Lemons are not red….

THEY’RE YELLOW! duh.

It’s not easy to fool my storytimers, they are bunches of smart.

This week’s storytime was all about colors! I’ve done a color storytime before, in fact, it was my very first storytime theme!
I did change this one up a bit, but it also shared some of the same things.

I opened our storytime with the usual welcome rhyme and then we chatted a bit about colors. The kids were oddly fascinated with the sweater I was wearing today (it’s totally a grandpa sweater and I love it) and I happened to be wearing some brightly colored pants as well so we talked about all the colors I was wearing and then I had them guess what our theme might be. They caught on quick and guessed colors! 😀 It was an excellent though unplanned segue into storytime. 🙂

The first book I read was called and to name but just a few: red yellow green blue by Laurie Rosenwald. It’s a pretty interesting and fun read, a bit different than typical picture books in that it doesn’t have a consistent flow to the rhythm of the words and doesn’t always rhyme, but sometimes it does! It’s also laid out in more of a collage than a picture with words, it’s full of fun textures and a mixture of photos and drawings. I liked it.

We did have a wiggly bunch for both of my sessions. wiggly in different ways though. On Monday the kids were all about music and when we were gonna listen to it, it seems that there was a boombox left out after a previous storytime and they saw it which got them pretty amped up and it was sometimes difficult to rope their attention back in to the books and rhymes. On Thursday though, we had a big group and they were just full of energy and super proud of their color recognition skills. Both groups happily shouted out the colors on the pages as I was reading so this book required some stops and pauses before we could get through it. hah

After that book, we did our first active rhyme.

If You are wearing

If you are wearing  green, jump like you’re on a trampoline
If you are wearing  blue, put your hands on your shoes
If you are wearing  red, put your hands up on your head
If you are wearing  pink, let’s see you try to wink
If you are wearing  black, stand up and quack quack quack
If you are wearing  yellow, wiggle like a bowl of jell-o

In my Monday session we only had 5 kids so it was kinda hard to do this rhyme since a lot of the colors weren’t represented so we did it twice, the first time we followed the directions, the second time we all did everything, even if we weren’t wearing the color mentioned. We’re little rebels. On Thursday though, we had a good size crowd so it was easy to do this rhyme and the kids were all super excited when they realized they were wearing the color called. After getting some wiggles out, we moved on to our next book; Lemons are not Red by Laura Vaccaro Seeger. I saw this book listed in a lot of different color themed storytime blogs so I figured I’d give it a go. the kids liked it and, as always, they enjoy being interactive and helping to read the book with me. It was a bit hard to stay on track with actually reading the book word for word, page by page though since they were all excitedly shouting out their guesses as soon as they thought of it so I pretty much just ad libbed. After that book, we did a flannel board, yay! I didn’t make this flannel board because we already had some pretty awesome HUGE felt crayons in almost every color imaginable so I just used those. Here’s the rhyme:

I Have a Crayon

I have a crayon, I’ll give it to you.
Here is my crayon, my crayon of blue.

I have a crayon, a lovely little fellow.
Here is my crayon, my crayon of yellow.

I have a crayon, it’s here on my head.
Here is my crayon, my crayon of red.

I have a crayon, we can draw a circle.
Here is my crayon, my crayon of purple.

I have a crayon, what do I see?
Here is my crayon, an orange one for me.

I have a crayon, the best ever seen.
Here is my crayon, my crayon of green

Credit: Anne’s Library Life

I TOTALLY biffed that flannel on my Monday session. My crayons were out of order (oops) and I recited the rhymes wrong and had to make them up halfway through when I realized I wasn’t reading the page properly. hah. oh well. it was still fun. On Thursday, though, I nailed it. The kids were WAY too good at guessing though and I didn’t always have time to get through the entire rhyme before they knew what color was next. haha

Then, During my Thursday session, I got out the color scarves and we passed them out and played with them. It wasn’t structured or anything, it was just a fun way to bring more color in to the storytime. In my first color storytime I passed out our ribbon bracelets and then after playing, I let the kids hang on to them until the end of storytime, I did the same this time with the scarves and both times it worked pretty well. I didn’t do the scarves on Monday though since we were already having a bit of a rough time getting through storytime and I decided to cut that part.

We finished our storytimes with our last two books; Mouse Paint by Ellen Stoll Walsh and Bear Sees Colors by Karma Wilson. Bear Sees Colors was a new one for me, but I quite like it! good rhymes and flow and the illustrations are very cute and fun! Mouse Paint is of course an old favorite and staple. I used our big book copy both nights and because it’s not only a pretty basic story line but also because I think I’ve read it about 85743 times, I mostly just recite it and ad-lib my way through with lots of dancing and stomping and mixing along the way. It’s probably one of the very few stories I could do entirely from memory in classic storytelling manner. I don’t think I’ll ever NOT love doing that book.

