Funny Farm for Babies

This week's Baby Bookworms theme was "Down on The Farm."  It was great fun for all.  The books contained plenty of good rhyming and rhythm so they were fun for me to read aloud.  Bright illustrations held the audience visually and the fun stories had the adult partners in the audience smiling and laughing and participating.  I read four books, two are new and two from previous blog entries.  We sang several songs, including "Five White and Fluffy Sheep" (to the tune of "Five Green and Speckled Frogs") and "Old MacDonald Had a Farm" although we switched Old MacDonald to "Farmer Joe" to match the book.  The favorite was our tickle for today:

Milk the Cow (Baby Tickle)

(Tune: “Row, Row, Row Your Boat”)

Milk, Milk, Milk the cow 

(gently stroke baby’s arms, legs or hands)

Milking’s what we do

And when the milking is all done,

The cow says, “Moooooo!” 

(Tickle baby’s tummy)

I'm rather embarrassed to say that I don't have the source for this one.  I checked my usual resources and then even did a google search where I found a number of other variations, but not this version.  Thank you to whoever I borrowed this from, it was a big hit with my babies and their adult partners!

Here are the new books we read:

Baby Animal Farm by Karen Blair
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Babies meet baby animals on a farm, what could possibly be cuter than that?  Simple text ("Follow the ducklings. Quack, quack, quack.")  and soft illustrations of happy babies toddling after animals, petting and feeding them make this a very engaging book.  This is a good book to use to introduce new vocabulary to very young readers who will learn the words for animal babies of all kinds like, piglets, calves, kids and lambs.


Peek-a-Moo! by Marie  Torres Cimarusti
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Big bright pull down flaps show a variety of animals playing "Peek-a…" and you finish the phrase with the sound the animal makes: for example, "Peek-a-Oink!" when you see the top of a pig peeking out from behind the flap.  Everyone had fun finishing the phrase with the animal sounds.


Here are the two old favorites:

Bunnies and Eggs 2014

With the approach of Easter it is time for our story time about Bunnies and Eggs.  Flannels of bunnies and eggs and rhymes like "Robbie the Rabbit" and "The Easter Bunny."  We had great fun!

Here is what we read:

Minerva Louise and the Colorful Eggs by Janet Morgan Stoeke
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
There is simple text and bright, springtime illustrations and Minerva the chicken.  Minerva finds an Easter basket and then some colored eggs.  She is worried that mother chicken has lost these eggs and recruits her chicken friends to help save the eggs.  The chickens are alarmed until they see the farmer's children picking up the scattered eggs.  The story is filled with humor (Minerva tries to talk to a chocolate bunny and sit on an egg on top of a fence post) and my young story time audience loved it.

The Story of the Easter Bunny by Katherine Tegen

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Filled with breathtaking illustrations we see the story of an "old, round couple" who spent every winter making baskets and eggs to distribute to the children of their village on Easter…and their rabbit who watched, helped and then took over for them when they became too old.  This is just a lovely book!

Ollie's Easter Eggs by Olivier Dunrea

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

With simple text and adorable illustrations we see how all of our favorite Dunrea characters are preparing for Easter.  Eggs are gathered, dyed, and hidden by everyone except Ollie.  Ollie is busy hopping and, well, being Ollie.  Ollie decides he wants all of the eggs and moves them.  When his friends start their hunt they can't find a single egg until Ollie takes them to his stash, which is now tied up in ribbons and decorated with flowers. My story time audience talked about how bad it was to steal the eggs…until we realized that Ollie gathered the eggs to give to his friends with his special touches added.  

Who Hid the Easter Eggs by Pirkko Vainio

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A sweet story of eggs, a bird and a watchful, helpful squirrel. When Jack the bird steals all of the Easter eggs and places him in his nest, Harry the squirrel saves the Easter egg hunt by convincing Jack to return the eggs and helping to hide all of them again, just before the children set out with their baskets.  The illustrations are awesome and the reader can't help but fall in love  with Jack and Harry.

The Easter Bunny's Assistant by Jan Thomas

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

With Jan Thomas' amazingly vibrant and humor filled illustrations and wonderful word bubble text, my story time audience found this book laugh-out-loud-funny.  The Easter Bunny is trying to give the reader very serious step-by-step lessons in creating beautiful Easter eggs. He is joined by his assistant, Skunk, who finds the whole process very exciting.  The problem is when a skunk gets excited….Skunk is put outside (step 4: remove skunk from room) but is able to return to help the Easter Bunny hide the eggs…outside.

Bugs are Back!

Spring is here…and that means that it is time for our annual story time about bugs.  Some things stay the same and some things are different.  I found some really good books this year and the audience was great, singing and rhyming and laughing in all the right places!  I dug out my old paper puppet ladybugs and we did "Two Little Ladybugs" and for our craft each child created a set of his or her very own.  That part was the same, as were the songs and rhymes.

Here are the books we read:

Yoo-Hoo, Ladybug! by Mem Fox
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
This book is so much fun to read aloud, and so engaging to a small story time audience.  Each page shows very detailed illustration in which a lady bug is hiding.  There is a call, "Yoo Hoo! Lady bug where are you?" and the hunt is on.  Turn the page and the reader is given textual hints to pin point her location.  Great fun and very engaging.

Butterfly Kiss by Marcial Boo
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
A beautifully illustrated story of the butterfly, Kiss, who sets off to find a new home.  He meets all sorts of other animals, none of whom want a kiss.  He does finally find a home…with an old man and his grandchild.  My story time audience loved this gentle story especially the gorgeous illustrations.

