Three Little Pigs Storytime

I dedicated the month of April to doing fairy tales in storytime and this week we did The Three Little Pigs! I LOVE when I get the chance to tell the story of the three little pigs because it's something that everyone knows and it's super easy to ask for audience participation.

I begin every storytime with the song "So Happy You're Here" then I move on to the wonderful and amazing (seriously, it's awesome and you should use it if you're not already) game "Little Mouse". If you haven't heard of this game you can find it here.

After our intro I began verbally retelling The Three Little Pigs along with the kids and we practiced our huffing and our puffing. Then we got up and wiggled our ears, noses, paws, and cotton tails to the song "Bunny Hop".

After we got our wiggles out I moved on to "The Three Little Fish and the Big Bad Shark" by Ken Geist. The kids really loved this one and we had a fun time guessing if the seaweed, sand, and wooden ship would hold up against the big bad shark and his munching and crunching.

I then turned our attention to our TV where I had tonight's finger rhyme displayed via our iPad and Apple TV device.

Fingerplay: “Two Mother Pigs”
Two mother pigs lived in a pen (show thumbs)
Each had four babies, and that made ten (show fingers & thumbs)
These four babies were black as night (thumb in palm, wiggle fingers)
These four babies were black and white (switch hands, repeat)
But all eight babies loved to play
And they rolled and rolled in the mud all day (roll hands)
At night, with their mother, they curled up in a heap (clasp hands)
And squealed and squealed till they fell fast asleep.
Credit: SurLaLune Storytime

After our finger rhyme we got our bees buzzing and sang along to "Baby Bumble Bee". I like to do this song twice because 1) It's so short and 2) The kids just LOVE it

Finally I read "The Three Little Tamales" by Eric A. Kimmel. This was the first time I ever used a bilingual book in storytime and I should have done a better job introducing the book and the fact that there would be Spanish words in it because the kids were a little confused. However, they seemed to really enjoy learning the Spanish words and it didn't take away from the story at all. I'm really looking forward to using more bilingual books in the future and I hate myself for not doing it sooner. 

By then our half hour was up and I had only finished half of my planned storytime! But we had a coloring page to get to and the kids were anxious. So we sang our closing song, said our goodbyes, and went to the craft table.


Closing Song: "Time to Wave Goodbye"
Oh it's time to wave goodbye to our friends! Cha Cha Cha!
Oh it's time to wave goodbye to our friends! Cha Cha Cha!
Oh it's time to wave goodbye, oh it's time to wave goodbye!
Oh it's time to wave goodbye to our friends! Cha Cha Cha!
(Unfortunately I can't remember where I found this one so I apologize for not being able to link it to the original source)

Storytime Outline

Opening Song- So happy you're here, Hap Palmer
Game- Little Mouse
Song- Bunny Hop, Katherine Dines
Book- Three little fish and the big bad shark, Ken Geist
Rhyme- Two mother pigs
Song- Baby bumblebee, Unknown
Book- The three tamales, Eric A. Kimmel
Song- If you're happy and you know it, Baby Einstein
Book- The three little gators, Helen Ketteman
Ending Song- Time to wave goodbye
Craft: The Three Little Pigs Finger Puppets

Stealing Good Ideas

I'm on the social committee at work and even though there's five of us only two of us really come up with ideas for fun things to do at work. And can I just say how thankful I am that the library community is all about idea stealing sharing?

I recently read a post from the amazing Lisa Mulvenna over at Libraryland. (You should also follow her on Twitter  @lmulvenna) about a nifty little thing she and her fun committee did called Candy Madness which you can read here. Well, I immediately emailed the post to the other woman on our social committee and we both agreed that it was something we HAD to do. Unfortunately I didn't see Lisa's post until after March Madness so we've decided to run ours through the month of May. I must say, it has taken a little more time to set up than I had anticipated but we are excited and hopeful! I've spilled the beans to a few coworkers about what we're up to and they're super excited! I mean, who wouldn't love to get the chance to eat candy and then vote for which one is the best? 

I'll make sure to keep everyone posted on how it goes and who ends up being the big winner!

Welcome back!