We ended both sessions with our usual craft. This was another SUPER basic craft. I printed out rainbow coloring pages and then put out crayons and foam shape stickers and let them color and sticker their way into a rainbow.

I really wanna plan some more creative crafts that aren’t just printed paper whatevers, but I haven’t been coming up with good stuff that match my themes. I DO have a nifty Dinosaur theme in the works and I have (finally) started on my hat flannel board I’ve been wanting to make so those two themes will hopefully lend themselves to more exciting crafts. Then again, the kids always have fun and I often see the parents doing their own crafts too so I guess there aren’t any complaints.

Oh! speaking of feedback, I had done a couple ASL words with a few recent storytimes and during my Monday session this week I had one of the parents tell me how much they enjoyed that and hoped I’d continue. I do love the idea and often try to incorporate it when I can so hopefully I can find some good words for dinos or hats.  😉

Until next time!

 

 

                                                                              *chomp chomp chomp*

Top o’ the mornin’

I’ve always been a big fan of Saint Patrick’s day. I have Irish blood in my family and I’m quite proud of it. In fact, my name, Colleen, is the anglicized form of Cailín which, in Ireland, means “small or young girl”

I remember being called “Colleeny Beany” by my parents when I was young, and today I learned that not only is bean a coordinate term of cailín, but that in Irish it can mean “Fairy Woman”

I’ll have to go and ask my parents if they knew that all those years they had been calling me a “small young fairy woman” 

Someday I hope to actually visit the Emerald Isle and see it for myself, but until then, I’ll just happily keep celebrating my roots. One of my fondest memories is when my brother and I were kids, our mother would always surprise us on the morning of Saint Patrick’s day by making the milk in our cereal and glasses green! How neat!?

Anyhow, ON TO STORYTIME!

I had quite the difficult time planning this storytime even with all my knowledge of and affinity for the holiday I was using as my theme. Turns out, there aren’t many age / length appropriate, picture laden,  Irish or Saint Patrick’s day themed books! 😦 I found a few that were ok but they were, of course, checked out with lots of holds, bummer. We did have a really cool collection of traditional Irish folk and fairy tales, but again, those are often a bit darker or heavier that I’d like for preschoolers and they are usually quite long and wordy with few or no pictures, not great for storytime.

I ended up settling on a short folk tale about a leprechaun that I read and then one book that I thought was a great tie in even though it technically had nothing to do with Saint Patrick’s day or Ireland.

Before I read the folk tale, I asked the kids if they knew what leprechauns were and then we talked a bit about them and a few other Saint Patrick’s Day and Irish folktale themed terms or associations; we covered all the basics like shamrocks and rainbows and pots of gold (magically delicious!) and then I asked if they knew what happens if you catch a leprechaun which led right into the folk tale story.

The book I picked was “Where is the Green Sheep” by Mem Fox. I thought that was a clever story considering Ireland is the “Emerald Isle” and heavily associated with Green and they are also well known for their sheep and wool which I of course explained to the kids. Perfect! I also loved the author’s name, Mem, as that’s my mother’s nickname and she’s where I get most of my Irish roots. 🙂

It’s a really cute book with rhymes and opposites and associations that are easy enough for the kids to pick up on and kind of read along with you.

After the folk tale (which didn’t go over super well in my Monday night session) and the book (which was a HUGE hit) we broke out the flannel board and did some counting!

I printed out 5 leprechauns and 1 fairy and laminated them for this activity. ( I need to stop cheating so much and start making them by hand more which also means I need to pick less intricate things to make haha)

Five little leprechauns

Five little leprechauns digging for some gold. (Digging motion)
One slipped down and fell into a hole. (Falling)
The others called for help and a fairy began to scold, (Shaking finger)
Now how many leprechauns digging for gold? (Count)

Four little leprechauns digging for some gold.
(And so on…)

No little leprechauns to dig for gold. (Shrug shoulders.)
All five of them fell down in the hole. (Hold up five fingers, then point down.)
Above them stands the fairy who scolds, (Hands on hips)
“I told you all to stop digging for that gold!” (Shaking finger)

I often have a hard time telling if the kids are excited because they are so good at counting, or bored because it’s too easy because every once in a while you get a group that doesn’t wait until the rhyme sequence is done to start yelling out the number or counting. Either way, I just keep on keepin’ on and praise them for being SO smart!

