Hats!

This theme was easy to put together, there are great hat books, great hat rhymes, and great hat crafts.  I had a rather large - for the base library - audience and they were wonderfully engaged and interactive.  We had a great story time!  Our craft was a simple coloring sheet which I crafted with three different kinds of hats, having lost the matching sheet I wanted to use.  I know I saw it somewhere on the web…oh, why didn't I pin it on Pinterest?

Here are the books we read and the rhymes:

Stormy's Hat: Just Right for a Railroad Man by Eric A. Kimmel
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
This wonderful book is based on the true story of George "Stormy" Kromer and his wife Ida who created the original railroad engineer's cap in 1903 - the same cap worn today, over one hundred years later, by railroad workers everywhere.  My story time audience loved all of Stormy's attempts to find a hat that was just right for a railroad man…fedora, pressman's hat, cowboy hat, firefighter's helmet…nothing worked.  With each failed hat, Ida tries to make a suggestion, to which Stormy replies, "don't worry your pretty little head.'  When he finally listens, Ida creates the perfect hat based on his description.  The illustrations are lovely and the text, a little longer than my usual story time books, held my audience's interest.  There are wonderful author's notes at the end as well.

Then we did the action rhyme, "Tall Hat, Small Hat":
          Tall hat (Arms overhead)
          Small hat (hands close to head)
          Big hat (arms spread out)
          Cap (hands on head)
          Let's take them off again (repeat rhyme with motions in reverse).
          And put them in my lap (fold hands in lap)

Whose Hat Is This?: A Look at Hats Workers Wear--Hard, Tall, and Shiny by Sharon Katz Cooper
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
I love 'guessing game" books for story time - they encourage audience involvement and engagement, which encourages fun and enjoyment.  This one shows a portion of a hat/helmet and a one sentence question/hint and then, when the reader turns the page, there is the answer and information about the specific hat/helmet.  Some of the hats are quite esoteric - like a beekeeper's hat.  My young audience correctly guessed more than half, and really enjoyed the process.  The illustrations are bright and bold, and alternate well between men and women wearers.

This was followed by a hats flannel:

The kids had great fun identifying the various hats and we counted and identified the hat by color.  The green construction hat threw them a bit, since in the two prior books the construction hats had both been yellow!

Then we read:

Martin's Hats by Joan W. Blos

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is an older book (c 1984) with very detailed illustrations and imaginative text about Martin, who puts on a hat and has adventure after adventure…from spelunking under the bed to crashing a party to being a train engineer.  He also directs traffic, delivers mail, and puts out a fire in Chicago.  When he gets home, he finds a special hat waiting: a nightcap and he falls asleep.  This is a charing little book.

Do You Have a Hat? by Eileen Spinelli

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

With wonderfully bright illustrations, the text "name drops" depicting famous people and the hats they wore.  The end notes provide information about all of the people and their accomplishments.  The rhyming text is fun to read aloud and the kids love the refrain of, "Do you have a hat?"  There was much discussion of the types of hats my audience owns and wears.  Great, fun read-aloud.

There were lots of laughs and lots of participation.  We did our wiggle break, "Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes" twice and followed that by putting on our magic hats:

Put on your magic hat (put hands on head)

You can do anything in your magic hat!

You can hop and hop…

You can make a face….

You can flap and flap…

The kids really had fun hopping and flapping!  All in all this was one magical story time.

Ready for Fun

This week I thought we would get silly (ok, sillier than usual) at Story time and so I chose some silly books and two by Jan Thomas, including Is Everyone Ready for Fun?, which gave us the title for today's story time. There were plenty of funny, nonsensical action rhymes and songs out there. We did "Crazy Clap" (three times!) which was easy, thanks to Bethany from the Hennepin County Library:

Crazy Clap
A crazy clap A lazy clap
Clap like a duck
A MONSTER clap
A CROCODILE clap
A fairy clap for luck
(Source: The Moon in the Man by Elizabeth Honey)

We also did some other silly "Can you?" rhymes: "Can you Move with me?" and "You Clap and You Stop." Of course we did "Head, Shoulder, Knees, and Toes" as we always do and the kids offered great suggestions as to how to do it. (Today's selections: whisper, LOUD, and CRAZY) Lots of action and lots of giggles and we held everyone's attention. Here are the books we read today:

Is Everyone Ready for Fun? by Jan Thomas
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Looking for a fun engaging book to put toddlers in a sily, giggly mood? This book is it. Three cows are ready for fun and find it...on chicken's couch. One cow asks, "Is everyone ready?" at the start of each new couch activity and the kids in my audience would yell, "yes!" as they jumped, they danced, they wiggled (giggling the entire time) along with cows. We all agreed that chicken sounded a little like our moms, in trying to protect his couch, and stop the fun. In the end, everyone comes together when they all agree on a good use for chicken's couch.

Don't Be Silly, Mrs. Millie! by Judy Cox
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Mrs. Millie's class laughs all day at all the silly things she says from "hang up your goats" first thing to "Put on your bats and kittens, butterfly!" (translation: put on your hats and mittens, good-bye!) Kids paint "on the weasel" in art class, say the "frog salute" and are invited to come "sit on the bug" for story time. The students laugh, calling Mrs. Mille silly and provide the correct sentence. All in all a fun read-aloud book, with bright illustrations based on the SILLY phrase. My storytime audience loved this book, and laughed and had fun yelling out the correct sentences. Very engaging read for toddlers.

What To Do If An Elephant Stands On Your Foot by Michelle Robinson
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
In this book you will find instructions on what to do, or rather not to do, if you ever come face to face with a tiger, or are up a tree filled with snakes or if you ever find your foot trapped under an elephant. The title of this book intrigued me...and my storytime audience loved it. Of course, you should never startle an elephant, but how can you not yell "Yeowww!" when one is standing on your foot? This book invites the kids to become engaged in the story, so my audience helped make animal noises, waved their arms and yelled "Help!" when sitting in a lake surrounded by alligators and were on their feet going nuts with the monkeys. Thoroughly enjoyable read-aloud.

Can You Make a Scary Face? by Jan Thomas
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
A little over a year ago, I Grabbed this book for a last minute storytime off the shelf and got lucky - the kids (baby-lapsit & toddler) LOVED it. The readers do all kinds of actions at the suggestions of the cute bug that you see on the front cover. It was the perfect addition to this story time, and by the time I read this one my audience was primed to participate. They can make some very, very scary faces!