Go Green Week: A Song for St. Patrick's Day

It's Tuesday time for our second installment of "GO GREEN WEEK"

How do you present songs at your library programs?

Do you have a projector?
An ipod?
A Smartboard!!!

If you are me, you have don't have any of these things! :(

Low-tech is a nice way to describing my storytime set up (and our library for that matter) I used to hand out little storytime booklets with all our songs and books we read.  But it's hard to wrangle a toddler, read and sing at the same time. To not waste any more paper, I ditched them.

I make big song sheets instead. I don't even have one of those nice stands to hang them one, so they rest on the back of my big book stand supported by some cardboard. When you don't have the resources I guess you have to make up for it with pluck!

The song Five Little Leprechauns cam from this awesome post over at Literary Hoots
It's a "Five Little Piggy" song so it has appeal for a wide variety of ages not just babies and toddlers.
The clip art comes from Phillip Martin's site. There is tons of free clip art for all sorts of subjects.

Coming up tomorrow: The Color Green Storytime

Storytime from the Liberry: Happy Feet

So I've done a storytime about hats so it seems a good idea to talk about an article of clothing that rested on the opposite side of our bodies- shoes! (get your mind out of the gutter)

When I previewed it two years ago, my co-worker and friend confided in me that she thought a storytime about shoes was one of the lamest idea she had ever heard.  Oh how she wounded me! Well this co worker left for a while but decided to come back. Welcoming her back I informed her I would be doing her favorite storytime next week.

"The one wear you read 'The Duckling gets a Cookie'?"
"No the one about SHOES!!" *cackle*

I'm sticking to my guns, I like this storytime. Plus we get to use our feet so there is a lot of jumping up and down, stamping our feet and all things toddlers love to do.

Books:

 Shoe Baby by Joyce Dunbar with illustrations by her daughter Polly Dunbar. Just really a cute little story with pleasing rhymes and repetitive phrases. 

Dancing Feet by Lindsey Craig It goes without saying, you need to get up and use your feet to make noise with this one. Most of the children got the general idea of making loud stomping noises with their feet or making tip toe quite noises. The text also follows a pattern which is easy to recall and even memorize in case your mind and hands are busy elsewhere directing your group to remember whats on the page!

My Two Hands/My Two Feet by Rick Walton
Whose Shoes by Anna Grossnickle Hines (and one of my favorite illustrators LeUyen Pham)

Yes even for a storytime on the obsure subject of shoes, there are pleanty of great books to choose from. I have at least half of dozen "back up" books I could use that worked well for this storytime, but I simply can't read them all in one storytime.

Activities and Songs:

We did the nursey rhyme, One two Buckle My Shoe
I also repeated the song I used in a summer storytime- Walking Walking

Walking Walking (Tune of "Frere Jacques")
Walking, walking, walking, walking
Hop hop hop! Hop hop hop!
Jumping, jumping, jumping, jumping, jumping, jumping.
Now we stop! Now we stop.

Extra verses including swaying and swimming, stretching and flying. 

So a storytime about shoes! What do you think?

Storytime from the Liberry: The Five Senses

Once upon a time there was a girl who wanted to do storytime about the five senses. How easy. I'll find a book about each sense! Eyes, Ears, Tasting, Touch, Smelling.

For kids who are 2 and 3......*tire screech*

That was my plan long ago when I first thought of doing a storytime about the 5 senses. Doing five activities for each of the sense would work great for older kids, but not toddlers so much. But wouldn't any book as long as it motivates them and has them use actions and their senses to experience it work? Yes I think so!

So on that thought I present Fizz Boom Bang! A storytime about the 5 Senses!

Books:

The Bear Went over the Mountain by Iza Trapani- The only book that truley covered the 5 senses. A great book to sing to!

The Ear Book by Al Perkins

Press Here by Herve Tullet- I asked kids if they wanted to help press the buttons but I only had two enthusiastic helpers! This interactive book is great for all ages really.

Yummy Yucky !  By Leslie Patricelli- I love this book even though it might be more for babies. It was great to ask the kids what they thought was yummy and yucky. It was an easy book to interact with.

Songs:
Head Shoulder Knees and Toes
Do Your Ears Hang Low?

Where is Your Finger- (Tune of "In an Out the  Window")
Where is your Finger?
Where is your finger?
Where is your finger?
Show me if you can? (Repeat with other body parts)

Walking Walking (Tune of "Frere Jacques")
Walking, walking, walking, walking
Hop hop hop! Hop hop hop!
Jumping, jumping, jumping, jumping, jumping, jumping.
Now we stop! Now we stop!
(Repeat with other movements. First time I used this song and it was great to get the wiggles out before we got to our big dance song)

For our after storytime activity we had a bin of rainbow rice and sensory bottles on the tarp. I was hoping they would play with half and half but they all seemed to crowd around the sensory bin and had a great time burying each others hands!

The last time the colors of the rice would ever be separated!