Reading Wildly: Sports Books

This month for Reading Wildly, my staff and I read sports books. We get a lot of requests for sports books and I know it's a genre that I'm not particularly drawn to, which made this a great month for expanding my horizons! I know some of my staff members felt the same way, but with the variety of books in our collection, everyone found something good to read.

We kicked off our discussion by talking about our article of the month. Now, I KNOW that not only boys read sports books, but I chose a chapter from the book Serving Boys Through Readers' Advisory by Michael Sullivan. We read Chapter 5, "Booktalking for Boys". Sullivan shares advice for engaging boys (and particularly boys who are not already readers) when booktalking. His advice includes keeping booktalks short, making them interactive, and focusing on elements that will appeal to boys. That last bit was especially important for me to remember: it's okay to choose which elements of a book you'll talk about and it's essential to match your booktalk to your audience. Don't feel like you have to tell the kids about every single element of a book, just mention the elements/the hook that will appeal to your audience. You're trying to SELL a book, not give it a fair and balanced review. It's okay to trick kids into reading a book. ;)

One thing Sullivan recommends for booktalks is to have the books available for kids to take immediately. This is especially essential for non-readers who are not likely to expend extra effort to seek out a book. My staff and I had a brainstorming session about how we could make this happen when we booktalk to classes. We thought about possibly purchasing extra copies of books that we frequently like to booktalk and encouraging kids to bring their library cards when we're coming so that we could check books out while we're there. We'll continue to try to figure out a system that works for us!

One thing we will definitely do is incorporate booktalks into as many programs as possible this summer!

So... sports books! Here are the books we booktalked this month:

• Home Court (STAT #1) by Amar'e Stoudemire
• Jake Maddox series (several titles from this series)
• Jinxed! (TOPPS League Story #1) by Kurtis Scaletta
• Puppies, Dogs, and Blue Northers by Gary Paulsen
• Sasquatch in the Paint by Kareem Abdul-Jabar & Raymond Obstfeld
• Skinnybones by Barbara Park
• So Long, Jackie Robinson by Nancy L.M. Russell
• The Sports Pages (Guys Read) ed. by Jon Scieszka
• Strike Three, You're Dead by Josh Berk
• Tackling Dad by Elizabeth Levy

My staff found a variety of books to bring to the table this month, books for younger readers and older readers. There was also a wide variety of different sports discussed, and some books with boy characters and some books with girl characters.

Next month, we're talking about multicultural books. We'll start our discussion by talking about the recent New York Times article "The Apartheid of Children's Literature" by Christopher Myers. I also distributed copies of the book list 50 Multicultural Books Every Child Should Know, compiled by the Cooperative Children's Book Center. This is not a required list for our book discussion next month, but it'll give my staff a good starting point if they're not sure what they want to read. I had a great question from one of my library assistants. He asked if our book for next month had to be realistic fiction or if it could be fantasy or another genre. I told him that any genre fiction featuring protagonists of color or from cultures outside the US would be GREAT for us to know about! 

My question for YOU today has to do with the chapter on booktalking we all read: when you booktalk to groups, are you able to place books in the kids' hands? If you're visiting a group outside the library, how do you make that happen? 

An Annual Tradition: Egg Decorating Workshop

I've over at Deprogramming Libraries talking about our annual Egg Decorating Workshop today! Click through and check it out!

See all those eggs hanging from the ceiling?!

Poetry Egg Hunt

April is National Poetry Month and we celebrated that with our homeschoolers this month at Fantastic Friday! I've been trying to come up with fun activities to add to our program, and - I'm not kidding - I literally dreamed this activity while I was on vacation.

We did a Poetry Egg Hunt!

I printed out the words to two nursery rhymes ("Humpty Dumpty" and "Sing a Song of Sixpence"), each on a different color paper. I cut out all the words and stuffed them into colorful plastic eggs. When the families arrived, I entertained them in our program room for about 10 minutes (announcements about upcoming programs, booktalking and sharing some poetry with them) while my colleagues hid the eggs throughout our department.

