Preschool Storytime: Etc.

Today was just so much fun I had to blog about it. The theme: Books we have available in sufficient quantities on the shelf (we’re going through a long-awaited ILS switchover and I can’t get books from other branches yet). The ulterior motive: plug early literacy strategies!

Wild About Books by Judy Sierra, Illustrated by Marc Brown

Sophisticated language (and plugs for reading!) made fun using a Dr. Seuss-like rhyme scheme and bright animal pictures
Hey parents- kids are soaking up words like crazy now! If you find them in books they’ll listen to, read them repeatedly! It will show up in their SATs

I had no idea this one would work so well. It took a little while to get into it, but by the end they were all mesmerized by the rhymes and loved picking out the animals (“Ooh! I see a snake!”). I was worried a lot of it would go over their heads, but I guess the Cat In The Hat and Harry Potter references balanced out Nancy Drew.

Some kids complained they couldn’t see. The pictures were a little busy for the way the colors were mixed. Someone publish a big book of this!

Also: The otter “never goes swimming without Harry Potter. I want to know: where’s my waterproof copy?

Kipper’s A to Z by Mike Inkpen

Kipper and his friends find something for every letter of the alphabet. There’s something to be said for brand recognition. Also for concept books that both entertain and drive the concept home.

Again, it took a little while to get into this one, but getting everyone to say what the letter was for (Ll is for lots of…Ladybugs!) helped. Maybe a little too well with the older kids. They all wanted to be called on to say other things that begin with each letter. This took up half the story time. The big kids were enthralled- and surprisingly good at the game. The little ones, not so much.

Llama Llama Mad at Mama by Anna Dewdney

Llama Llama gets bored at Shop-o-rama and throws a fit! What will Mama do? Bouncy and rhythmic with lots of llama rhymes. I love this book. And her other, Llama Llama Red Pajama. I hear Llama Llama Misses Mama is coming out soon too. The “llama drama” never wears thin.

Grownups were laughing more at this one than the kids, but the rhymes and likely the all-too-familiar setting kept their interest.

I reminded the grownups that rhyming books help kids learn to separate words into sounds, which later helps them to read. I didn’t call it “phonemic awareness,” but maybe I should have.

Neighborhood Mother Goose by Nina Crews

Mother Goose in an urban setting, illustrated with photographs of ethnically diverse children that bring sometimes confusing rhymes into context. “She will have music wherever she goes”- of course, she’s riding a merry-go-round. And naturally, Georgie Porgie is chasing girls around at recess. We didn’t get to my favorite- The little girl with a little curl on her forehead looking guilty as she hesitates with scissors at Barbie’s hair.

The kids joined right in with the ones they knew. The ones they didn’t know held their attention. More shouting out details in the pictures.

And a good time was had by all.

Election Day

I'm posting late and I've done my share of complaining. The media circus. The fatalism.(paraphrasing the inimitable Doc Brown "The future's not written in stone, Marty; It can be changed).

More than anything, this election, like all presidential elections, has put me in the mind that elections don't just come every four years. I say "Amen" to the priest/pastor/rabbi/etc. who sees the Christmas/Easter/Hannukah/Yom Kippur crowds and says "Isn't this lovely! It would be wonderful if you would all come every week!" What would our country be like if people cared enough to generate this kind of voter turn-out for your run-of-the-mill local and state elections?

...with severe campaign budget limitations... I think everyone's ready to kiss the ads goodbye.

2-5 story time: New Elephant and Piggie!

Today's not-so-subtle lesson- when you're filling in for an absent co-worker, keep it simple!

My esteemed co-worker and I had planned to celebrate having received the new Elephant and Piggie books by reading them- in tandem, naturally. I was to be Piggie. She was to be Elephant.

I get a message on Thursday: My co-worker will not be joining me that day. But the show must go on!

Attempts to replace her with an elephant puppet were not successful- too hard to hold the book at the same time. Especially while also trying to manipulate squirrel puppets hastily made out of printed-out stock photos and pencils.

Everyone was much more receptive (everyone meaning all seven of them) during the next session, when I decided to leave elephant sitting beside me and allowed myself to really get into the stories (Yelling and screaming and sobbing loudly- all essential to a well-read Mo Willems). Elephant was much more effective waving to people with his trunk and eating people's hands afterward, anyway.

I mixed in some other Willems, as the younger group seemed restless on just Elephant and Piggie (and for the older group...well...I'd gotten it into my mind to read Knuffle Bunny Too and there was just no going back...)

Haven't written much about songs lately- I found a good one.

Laurie Berkner is my hero. Her music students must be some lucky kids. On her Whaddya Think of That album she has a song that might be really tame ("These are my glasses, this is my book.."about putting on your glasses and reading a book, of all things. I think I've seen it as a finger play somewhere).