Wow, I was cleaning out some stuff and came across this old blog of mine from a few years ago. It's a shame that I stopped posting since a lot has happened between then and now. It's now 2014 and I've been involved in so many awesome things! I sporadically post for the amazing blog littleelit.com (seriously, if you haven't checked us out do yourself a favor and do it), I've created some pretty rad early literacy kits based on the ECRR practices, and successfully lobbied to have our Friends of the Library purchase the J department an iPad, flat screen TV, TV cart, and Apple TV. It's easy to get caught up in the monotonous day-to-day activities that tend to consume the majority of our work but once I sat back and actually looked at everything I've helped my library accomplish, and what I've done personally and professionally, I'm really quite pleased. ( I know, I know, *toot toot*)

I think one of the best things I've managed to do in the time between now and my last post was create such an amazing network of librarian colleagues and friends! Every day I'm amazed by how awesome these wonderful people are and all the kick ass stuff they do.

Okay, enough sappy for now. I'll be back later with another post!

Trista

Dinosaur win and fail

Well, I must say that my dinosaur program had some ups and downs.

I'll start with the ups because they make me feel better.

1. Kids LOVE dinosaurs. Seriously. We were ROARING and STOMPING through the entire storytime.
2. The adult reference librarian told me he could hear us across the library. (I take that as a job well done)
3. I actually got a round of applause after singing a dinosaur song.

Okay, time for the not so awesome downs.

1. All of the kids wanted to pull my felt dinosaurs down from the board before I even started my "No more room" rhyme. This resulted in near meltdowns, the rhyme taking longer than planned, and a lot of interruptions.
2. Since I do family storytime I get kids from birth to about six coming to my storytimes. I thought I would try a longer book, Captain Flinn and the Pirate Dinosaurs, because I had 2 shorter ones and this one had a lot of action. Ya, while some of the older kids were interested I could tell that I was losing my younger ones and their parents. Ah well, I'll just have to try something else next time.

All in all, I would have to say that my dinosaur storytime went really well. Oh, except for the fact that I forgot to tell my joke. What do you call a fossil that refuses to work? Lazy Bones.

Dinosaurs!

Tomorrow I'll be doing a dinosaur themed family storytime! I'm SO excited because I think my kids are really going to have a good time.

Books that will be read are How Do Dinosaurs Get Well Soon? and How Do Dinosaurs Eat Their Food? by Jane Yolen as well as A Number of Dinosaurs which is a cute popup book about counting.

We'll also be singing and dancing to "Oh I want to be a great, big dinosaur" and "Dinosaur Romp" by Debbie Clement. Followed by a fingerplay about dinosaurs and the feltboard story "No More Room".

Hopefully tomorrow will be a hit after last weeks devestating blow. I'm still not sure when I'll be confident enough to bring back my puppet.

Ultimate Puppet Fail

So I went to the annual OLC convention in Toledo last week and bought an AWESOME puppet by Folkmanis.

His name is Twickety, isn't he the cutest?

Anyways, I was really excited to try him out in my next storytime because I've heard nothing but great things from librarians who use puppets. Well, needless to say he was an utter flop. Maybe it's because I was too nervous since it was my first time and the kids could sense that. Maybe it was because my kids just don't like puppets. Who knows? Needless to say I was pretty discouraged by the reactions I received.

But, I've decided to keep going with it and maybe I'll get more confident with my new pal and my kids will come around and learn to love him as much as I do. We'll see.

Getting Squirrely during Family Storytime

I just started my first full time position as a Youth Librarian and I'm loving it! At least once a day I stop to think, "I can't believe I'm getting paid to do this". Since we're entering the fall and October is just around the corner, I've decided to do a squirrel themed Family Storytime. I've been putting a lot of time and effort into it and I hope it goes over well. Currently, I'm planning on reading:

Nuts to you!  by Lois Ehlert

Acorns Everywhere! by Kevin Sherry

Scaredy Squirrel by Melanie Watt

Errol by Hannah Shaw







I will also be doing some pretty fun finger plays and felt board rhymes. One of the felt board rhymes I found is "5 Little Squirrels" which goes like this,

Five little squirrels sitting by the door,
One ran away and then there were four.
Four little squirrels climbing a tree,
One ran away and then there were three.
Three little squirrels with coats so new,
One ran away and then there were two.
Two little squirrrels warming in the sun,
One ran away and leaving only one.
One little squirrel wasn't having any fun,
He ran away and then there were none.

I had a lot of fun with this because I was able to exercise my creativity and make my own felt squirrels, along with felt squirrel jackets, a felt tree, and a felt house! Once I juice up my camera I'll make sure to take some pictures to add on here. =)