Once the eggs were hidden, I released the kids to find all the eggs and put them in a large communal basket. Once we had all the eggs*, we brought them back into our program room, cracked them open, sorted out the blue words and the yellow words, and I challenged the kids to unscramble the words to make up their nursery rhymes. I provided construction paper and glue for them to glue the words down as they unscrambled them.

The kids had a BLAST searching for the eggs and some of them really got into sorting out the rhymes. It was an easy and fun activity to kick off our poetry program.

I chose nursery rhymes because I was relatively certain that all or most of the kids would be familiar with them, but this would certainly work with any poems.

Some tips from our experience:

• Create a backup set of words in case some get lost or any eggs remain unfound. That way your kids can still unscramble the entire rhyme (can they tell you which words are missing?).  
• Have a printout of the rhymes you're using just IN CASE your kids don't happen to know the nursery rhymes you picked. I had a couple that didn't know "Sing a Song of Sixpence", but one of the moms helped out. 
• I put the words to "Humpty Dumpty" on yellow paper and hid those words in the warm-color eggs (pinks, reds, oranges, yellows) and the words to "Sing a Song of Sixpence" on blue paper and hid those words in the cool-color eggs (blues, greens, purples). I had a moment where I thought only 3 kids had shown up, so I was prepared to only hide half the eggs.
• Count the eggs so you know when the kids have found them all!
• We didn't, but you may want to create a map of where the eggs are hidden so you can make sure you get them all. Or this might be more work than it's worth. 
• You may want to hide the eggs in advance, but it worked for us to do them after our families had arrived and were in the meeting room. That way we didn't have to worry about other children walking off with them or about keeping the kids from starting early when they arrived to play before the program.

We did this program with our homeschoolers as part of our monthly homeschool program, but I think this activity would work well with a variety of groups. It's conducive to a wide range of ages - we had a span of ages 4-16 at this particular program. To do it like we did it, at least some of the kids need to be reading to unscramble the poems, but if you wanted to try something like this with pre-readers, consider: 

• Unscrambling the rhyme as a group with the librarian reading the words and the kids helping recite the rhyme.
• Having a pre-written poem on large paper or your dry-erase board and the kids searching for rhyming words to fill in the gaps. 
• Hiding rhyming words and asking kids to help you match them up when the group gets back together. 

And this doesn't necessarily have to be a poem activity! For a group tour, you could hide the titles of books or subjects and ask the kids to use your catalog to find the call numbers. You could hide letters and ask the kids to put them in alphabetical order. The possibilities are numerous. 

Are you doing any programs or lessons for National Poetry Month? I'd love to hear about what you're doing! 

* Okay, all but one. There is still one egg floating around somewhere in our department. We'll probably find it in June.

Preschool Lab: Weather

This month for Preschool Lab, we talked about weather. This was a great week for it since we have been having LOTS of different types of weather recently. Here's what we did:

Opening Song: My Hands Say Hello - our standard opener and a signal to my friends that it's time to start storytime.

Book: Hello Sun by Dayle Anne Dodds, illustrated by Sachiko Yoshikawa (Dial, 2005). This book has bouncy, rhyming text that explores what we wear for different types of weather. This was a great book to introduce many kinds of different weather to our friends.

Book: Rain by Manya Stojic (Crown Books for Young Readers, 1999). In this book, we use all our senses to explore a rainstorm on the African plains. Our STEM moment for the day came when I read about rhino squelching in the mud after the rain and a chorus of "Eeeew!"s rang out. I explained that many animals bathe in mud to keep cool and to keep their skin healthy. One of my friends called out "Like pigs!" Exactly! What a great connection!

We also used some sound effects with this book - slapping our knees to make thunder sounds and I used the rainstick when the rain finally started coming down.