But the way she introduces the motions on the cd- she has you opening up your "book" hands and finding purple dinosaurs and pink snakes and the kids just loved it (and what's more we're subversively teaching them that what you find in books is fun.) I did it for the second time this time around and they still loved it. What's more I'm doing it a capella because our cd players are both on the fritz.

For the "read read read" and "look look look" part of the song I also did the American sign language sign for "read" (running your righ v fingers down your left hand) because hey, I felt like they should be doing something there. And I got to say "Guess what kids, you're all doing Sign Language!" at the end. Big hit, fun for me too- just have to come up with more silly scary things to find in the books when I open it.

2-5 Story time: Growing, cooking, and eating

I was all out of themes, so I picked some off the shelf and voilà: They made their own theme.

Anne Miranda's To Market, To Market: Smashing success! What happens nowadays when you go to market to market to buy a fat pig? In a children's book, at any rate, you don't take it home to butcher it. It- and the hen, the lamb, and any other live thing you bring home- create quite a stir.

"The one with the lady with the duck on her head" was a favorite. I was worried that the pictures were too cluttered, but kids a few rows back were shouting out what various animals were doing. The color- painted figures against the black- and- white collage background- help. I love how the animals are so realistic and at the same time so cute- look at that ducks feet! and his cheeks!

The kids loved it when I'm singing along and interupt myself with "uh-oh..." They helped.

I made the mistake of asking one group to help. One little girl who was too old to be in story time by herself clearly thought this was an invitation to read the book along with me. Need to think of a better way of encouraging participation.

Byron Barton's The Little Red Hen didn't go over as well as I thought it would in the first group- several two- and- unders with one big kid answering all my questions while everyone else looked on. The second group liked it a lot better- they caught onto the "Not I's" from the beginning. I ditched the animal voices I was using with group one and just let everyone else say it for me.

The illustrations in this one are bright, simple, and fun, and there's no one like Barton for simplifying a story down to a pre-school attention span. If it weren't so comparatively wordy, I would have gone with Brian Pinkney's version. Pinkney, Johnson, McKissack, Daly- we love your books! Now write simpler ones! I want to use them in story time!

For instance, I didn't use Grandma Lena's Big ol' Turnip by Denia Lewis Hester. I did display it, but a big person picked it up, looked inside, and immediately asked me for one didn't have so many words.

I told the Giant Turnip story from Judy Sierra's Flannelboard Story telling book instead. Synopsis: Old man plants a turnip that grows really big so he can't pull it up even with an old woman, a little girl, a cat, and a dog pulling with him. The addition of a mouse finally does the trick.

I made the flannel board pieces with felt and black interfacing from the fabric store as the book suggested (and as pictured on the cover). They didn't turn out quite as pretty, but they were passable (and more impressive looking than my normal photocopies glued to cardboard covered with shelf paper). I had to tell several kids I would let them touch the little people after I was done with stories (not NOW, when they need to be up on the board, please.)

The first group didn't help much with the "Pull! (grunt!)s" but the second group was more than happy to make noise with me.

BTW, my exceptional boy from the other week came back! And looking at another copy of the book in mom's lap seemed for him an acceptable alternative to standing right in front of the copy I was reading so no one else could see. The only time we ran into problems was, of course, when I wasn't using a book. I gave him one of our wire-and-bead things (you know, you've seen them in doctors offices) to play with and he did alright.

I let the first group vote on what they wanted to hear last (dangerous proposition, I know) and the vote was unanimous for my big book: Carrot Seed by Ruth Kraus. At least amongst those voting. Four abstained. One seemed to be raising his hand for my other choice as well, but I believe he was actually grabbing for Carrot Seed. Everyone was spellbound until the seed finally sprouts and half the group shouted out "Woah! BIG carrot!" (or something similar).

I forced The Cake that Mack Ate on my other group. Not so wise, but hey, I'd requested copies from two other branches and intended to use them. This one follows a "House that Jack Built" pattern (this is the grain that fed the hen that laid the egg that went into the cake that Mack ate, etc.) and so rolls on along...until you get to a picture of a dog. Captioned : "This is Mack." I cracked up! The kids completely missed the joke. Someone asked "Who's Mack?" and I went back and explained the joke. The parents laughed. The kids were still befuddled. I didn't have any copies to send back to their home branches, so maybe some of the grown-ups hoped the kids would get it a second time around.

Moral of the story: Visual gags work a lot better for pre-schoolers than irony, subtle or otherwise. Nothing I didn't know from grad-school, but experience is the best teacher (apologies to my child lit prof.)

2-5 Story Time: Stuff Ms. Lauren's been wanting to do.

It's the story time I've been waiting for! I'm out of themes, so I had license to read all the books wouldn't fit easily into one.

I learned Elfrida Vipont's The Elephant and the Bad Baby for my first assignment in my storytelling class.

