Got a Story in my Pocket!

We have a wonderful, colorful storytelling apron covered with pockets. Here is a picture of Karla modeling the apron. Isn't she cute? Darn! I wish I could take a picture that wasn't blurry!

The apron has a label that says "Patchwork Puppet Place, Des Moines, Iowa." I recently found out that the apron was made by Carol Taylor of Des Moines, Iowa, and here is her website for Patchwork Puppets.

I've used the apron for a variety of storytimes, sometimes asking the kids to pick a pocket - whatever object is in the pocket I'll read a story about it:  A pebble? Sylvester and the Magic Pebble. A feather? Feathers for Lunch. You get the idea.
     But this storytime is actually about pockets.

I'll put the action rhymes and songs up front, 'cause I know when I'm looking for inspiration, that's what I want to find. A list of suggested books follows.

Action Songs, Stretches and Rhymes

Five Fingers in My Pocket

This is one of my favorite new songs. After the storytime the kids leave the library still singing this song. I found it in a video of "Music with Mar"  and it's also available as a download or CD. 

Anyway, it's fun, fun, fun, and I highly recommend Music with Mar. She sang this song with great animation and energy. If the kids don't have pockets, have them hide their hands behind their backs. 

I've got 5 fingers in my pocket!       (hold up 5 fingers and slip hand into pocket)

Five fingers hidden away!

Five fingers in my pocket, 

Look!                                           (pull hand out with just 4 fingers showing)

Awwww. One went away.                     (look shocked, then sad)

Start song over with "4 fingers."

Continue until you have "No fingers."

The children will anticipate each new verse with giggles and delight.

Put your "no fingers" hand into your pocket and sing to last line, 

then pull out 5 fingers again! Surprise!

Sing final verse about 5 fingers, changing last line to:

Five fingers here to stay! 

Ring Around the Rosie

Ring around the rosie

Pocket full of posies

Ashes, ashes

We all fall down!

The only other pocket song or rhyme I could find was the old Girl Scout/Brownie Song, which wasn't exactly a big hit with 3 year olds. 

I Have Something in My Pocket

I have something in my pocket 

that belongs upon my face;

I keep it very close to me 

in a most convenient place.

I'll bet you never guess it

if you guess a long, long while,

so I'll take it out and put it on,

it's a great big happy smile! 

If you know of other pocket songs or rhymes, please let me know!

 

Books:

The Pocket Dogs / Margaret Wild

This sweet story is about a man with two tiny pocket-sized dogs. He carries them in his pockets wherever he goes. One day, one of the little dogs falls out through a hole in the pocket and gets lost in a grocery store.
The kids really liked this story, I think they identified with the poor lost little dog, The story has a happy ending too.

A Pocket for Corduroy / Don Freeman

This classic story from 1978 is still a great choice for storytime. Most kids have a stuffed toy or two that they love and talk to, and I always loved imaging that my toys had lives of their own when no one was watching. We had to do a little vocabulary, as my group of mostly small town and farm kids had never been to a laundromat, and we needed to learn what a beret is as well.

A Sock is a Pocket for Your Toes / Elizabeth Garton Scanlon

This is a really clever and fun book, BUT it didn't work for storytime. I think it's important to include my mistakes as well as my successes. There are teacher websites that use this book as part of a  language arts lesson plan with early elementary kids, and I can see how it would be great for that. But with a group of three and four year olds? Not so much. It may be a developmental issue, or maybe it would work fine as a lap book with one or two kids.

There's a Hole in my Pocket : based on a traditional American Song  / adaped by Akimi Gibson

I added this little book to the end of the storytime, and sang the text, using the old folk tune. Not sure the kids really got the joke, but oh well. I think it's important for kids to learn traditional folk tales and folk songs, it's part of their cultural heritage. I remember as a kid loving to sing this song. I must have driven my mother crazy.

Batty for Books! Halloween Storytime

“Batty for Books!”

Books:

Bats at the Library / Brian Lies

Big Pumpkin / Erica Silverman

Halloween Night / Arden Druce

A Creepy Countdown / Charlotte Huck

Chant: Halloween Night Sounds

   Adapted from Sleeping Bag Chant by Linnea Good

        On H.U.M. All Year Long, CD / Carole Peterson     (Awesome CD!!!!)