Book with Scarves: Duckie's Rainbow by Frances Barry (Candlewick, 2004). We practiced our colors and listening/following directions by reading this book with scarves. For more details about this activity, check out my recent spring storytime.

Book: It Looked Like Spilt Milk by Charles G. Shaw (HarperCollins, 1947). Clouds can be many different shapes, as we notice in this book.

Closing Song: Do You Know What Time It Is?

Stations: 

Wind. We can't SEE wind, but we can see what it DOES. I put together a tub with different materials and put out a box of straws. Children blew through the straws to see which objects moved and which did not. To incorporate writing, I put out basic charts so that families could record which objects could be moved with breath and which could not.

Umbrella Counting Game. I made my own template for the Rainy Day Counting game I found on Kiwi Crate. Children could color and cut out their umbrella cards and use the blue craft marbles to count out raindrops. I included some additional activity ideas for the umbrella cards in their take-home packets. If you don't have craft marbles laying around, you can just as easily use cotton balls for cloud counting.

Temperature. I put out our thermometers (from a Lake Shore science kit) and cups of water, some of which were room temperature and some of which had ice cubes in them. Families could explore how to use a thermometer and whether our water was hotter or colder.

Felt Board. I put out felt pieces from our story It Looked Like Spilt Milk and I left out our rain stick for exploration.

I also put out a weather book display and take-home craft packets with the supplies to make this weather tracker from Storytime Katie!

And now, let's hope that our weather is taking a turn for the better (finally)!

The Alchemy of a Homeschool Program

or, Fantastic Friday Revamp (Again!)

Photo by Horia Vorlan

I've posted before about my monthly homeschool program Fantastic Friday and how we revamped it last year based on feedback from one of my very involved homeschool parents.

The revamp seemed like a dream come true - the program practically ran itself! With the kids presenting projects, all I really had to do was provide a room, make some announcements, and come up with materials (book lists and displays) to help them find resources for the next month's topic. It was so much less work for staff and I felt like the kids were getting much more out of it.

And then they stopped coming.

I mean, not all at once. I had pretty good attendance consistently throughout 2012-2013. We were okay at the first meeting this school year in September - lots of new families trying it out. But then every month, attendance dropped. I tried to rally everyone in December. Our topic was food and I advertised it as a potluck; even if you didn't have a project, please come and enjoy food! I even personally emailed families who had come in the past and invited them to hang out and share our snacks.

Attendance still went down. And in January I only had the same 3 dedicated families who had been coming almost every month. And one of those families informed me they were moving out of town. And with so few kids, the program was getting super short. The kids were nervous. They blitzed through their presentations and my "program" was only lasting 15 minutes.

I needed a change.

But I struggled with this because my loyal families had professed so much love for the program. At the end of last school year, they had specifically approached me and asked me to keep the same format. How could I make the program work for the library and still have a program that would work for these families?

So, in February I revamped a little bit. We were meeting on Valentine's Day, so instead of concentrating so much on the kids' presentations, I decided to start with a craft making Valentine's Day cards. I researched some new listservs to reach out to and I billed it as "Come make Valentine's Day cards!" and if anyone wanted to share a project or booktalk with the group, they were welcome to do it.

Friends, my attendance went from my expected 6 kids to, like 18 that day. And not only was attendance up, but having some icebreaker time doing the craft together at the beginning helped the kids relax and do better in their presentations. Instead of such a formal setting, it was more like sharing with a group of friends.

I did something similar in March: our theme was science and we started the day by making play-doh volcanoes and exploding them. (Side note: this is a simple, cheap project [get play-doh at the Dollar Store!], and the kids LOVE IT, even if they have done it before!) Again, attendance was good. The new format had attracted some new families.

I've dreamed up a poetry scavenger hunt for April and then in May we'll do our End-of-the-Homeschool-Year party.

