Sleepover Party!

A sleepover party for stuffed animals---doesn't that sound like fun?  It was our kick-off event on June 14 for the Summer Library Program, or the Summer Reading Club, or whatever you like to call it.  I started this post right after the party, and then forgot about it while I was waiting to get the pictures together.

Anyway . . . .

We welcomed the animals to the party by making tags for them that said:  "Hi! My name is _____ and I belong to ______." Each critter got a tag so we would know what belonged to whom for the overnight stay.

The kids sat on a couple big picnic quilts for storytime.

Once everyone was assembled, I taught them the Library Cheer. The cheer was written by Garrison Keillor and you can see librarian Margaret Miles demonstrating it on http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jis3P6HFZ-M

Then we sang Alice the Camel, and read two great bedtime books:  Llama Llama Red Pajama, by Anna  Dewdney and Where’s my Teddy? by Jez Alborough. 

Here's a good little bedtime fingerplay:

This little child is going to bed  (hold up one finger)

Down on the pillow she lays her head  (lay the finger down on the palm of your other hand)

She wraps herself in a blanket tight  (wrap fingers around the one finger child)

And this is the way she sleeps all night. (hold out your two hands)

  

I told the story of The Tailor and the Hudgin, or, The Bed Just So.  There is an old book by Jeanne Hardendorff called The Bed Just So,where I got this story, but the book is out of print. It is my favorite "slightly-scary" story for the younger crowd. I often use it at Halloween, but it isn't really a Halloween story.  It's about a tailor trying to get some sleep and the mysterious hudgin who keeps him awake all night long, until he finds the solution right before his eyes.

After all the stories and songs we made glittery stars to hang from the ceiling, and then tucked the animals under the quilts.  Goodnight, critters!

The critters had a great time overnight in the library.

This was such a fun activity and really easy to do. We'll probably do it again!