H.U.M. All Year Long is our new favorite go-to CD for storytimes. Every song is a winner. For this storytime, I tweaked some of the lyrics of the Sleeping Bag Chant to give it a Halloween flavor and then chanted it myself (without the CD) At other storytimes we have just played the song on the CD and sung along with it.

Song: Black Bat Farm /  Carole Peterson: “H.U.M. All Year Long” CD

Song: Looking for Dracula / Charlotte Diamond: “10 Carrot Diamond” CD

Another one of my favorite CDs - I just play the CD and we sing and ham it up!

I try to make time to include some factual information in many of my storytimes, and this one is especially important as bats are so valuable and so endangered, and so many people are freaked out by them!

I set up several nonfiction bat books for kids to look at and check out, and displayed some photos of bats and related some info about bats that was appropriate for very young learners. 

• The bats in Iowa are tiny and fragile, and they eat tons of mosquitoes, so we don't want to hurt them. If a bat gets inside your house, please don't hit it with a tennis racket. Open a window or door and gently encourage it toward the exit. If two or more people are at home, try holding up a bed sheet to block the bat's flight  and guide it to the window or door. Some people have luck waiting till the bat is resting on a wall, then trapping it under a coffee can and gently slide a piece of thin pasteboard (like cereal box board) under the can. Then the bat can be safely transported to the out of doors. 

• Bats are very clean. They groom themselves like cats. 

• Bats have only 1 baby a year. They do not have litters of babies like mice or cats. Because they have just 1 baby, it would be very easy for them to be wiped out by disease or habitat loss. 

•  Bats will not get tangled in your hair. Bats almost never bite people!

 

Mother Goose Nursery Rhyme Time

I thought I'd share some pics from this morning's Mother Goose storytime. This is our storytime for babies and toddlers. We also have some older siblings who enjoy this program. Today Karla was reading  Silly Stories. 


Of course I should have used our new digital camera, I could even have taken some video. But this was total impulse so I pulled out my cell phone and snapped - unfortunately there is a tiny delay and toddlers don't sit still, so the shots are blurry. Also the wonderful windows in our story room that let in tons of wonderful sunlight, make for a less than ideal photo studio - people come out looking like silhouettes.

We sit in a big circle on colored foamie squares. The kids love choosing which color to sit on. Kids are allowed to move around at will, crawl, toddle, and play. Our 2 rules are no playing on the steps during the storytime, and if a child is crying or extremely unhappy, 

that the adult take the child out of the room until he or she is calm.

Here you see several kids have moved up closer to see the pictures in the book Karla is reading.

Here Regan is showing Karla her new earrings while Vicki and Kendra look on. All of the girls were dressed like Fancy Nancy today - lots of sparkles and ruffles!

Take a picture of me!

Katelyn can smile too!

Another blurry photo! Snack time following the stories and songs.

Books Karla read today:  Shake My Sillies Out /  Raffi

                                            Pretend You're a Cat / Jean Marzollo

                                            The Baby Goes Beep / Rebecca O'Connell

Creature Comforts: animals at home

These are three books I happen to like very much. There are many others that would fit within this theme. As I gather titles I'll add them to the bottom of this post. One I should mention right away that I read to kids often is Owl Babies, by Martin Waddell. It's one of my favorite picture books and would also have been a perfect fit for this storytime. I think it must have been unavailable when I threw this program together, which I did very quickly. So, not my best program, maybe, but it worked out just fine.

Stellaluna by Janell Cannon, is an interesting choice because it is the story of a baby bat growing up in a bird's nest. Stellaluna has to adapt to living like a bird, and then relearn how to live like a fruit bat. Even very little kids sit still for this story, which has pretty lengthy narration in the beginning. The illustrations are gorgeous and Stellaluna's expressions are priceless. The book ends with some factual information about bats.  Featured early literacy skill: narrative skills. There is one page in which Stellaluna falls and the words swirl down like the little bat falling, that text can be pointed out to the kids, exercising print awareness.