Having an activity at the beginning of the program gives me something I can really advertise. It lifts the pressure on families to have a project every month. It attracts kids who might never want to present (and that is fine). It fleshes out our program and helps the kids get to know each other. It allows me to tell a new family who just stopped in the day before our program "hey, come do a craft with us and get to know some other homeschooling families" instead of "you need to have a project completed to share with the group, so... maybe next time". (Not that we were ever telling families that last thing. But I'm sure they felt like it sometimes! And then we've lost them!)

As I start planning for the fall months, I'm going to:

• keep topics basic so that they're very open as far as the projects we're doing. I'm going to concentrate on subjects that homeschooling families are probably already going to cover - art, history, science - with a few more specific months thrown in - Black History Month, my favorite book.
• look for simple activities or crafts that will work for ages 3-15 (older siblings are great with helping younger siblings) and allow for creativity. Creative activities/crafts let me stand back and see what the kids will come up with instead of giving explicit instructions = much easier for me.
• continue to seek new outlets to advertise the program and encourage new families to come. I think with an activity to advertise, this will be easier than the previous iteration of our program.
• probably forget about the book and project list that I had been doing. While book lists are certainly a good resource, our families don't seem to be using them. With much broader topics, book lists are probably only marginally helpful, anyway. Instead, I'll make sure to let everyone know that our ever-helpful librarians are happy to suggest books and help find resources (at any time, not just for this program). 

Will this format work for us forever? I don't know. We'll use it as long as it's working and then reevaluate again! Change is a good thing, and we need to be constantly evaluating our programs and tweaking them to make them better for families, better for the children, and better for staff. And when you hit on something that works better, it's such a great feeling!

When to Change it up at the ALSC Blog

Today, I'm over at the ALSC Blog talking about when it's time to change or cancel a program. Please click through and add your input!

January, February & March Afterschool

Afterschool was hit or miss for us this year as our kids had SO MANY SNOW DAYS and thus many of our visits were canceled. And now we're starting to wrap up the school year (yup - doesn't feel like it, but April will be our last month for Afterschool visits!).

Here are the biggest hits over the past few months of Afterschool:

Actual Size by Steve Jenkins (HMH Books for Young Readers, 2004). This nonfiction book shares facts about many animals from around the world. The cool part? The illustrations are made ACTUAL SIZE, so they show you just how big (or small) these animals really are! The short, simple text makes this an easy one to read aloud. Kids LOVE learning fun facts about animals (and sharing what they know!), so this is great for incorporating some nonfiction in your readalouds.

Dinosaur Kisses by David Ezra Stein (Candlewick Press, 2013). A baby dinosaur hatches and decides to give a kiss... but she doesn't exactly get it right the first time. After some whomping, stomping, and chomping, she meets a friend who can finally kiss the way dinosaurs kiss! At first the kids thought this was going to be a sappy story ("Is this a kissing book?" YEP!), but it's actually funny. This is a great readaloud for February since it can go along with Valentine's Day, or for any time since it is hilarious. 

My Lucky Day by Keiko Kasza (Puffin, 2003). When a piglet shows up at Mr. Wolf's door, Mr. Wolf thinks it's his lucky day! How often does dinner just SHOW UP on your doorstep?! But after piglet's done with him, your listeners will know just whose lucky day it really is. This is another silly story that'll have the kids laughing.

Stuck by Oliver Jeffers (Philomel, 2011). It starts with Floyd's kite. Stuck in a tree. And to get the kite down? Floyd throws his shoe at it. But guess what? The shoe gets stuck... and so on and so on until most of the neighborhood is stuck in the tree, too! This is a really wacky story and the kids really responded to the humor in it. 

There were other books, but these were my biggest hits this winter. For crafts, we did building squares, made Valentine's Day cards*, and colored slap blank slap bracelets (found on Oriental Trading!).

What new books have you found that are great for K-4th readalouds? Any old standbys I need to know about? I'm always looking for new books to share with my groups!