One Bear with Bees in His Hair by Jakki Wood
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
With bouncy, rhyming text and bold colorful illustrations this is a charming counting book about ten happy, hide and seek playing bears.  With lots of opportunities to engage a story time audience, this one ends in a cool guessing game.

I Love Bugs! by Emma Dodd
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
What a fun book about bugs!  My story time audience loved the large bouncy text and wonderfully kid-friendly illustrations.  Lots of great adjectives and "sound" words help the reader do what the young boy in the story is doing, enter the world of bugs.  This is a great read-aloud!

Hugs and Kisses 2014

It is February and love is in the air…even if you are only two or three years old. So, of course it is time for the annual hugs and kisses story time.  All the kids in my story time audience were gearing up for the big day and they talked excitedly about the Valentines they were preparing to give out and talked dreamily about all of the Valentines they hoped they would get.  At today's story time we had a class visit, so there were more than 25 kids in the audience.   We all had great fun, the kids interacted with the stories, were engaged and participated.

First, here are the "hugs and kisses" books we read:

Pete the Cat: Valentine's Day Is Cool by James Dean
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Pete the cat, the very definition of cool, believes that Valentine's Day is not…that is until his friend Callie convinces him otherwise.  With a little help from his mom he learns how to make the perfect Valentine to celebrate the cool in every cat and to express to everyone how much they are appreciated.  Wonderful, brightly colored illustrations complete this Valentine book with a slightly different message.  Fun read-aloud (although not as much fun as being able to play a sung version of a Pete book) and my story time audience loved it.


A Kiss Like This by Mary Murphy
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
My story time audience loved this one.  With brightly colored illustrations and rhyming text we see all sorts of animals exchange kisses, "A giraffe kiss is gentle and tall….a mouse kiss is quick and small."  There are half pages to turn to display the actual kiss which my audience loved.


Love, Splat by Rob Scotton
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Beware - open a Splat book and it will be love at first sight.  Splat the cat has a universal appeal.  He is good, but slightly goofy, looking and he has an innocence, honesty and openness that kids and adults can identify with.  In this book, it's Valentine's Day and he is getting ready for school, to give Kitten an extra special Valentine.  Splat has a major crush on Kitten.  Unfortunately, Spike the class bully, also likes Kitten.  In spite of Splat's insecurities everything works out in the end!  My story time audience loved this one, hanging on each detailed illustration and cheering Splat on.


Then we read a "just for fun" book:

Tap the Magic Tree by Christie Matheson
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Great fun book which requires reader involvement.  We follow a tree through the seasons, and the reader is asked to tap, rub, knock, jiggle, and shake the tree to effect changes…growing leaves, budding flowers, picking apples, making snow fall.  Even though I read this to a fairly large group, everyone could be involved with a tap or knock and it didn't take my audience long to anticipate the changes on the next page.  One of the instructions is to blow the tree a tiny kiss…so that is my justification for including this in a Valentine story time.


There were rhymes and songs…and even this flannel:

Colored Heart

(Tune: "London Bridge")

Here's a heart that's colored red

Colored red, colored red

Here's a heart that's colored red

I made it just for you.

Our Craft today was a Magic Heart, which could be worn as a hat (if one is crazy enough!).The kids folded a paper plate in half and cut some swirls. Unfold the plate and up pops a heart!

I was told that the class really only wanted a book or two and then the kids really wanted time on the computers.  I am very pleased to say that all of the kids really seemed to enjoy all of the books, and many of the classroom kids wanted to make the craft.  Isn't it nice when the magic of books and simple crafts takes hold?

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.

Under a Full Moon

So this week at the Base Library there were six children at story time.  It was a nice number and the participation rate was pretty high...although I noticed the oldest boys liked performing the actions associated with songs and rhymes much better than singing the songs or saying the rhymes!  This week's theme was all about the moon.  One of the rhymes we did was "Five Full Moons" and, with the help of NASA, I created a flannel to go with it:

Here are the books we read:

Moon Rooster by David Gershator

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is a very amusing book, and a great read aloud - especially if you have everyone in the audience help rooster by joining in every "cockadoodledoo."  The main character, a young rooster suffering from insomnia and confusion, decides that a rooster must crow to wake the moon just as the other roosters were needed to wake the sun.  Things go downhill for rooster from there, he just doesn't understand why people throw shoes pots and clocks at him to say thank you when he would rather just have some dried corn kernals....The illustrations are lovely, and although my storytime audience missed the somewhat sarcastic tone of the text, it made the parents in my audience smile.  The kids just loved the zaniness and making all that noise.

Moongame by Frank Asch

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is a very sweet book with simple text and brightly colored illustrations.  Little Bird teaches Bear a new game: Hide and Seek.  Bear likes it so much that he plays it with the moon after everyone else has gone to bed.  The moon finds Bear quite easily, but then it's Bear's turn to be it...and he can't find the moon.  Before the end of the book all the forest animals are awake and searching!  My storytime audience loved this book, even though some of the kids were well beyond the toddler stage.   

Moonlight by Helen V. Griffith

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is a gentle story, with beautiful illustrations.  It captures the beauty of a moonlit night, where the moonlight coats everything like butter.  Simple text complete this story of the animals and who the joy the buttery night gives them.

Kitten's First Full Moon by Kevin Henkes

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

With illustrations that are in shades of gray to reflect the night, little kitten makes unsuccessful attempts to get a drink from the big bowl of milk she sees above her.  My storytime audience watched and listened to Kitten's every attempt and felt her pain with each failure.  In the end, they cheered when she found an actual bowl of milk waiting for her on her very own front porch.  

All in all a very enjoyable story time!