Action Song: Bats Are Sleeping

(tune: Frere Jacques)

action instructions follow the lyrics

Bats are sleeping, Bats are sleeping

upside down, upside down

Sleeping in the morning sun,

waiting for the night to come,

when they fly around,

when they fly around. 

Here is the American Sign Language sign for bat:

 I start out with everybody standing up. 

Bats are sleeping:  use the ASL sign, then tuck your hands under your cheek for "sleeping"

Upside down:  bend forward at the waist and hang upside down - this is also a yoga pose

morning sun:  stand up straight and make a big sun with your arms

night:  ASL for night - see picture above, move your hand over the other hand 2 or 3 times

Fingerplay: Two Little Bats

I am always surprised by how much kids enjoy the simple little fingerplay about two little dickie birds, or two little blackbirds. This is an easy one to adapt to a variety of themes. I found this one online: 

Two little bats (hold up 2 fingers or thumbs)

hanging in a cave (point fingers upside down)

one named Dan (hold up 1 finger)

and one named Dave (hold up other finger)

Fly away Dan! (1st finger makes flying motions to behind your back)

Fly away Dave! (2nd finger flies behind back)

Come back Dan, (1st finger returns)

Come back Dave. (2nd finger returns)

Try doing this 2 or 3 times at least so the kids learn it, 

then to have more fun, speed it way up, or slow it way down.

Book: Secret Place by Eve Bunting. This is not a kid favorite unfortunately. I think the text is maybe a little boring for very young children. But it makes an important point about the wildlife living all around us, even in big cities and how we need to protect the animals and their habitats. The kids do like the pictures of the animals, and during the storytime, they moved closer to the book to ask questions about some of the animals. School age kids might like this book better than preschoolers. This would be a good book for an Earth Day storytime.

Action Rhyme: The Egg

Snuggled down inside an egg that was white (crouch on floor with head down)

was a tiny little duck all curled up tight.

Then he lifted his head , tapped the egg with his beak (lift head, with finger "tap" egg)  

Then out he popped with a peep, peep, peep! (jump straight up and PEEP!)

Felt Board Song:  Irene, Good Night (new lyrics by Raffi) 

I love Raffi, and I use this song all the time in programs. I made felt board figures for it out of construction paper, laminated them and put felt on the back. Today I would use velcro. This is one of the first felt board sets I made, and every time I look at these little critters, I smile. I think they're pretty cute. Before singing the song I hand the critters out to the kids and tell them when they hear their animal in the song to come up and put their piece on the board. For some of them it's pretty hard to wait!  Early literacy skills: all music, songs, and rhymes exercise phonological awareness. Action rhymes and finger plays add motion to the rhymes which aids memorization. Songs and rhymes are fun and they are great exercise for our brains too!

Chorus: Irene, good night

Irene, good night

Good night, Irene

Good night, Irene

I'll see you in my dreams.

Foxes sleep in the forest,

A lion sleeps in a den,

Goats sleep on the mountainside,

and a piggy sleeps in a pen.

Whales sleep in the ocean,

A zebra sleeps on the land,

Hippos sleep by the riverside,

and camels sleep on the sand.

Coyote sleeps in the canyon,

A birdie sleeps in a tree,

and when it's time for me to rest,

My bed's the place for me. 

Above: the menagerie (cell phone pic, not very clear), and close up of my hippo sleeping by the river.

Book: One Wolf Howls by Scotti Cohn There are lots of cool ways to include this book in storytime programs. It's a counting book. It is a seasons book. It is a months of the calendar book. It's a book about wild wolves and how they live, sleep, hunt, raise families. The illustrations are realistic and calendar-worthy. There are several pages of facts and activities related to wolves. The kids enjoyed finding and counting the wolves on each page and  at the end we all howled like wolves. School age children will enjoy the learning games that follow the story.