* After February 14 they became I love you/Happy birthday/Whatever cards. Make sure you have some different colors of construction paper and you're good to go. Kids LOVE to make cards. 

Reading Wildly: Series Fiction

This month, for our Reading Wildly staff reader's advisory training, we discussed series fiction books. We decided to tackle this topic because kids are asking for these books all the time and we realized that there were many that none of us had read. We challenged ourselves to choose books in the popular series that are frequently requested at our library.

To jump-start our discussion, we all read the article "Not the Newbery: Books That Make Readers" by Betty Carter (The Horn Book Magazine, July/August 2010). In this article, Carter talks about the importance of books that are popular with kids but might never win literary awards. Reading books that they enjoy is a leisure activity for kids, "one that requires them to move their eyes across print and thus strengthen their basic skills" (p53). And reading what their friends are reading helps create a "community of readers", kids reading and talking about the same books. I know when I was in middle school my group of friends was crazy about Goosebumps and we all wanted to read them to talk to our friends about them. Valuing what kids like to read helps librarians create a connection with kids and it helps kids see that they are valued members of our library and of our community.

And if we don't read some of the books ourselves, how will we talk with kids about them?!

Here are the books we read and booktalked at our meeting:

• The City of Ember (Ember #1) by Jeanne DuPrau
• Dying to Meet You (43 Old Cemetery Road #1) by Kate Klise & Sarah Klise
• Fairest of All (Whatever After #1) by Sarah Mlynowski
• The Fall of the Amazing Zalindas (Sherlock Holmes & the Baker Street Irregulars #1) by Tracy Mack and Michael Citrin
• I Survived the Japanese Tsunami, 2011 (I Survived #8) by Lauren Tarshis
• Into the Wild (Warriors #1) by Erin Hunter
• Jackie & Me (Baseball Card Adventures) by Dan Gutman
• The Lunch Lady and the Cyborg Substitute (Lunch Lady #1) by Jarrett Krosoczka
• The Maze of Bones (39 Clues #1) by Rick Riordan
• One False Note (39 Clues #2) by Gordon Korman
• Rise of the Balloon Goons (Notebook of Doom #1) by Troy Cummings
• Troubles for Cecile (American Girl) by Denise Lewis Patrick
• Truth or Dare (You're Invited to a Creepover #1) by P.J. Night
• Wings of Fire (The Dragonet Prophecy #1) by Tui Sutherland

It was great to get a little booktalk and learn a little bit about a bunch of different series at our discussion. A lot of these series are quite popular with our kids; they're definitely creating communities of readers! 

Next month, our topic is sports. Although I know that boys AND girls can and do read about sports, the article I chose to go with our discussion is a chapter from Serving Boys Through Readers' Advisory by Michael Sullivan. We are reading the chapter called "Booktalking for Boys". 

What are some of your favorite sports books for kids? 

Guest Post: Sarah Bean Thompson for 2016 Caldecott

Today, it's my pleasure to host a post from a dear friend of mine. Sarah Bean Thompson is an awesome youth services librarian and on the ballot for the 2016 Caldecott. Voting opened last week for the ALA Elections, so make sure your voice is heard!

~*~*~ 

When I think about award lists, I always think about which books on the list are my favorite. And having to pick favorites is so tough - each book is special in its own way, you hate to only list a few. But as much as I love so many of the winning books, there are always some that stand out and have a special place in my heart. So to make it easier, I decided to pick three of my favorite Caldecott titles from my childhood:

King Bidgood’s in the Bathtub by Audrey Wood, illustrated by Don Wood

Oh I don’t know how many times I read this as a child. This might have been one of my most frequently checked out library books. First, I loved the plot of a silly king would not get out of the bathtub (what child can’t relate to never wanting to get out of a bubble bath?) Then there was the silly cast of characters that try as they might, can’t get the king to leave the tub. But what I loved most were the illustrations. I would read this book and just pour over every page and soak in every detail. I was always amazed at all the little hidden gems I would find. The food the king was eating for lunch, the animals that appeared during his attempt at fishing, the elaborate masquerade costumes. I love the spread of everyone dancing and slipping in the tub, water splashed out over the side. Each time I look at that page, I can feel the water pouring out through the pages-it’s so detailed and realistic! And the hilarious ending-it’s just the icing on the cake. This is one I love to read over and over and each time I do I discover something new to love.