I changed some of the words when I did it in class.

I now know from experience that seven rounds of stealing merchandise and enciting shopkeepers to run after the Elephant and the Bad Baby are a little too much.

The Elephant and the Bad Baby only robbed five people in my version, which I Americanized a little... (I know! I know! But you're just much more likely to come across a hotdog stand than a butcher shop selling meat pies around here!) You will be happy to know I did the straight up seven in storytime.

If the pictures were a little bigger or a little less detailed it might have worked better. As big and graceful and beautiful as Brigg's elephant is, I still prefer telling it. It's much easier to make your hands go rumpeta rumpeta rumpeta in your lap when they're not holding the book. I think the kids would have caught onto the motion better as well. But Pre-school storytime is for books, so perhaps this one will not make an encore appearance. Just as well- our system is down to one copy. I begged the little girl who took it to take good care of it.

Someone please reprint this book! If I can't do it in storytime, I at least want to know that kids are getting it one-on-one.

I think every time I glance at the shelves I come across a new book in which all the characters end up getting stuck in something. But Lisa Wheeler in Bubble Gum, Bubble Gum does it with such catchy rhythm and inventive rhyme (first "bad-mood-how-rude-tough-dude shrew" I've come across to date) that it stands out.

The rhythm is so persistent that I was moved to sing the book, which was fun for me. However, everyone else kept trying to sing along and realizing that they didn't know the words, ultimately trailing off. I'll try chanting it next time.

Next: I'm Not Cute by Jonathan Allen.
This one reached out and grabbed me (I can't look at it without squealing "But you are...you are!) Grown-ups seemed to appreciate this one more than the kids did. Next time I'll play up the rage baby owl lets forth each time someone dares give him (what did he give him, kids?) a great...big...hug.

Finally: Who Hops? by Katie Davis. What can I say? You can do it all day. "Ms. Sally types, Ms. Lauren types, Mr. Joseph types, Fido the dog types. No he doesn't!!!" Kids love a chance to correct authority, and here I'm encouraging it. It was a hit.

I also included a poem by Paul Laurence Dunbar. Seriously. I heard someone reciting "The Seedling" a month or so back at a Harlem Renaissance program and I was struck with inspiration: Flannel Board! The kids were transfixed as ever with our big red not-TV screen, though I realized later it was not enough of a break to keep them from wiggling through the next story. I might add a few felt pieces and work on placing them in rhythm with the poem.

We had a new little boy, too. I think he may have had some developmental delays. He was entranced by everything. So entranced, in fact, that he insisted on standing right in front of my book, blocking everyone else's view. I was so busy managing him and trying to continue with the program that the obvious solution to this problem completely evaded me: Give his Mom a copy of what we're reading! He made it through the first session and half of the second before Mom had had enough and decided it was time to go. I really hope they come back.

962 minutes + 180 minutes =

1142 minutes

Some Friend by Marie Bradby.

Pearl is so busy trying to make friends with the mean popular girl that she can't see the real, albeit raggedy friend in front of her, until it is too late.

At this point, no more capacity for critical analysis. Instinct tells me it was ok, nothing special. It was local, however- apparently Glen Echo park was segregated in 1963 but the National Zoo wasn't (though how you'd enforce that in a park you essentially walk through at your leisure I don't know.)

So final counts (I'm turning in for the night!)

10 Books
1502 pages
1142 minutes, which comes out to about 19 hours 2 minutes

867 minutes + 95 minutes equals...

962 minutes.

And now for something completely different... Albino Animals!

by Kelly Milner Halls.

This book is certainly eye-catching- it comes in the same color scheme as it's subjects. Of course, this doesn't exactly let them stand out, but surrounding shadows and backgrounds help with this.

Albino Animals includes enough fascinating facts to provide Mongoose graffiti material for months, not only about albinism but about animals in general.

Did you know that heat triggers alligator stomachs to start digesting, that without it the food will simply rot there?

Did you know albino tadpoles are clear- an advantage for survival, at least until they become white frogs that stand out to predators.?

Did you know that you can remove salamander eyes and return them to the sockets and the optic nerves will actually reconnect and start functioning again? (please, no one try this at home unless you're a scientific researcher and have a really good and really significant reason).

Did you know that a female ferret is called a Jill, a spayed female ferret is called a sprite, a male ferret is called a hob, a neutered male ferret is called a gib, a group of ferrets is called a business, and goggles for dogs are called doggles?

The bibliography is extensive and includes interviews, books, magazines, newspapers, and websites (though none specifically earmarked for children). The book also includes a glossary and a broad table of contents.

The editing, however, left something to be desired. The introduction states, "A red bird has red pigment, so it absorbs red." No it doesn't. Red pigment reflects red. That's why it appears red to us. Small typo, perhaps, but not so small if it's a few points off on your science paper.