  
After the storytime we completed a little craft, Stellaluna finger puppets. I found a bat pattern online, which I could not locate again, so here's another one:

 

I copied multiples of the pattern on construction paper - I used brown, like Stellaluna, but generally I use lots of colors, because it's art, and bats don't have to be black or brown in art. I cut the bats out, because it was tricky cutting for 3 year olds. Older kids could cut them out themselves - scissors require skill and patience, so this is a real learning experience for kids who can text a bazillion words a minute but can't write legibly or cut a straight line! So good practice, if you can teach them to slow down. I cut 2 small horizontal snips across the bat tummy so kids could slip a finger through.Then I let the kids color the bats and stick wiggle eyes on them. They loved them!

 

Tree Stories

 Trees are so vital to a healthy planet and healthy lives for all of us, humans and critters alike, that this is a great story time for every season, and on special days like Arbor Day or Earth Day.  This storytime received an enthusiastic response from kids and preschool teachers. 

Book: A Friend for All Seasons / Julia Hubery I had some reservations about this book because it shows raccoons hibernating for the winter, and raccoons don't hibernate, at least not in the places I've lived. Also, a hedgehog makes an appearance and raccoons and hedgehogs don't live in the same world region. These kinds of little details are important to me - oh, I know, animals don't talk like humans either, so maybe I should just chill. The kids liked the story well enough and the illustrations are cute. 

Yoga Tree Pose

This is fun to try - kids really enjoy the challenge,

and it's great for all of us to practice our balance.

Tree Action Song

(tune: Head, Shoulders, Knees & Toes)

 This one is mine.

I love making up new rhymes to familiar tunes & rhythms.

Talk through it with the kids first, then sing it 3 times,

first time slow, then faster, then really, really fast! That last time should be a blur, you're singing so fast and moving so fast you're not really making sense.

They love it and will start laughing like crazy.

 actions:

Leaves (hold hands up and shake them like leaves)

Branches (stretch arms out)

Trunk (stand straight with arms straight down at sides)

Roots (touch toes)

Birds (make beak with thumb & forefinger

Nests (cup hands)

Seeds (crouch down in a ball, with arms wrapped around legs, head down)

Shoots (stand up and reach high like you're growing)

Leaves, branches, trunk & roots, trunk & roots,

Leaves branches, trunk & roots, trunk & roots.

Birds and nests and seeds becoming shoots,

Leaves, branches, trunk & roots, trunk & roots!

The Tree in the Wood / Traditional, adapted by Christopher Manson

Based on the old folk song, The Green Grass Grows All Around, this is a beautifully illustrated book that adds a little twist at the end. Instead of a bird, a feather,  a bug, as Pete Seeger sings it, this version ends with a mother, a baby, and a boy who plants an acorn, which grows into a tree. It's a little tedious to read, but the kids seemed transfixed, and I have to remember how much I liked repetitive stories, songs and jokes when I was little, I'm sure that it tickles our young brains somehow and neurons start connecting and firing. We all started to sing the last line (the green grass grows all around) which was more fun than me laboriously reading the cumulative text.

Singalong: The Green Grass Grew All Around

You can find versions of this song and its hand motions on the web.It is known variously as The Green Grass grew all around, or grows all around, or The Tree in the Wood.

If you're a confident singer you can lead the singing yourself.

I chose to singalong with the CD Greg & Steve: Rockin' Down the Road.

I like their shorter version of the song, and I like the echo track. 

If you haven't used Greg & Steve CDs in your storytimes, I highly 

recommend them, they are tons of fun.

American Sign Language for "Tree"

Big Bear Hug / Nicholas Oldland A very funny, charming book with a serious message, this is one my current favorite picture books. The illustrations are simple and effective - kids and adults laugh out loud on almost every page. The bug-eyed animals getting a big hug from the lovable bear, the shocking climax, and gentle thought-provoking ending make for a very satisfying story.

Bear Stretch

Another rhyme I wrote, and have adapted to several  themes. 

Reach up as high as a big bear's eye.

Reach down as low as a big bear's toe.

Climb up a tree, how far can you see?

Don't make a sound, now climb down to the ground,

Curl up snug on the rug, and give yourself a great big

bear hug!

We'll end on a quiet note with this book: Trees: a poem / Harry Behn.

This is almost too slow for little kids in a group.But it's a lovely poem, with beautiful pictures and it's just one line per page. The adults in our groups seemed to appreciate this quiet end to storytime.