Tuesday by David Wiesner

Frogs that come out flying on a special Tuesday? This is a weird funny book that I loved as a child. I’m not sure what it was exactly that I was drawn to, but the idea of frogs flying secretly on lilypads through the night sky was just the sort of oddball humor that appealed to me. And again, the detailed illustrations drew me in. I guess I just have a thing for elaborate, detailed illustrations! I also loved that this one is wordless, leaving the reader to make up the story.

The Stinky Cheese Man: And Other Fairly Stupid Tales by Jon Scieszka, illustrated by Lane Smith

The way this book is laid out is so creative and fits with the story and the humor so perfectly. The way the text falls down, the characters jump from page to page, and the uniqueness of each character make this a great package. The text and illustrations work so well together and the illustrations add to the humor of the story. The story and text wouldn’t be complete without the other. And the humor in this one is one that I laughed over again and again as a child.

What are some of your favorite Caldecott titles from childhood?

Sarah Bean Thompson is a Youth Services Manager and blogs at www.greenbeanteenqueen.com She has served on the 2013 Printz Committee, 2014 Cybils, and is on the ballot for the 2016 Caldecott Committee.

Preschool Storytime: Spring

Yesterday, I had a Head Start class visit the library for storytime. Since I've started doing preschool science programs, I hardly ever get to do a straight up preschool storytime anymore, so this was a real treat and we had lots of fun! I didn't realize until I started writing up this storytime how much STEM material I went over in this storytime without even realizing it! Here's what we did:

Opening Song: My Hands Say Hello. When doing a new song with a new group, I'm careful to sing slowly and clearly to give the kids a chance to learn the words. They love to sing along and will try, so make it easier on them to hear what you are saying and learn the words. Singing is one of our five early literacy practices - it helps kids hear that words are made up of smaller sounds.

Book with Scarves: Duckie's Rainbow by Frances Barry (Candlewick, 2004). I was inspired by this post on Thrive Thursday: Using Scarves with Stories and decided to break out our colorful scarves for this one. I passed out the scarves to the kids (remember: you get what you get and you don't throw a fit) and then as I read the book, I asked the kids to wave their scarves when we got to their color. At the end, we all waved scarves together to make our own rainbow and then we scrunched them up and threw them into the air!

To put our props away, I called them up by color and let them put their scarf in the bag. This makes putting the scarves away part of our game!

This activity reinforced color knowledge and helped them practice listening and following instructions, both school readiness skills. The book Duckie's Rainbow is a short book, but contains lots of great vocabulary words like "poppy", "waddled", "hurried", "indigo" and more! Books are a great way to expose kids to words they may not hear in normal conversation, and it's easier for kids to learn to read words that they know!

Felt: Five Umbrellas
(Borrowed from Anne LaBoon's kindergarten class!)

Five umbrellas stood by the door,
The pink one went outside, then there were four.
Four umbrellas, pretty as could be,
The blue one went outside, then there were three.
Three umbrellas with nothing to do,
The green one went outside, then there were two.
Two umbrellas not having much fun,
The yellow one went outside, then there was one.
Just one umbrella alone in the hall,
The purple one went outside, and that was all.

We talked about the rain in the last book and the rain outside yesterday. I asked the kids what we need to take with us when it rains and they chorused, "UMBRELLAS!" and then we did this rhyme! Hearing rhyming words helps kids hear that words are made up of smaller sounds. In this rhyme, we also practiced counting down from five.

