Storytime From the Liberry: A Whale of a Tale

A toddler storytime about whales?  Hey why not?

A Whale of a Tale

Probably a rather obscure topic to teach to 2 and 3 year olds, but something I wanted to tackle right from the start when I took over storytime from a coworker.  My inspiration and title of the program oddly came from the film 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (yes the old Disney live action one) Well not so much the film, who only highlight for me are Peter Lorre and seal but the song in the beginning of the film, sung by Ned Land (Kirk Douglas)

Inspiration such as Baby Beluga, songs and rhymes came later. You can also combine this theme with ocean animals in general, sailors or pirates. I use sailors in mind because I already have a story time devoted to just pirates. If you are looking to incorporate Ready to Read skill, I pair this storytime up with Singing. You can play noises of whale calls and explain that whales talk by singing and they sing loud so others can hear them from far away. So let’s sing loud and clear today

BOOKS:

If you want to see a Whale by Julie Fogliano

A rather quirky  non-linear books, but very charming with great illustrations! I adore this team’s other book “And Then it’s Spring” I cut down some of the length and asked my storytime friends to be sure and tell me if they see a whale. Many of them got very excited about trying to find it.

A Big Guy Took My Ball by Mo Willems

I am on a desperate crusade to get my toddlers (and their grownups!) to appreciate the humor of Mo Willems. This one is great because of the change to do three voices. Elephant, Piggie and the great big voice of the whale.

Baby Beluga by Raffi

Ahhh son, this is my jam! I was born in the mid 80’s so I was a toddler right as Raffi was making it big. My parents apparently dropped some serious dough to get me tickets to his concert when he came to town. They let me place this tape on loop and sang all the songs with me. Even to this day when I hear the song Baby Beluga, I hear it in my father’s voice still singing to me.

You can use this as a song or with a book if you have a copy. I’ve sung along with the recording in the past, but I decided to ditch that this time and sing it a cappella. If you sing it with the recording, heads up you’ll be flipping pages real fast and have to deal with an awkward break in the middle.

Kavna, the inspiration for "Baby Beluga" Sadly, she passed away in 2012 at age 46.

Way Down Deep in the Deep Blue Sea by Jan Peck

Lots of sea creatures to see and repetitive text. I encourage my friends to wave hello and good bye at every animal we meet. Also I handed out puppets of sea creatures (“our reading buddies”) and would look out if I could see the octopus or the shark in the crowd when we read about them.

Sailor Boy Jig by Margaret Wise Brown

This is such a great book for movement, but my branch has one of the very few copies left. (*Clutches it for dear life*)

Songs and Such:

I'm A Big Whale  Sung to: "Clementine"

I am swimming, I am swimming,

I am swimming in the sea.

I'm a big whale and I'm swimming

I am swimming in the sea.

I am singing , I am singing,

I am singing in the sea.

I'm a big whale and I'm singing,

I am singing in the sea.

I am spouting, I am spouting,

I am spouting in the sea.

I'm a big whale and I'm spouting,

I am spouting in the sea.

 A Sailor went to Sea

We had social time after wards with puppets of ocean animals. I have a stuffed humpback whale, but alas it is not a puppet. Last week was my second time doing this storytime and after some tweaking and add new titles, I think it meet with much more success the second time round. A couple weeks before hand, I helped a patron and her toddler find books on Humpback whales, which was his favorite animal. He told me his grandmother had even made him a humpback whale costume for Halloween last year. Grandma FTW!