Book: Ten Seeds by Ruth Brown (Knopf Books for Young Readers, 2001). I wanted to include a book that would show plants growing and this was a great choice. At the beginning, a boy plants ten seeds, but as they start to grow, things happen to our seeds. An ant carries one away, a mouse eats another, a slug destroys a seedling, a ball crushes a plant... until we're left with one flower! I like this book because you can see the seeds start to grow roots and then the plants growing on each page.

This is a great book for including some science information. Talking about science concepts helps increase vocabulary and expand kids' knowledge of the world around them. We talked about how the seeds were growing. We also talked about animals eating seeds - animals need food, too! And it's also a counting down book. I think this is a book that can be used on different levels depending on how old your audience is. For younger kids, I might just emphasize the counting down aspect, while for these older Pre-K kids, we had a conversation about how the seeds grow. (Yay STEM!)

Song: "Ten Little Flowers" (Tune: Ten Little Indians)
Borrowed from Storytime Katie!

One little, two little, three little flowers
Four little, five little, six little flowers
Seven little, eight little, nine little flowers
Ten flowers in the spring
Give them rain and lots of sunshine
Give them rain and lots of sunshine
Give them rain and lots of sunshine
So they'll grow up tall!

It was time to stand up and give the kids the chance to move a little bit and get some wiggles out, so we all stood up and did this song together. I went over the actions first (counting on fingers, fingers coming down for rain, arms above head for sunshine) and then we sang the song. We sang it twice since the kids were learning it the first time. Singing it again reinforces learning and gives the kids a chance to sing along with me.

This song not only gave the kids a chance to move around a bit, it also reinforces science knowledge - plants need water and sun to grow. Using their hands to make the movements helps develop fine motor skills.

 

Rhyme with prop: Three Kites

This is a prop that Miss T made. It uses magnets to hold and move the kites around. I believe she got the idea from a presentation by Susan Dailey.

Three kites up in the air,
Three kites in the air
One kite flew too close to a tree
And it got stuck there!

Repeat as you count down, ending with:

Three kites in a tree
Three kites in a tree
The wind blew hard and harder still
And the kites fell down to me! (Pull off the magnets at the end and let the kites fall!)

Again, we have rhyming words here and counting. After I said our rhyme, I turned the prop over to show the kids how it worked and we talked about how the magnets made the kites move. Just a little more sneaky STEM in this storytime. ;)

Book: Waiting for Wings by Lois Ehlert (HMH Books for Young Readers, 2001). This book takes us through the life cycle of a butterfly, from tiny eggs sticking to plants through caterpillars and chrysalises to new butterflies... who also lay eggs. The rhyming text contains lots of great vocabulary words. This was also another opportunity to have a STEM conversation. The kids already knew a lot about butterflies and they were happy to share with me. Here's another chance to reinforce science knowledge and help kids learn about the world around them.

Felt Activity: Spring Things

This is an activity that we almost always include in our Toddler Time programs, and it works for the older kids, too. We have many different felt shapes that I pass out to the kids and then ask them to bring up and put on the board when their shape is called. This is another activity that helps kids practice listening and following instructions. When all the pieces are up on the board, I ask them to sit on their bottoms and help me count as I take the pieces off. (This not only reinforces counting skills, but it's a sneaky way for me to get my attendance numbers - bwa ha ha ha!)

Closing Song: Do You Know What Time It Is?

This is our typical closing song, to the tune of "Do You Know the Muffin Man?" and one of the kids asked me afterward if I know the song "Do you Know the Muffin Man?".

We use a closing song to indicate to the kids when our storytime is over. They're familiar with the song if they've been to the library before and they know this is the end of our storytime routine. For a group visit, when we've sung our last song I tell them that now it's time to be good listeners and listen to their teachers who will tell them what to do next. This is not only closure for the kids, but it's closure for the teachers. They know that I am done with what I was doing and it's okay for them to take over and instruct the kids again.

This was a great group and we had a blast!