When we were done with counting, I broke out the rainbow scarves so we could move around and have some fun. My original thought for this was to put on some traditional Irish music and dance around to that but I
1. couldn’t settle on any particular song, and
2. am not much for dancing, especially when it’s not structured.
So I decided against music. turns out my group on Monday was too loud and rowdy anyhow so it would have been hard to hear. I ended up just talking about rainbows and different ways we could make one. We made rainbows on the right, and rainbows on the left, then rainbows on our heads and our feet and eventually I start asking them how else we could do that and at one point, one creative kid suggested making a rainbow on the flannel board and ran up to stick the scarf on it. Unfortunately, as neat as the idea was, the scarves don’t stick and I soon had 25+ small children trying to smush scarves onto a small easel. I tried my best to control the chaos before it got too bad but it wasn’t going well so I proclaimed the best scarf rainbow ever had been made and that it was now time to make a different kind of rainbow in the craft room where I had a hearty supply of paper shamrocks, cotton balls, and little paper coins for them to glue to sheets of paper in the colors of the Irish flag and markers with which to draw whatever they felt the need to get out. The word “craft” to our storytime kids is much like the word “treat” or “park” to my dogs; they drop whatever they’re doing and focus. Sometimes I feel like I should have a craft set up back there behind the room divider JUST IN CASE. Oh no, Joey and Timmy are arguing over who sits where and just won’t stop, that’s ok, CRAFT TIME!  Sally doesn’t want to read that book…or any book and is adamant in voicing that opinion because she’s strong and confident, awesome, CRAFT TIME! No? Not a great idea? oh, ok.

😛

Actually, crafts are something that I’d like to start working in to more of my storytimes. I know that some people do crafts EVERY time, and others are somewhat “anti-craft” and to each their own, but I like them, and I get TONS of positive input from parents each time that I have one. I know that some people think that storytime should be for stories, but I don’t see any reason why crafts should be any less a part of storytime than rhymes or songs or dancing. If nothing else, I believe that a craft that relates to the theme of the books that were read will help a child to retain the concept or simply remember things better by giving them one more thing with which to associate it. Some learn by listening, some by doing. Not to mention that I try to pick crafts that encourage them to draw or write which helps them practice learning their letters and handwriting which will lead to them being able to write confidently and, who knows, maybe even write and/or illustrate a picture book that could some day find it’s way into a storytime. Full circle, ya know?

Anywho, So with my Thursday session, I knew that it would be after Saint Patrick’s day, but I didn’t want to do two completely separate themes so I kept it mostly the same but just focused a bit less on the holiday itself (which I often try to do and just focus more on a concept of said holiday) and tried to talk more about just Ireland in general. Luckily since the holiday had passed, I was able to finally get my grubby paws on a better book about a leprechaun. I, once again, chose a story about a leprechaun that didn’t actually relate to the holiday and was more of a folk tale and instead of  the boring, picture-less version I did on Monday, (sorry kids) I went with “The Leprechaun Under the Bed” by Teresa Bateman. I really liked the story since it covered most of the leprechaun basics, shoe makers/cobblers, have gold, are magical, that kind of stuff, but didn’t get too into the whole end of the rainbow, after me lucky charms gimmick. Because of that, I thought it felt like a good folk tale but still had all the awesome fun and pictures of a regular picture book. The kids really dug it. It was still pretty wordy compared to what I usually try to pick out, but that was pretty much how every book I found on the topic was. Unfortunately,because of the length, I had my eyes glued to the pages most of the time and didn’t get to look around as much as I typically like to, but whenever I did, the kids were all quietly engrossed so that was excellent! We changed the order up a bit on Thursday as well and did the five little leprechaun rhyme right after the leprechaun book and then did the sheep book again which went over just as well, if not better than with the first group. We also did the scarves again on Thursday, even knowing how Monday went; I like to flirt with danger, what can I say. This time I lucked out 😉 and the kids managed to come up with some pretty good ideas that didn’t involve storming unstable structures. We made square rainbows, circle rainbows, triangle rainbows, and even rainbows in the shape of stars! They really tested my shape knowledge! I also saw a handful of parents get in on the scarf action. I love when I see the adults getting silly with the kids. 😀

Then, CRAFT TIME!
Again, the craft was a big hit and I loved seeing what they created. It’s so neat to see how different each group can be. The Monday session all seemed to try to stick pretty closely to the example I made even though I stress each time that they can make anything their creative little hearts desire, where as Thursday’s group seemed to get a bit more free form with their interpretations. both equally awesome in their own way. 🙂

Since Spring officially starts today, or tomorrow, I’m not sure, Next week’s theme will be SPRING! YAY! prepare for bunnies and flowers and chicks, Oh my!

A Whole BOATLOAD of Tacos.

This week’s storytime theme:

There are SO MANY awesome picture books about food that I had a terrible time narrowing it down. After stumbling across what are probably some of my new favorite books,  I knew that I couldn’t not do “Dragons Love Tacos” or “Secret Pizza Party” both by Adam Rubin. They are not only hilarious or wonderfully illustrated, but they’re written in a way that makes for a very natural flow when reading aloud. I wanted to do a flannel board for at least one of them, and I had hoped two, but I was obviously a bit too ambitious and ended up doing only a modified flannel board to go along with the reading of “Dragons Love Tacos”, but I liked it. (see below for photos)

The parents seemed to enjoy the books as well, which is always good; this author / illustrator duo write /draw  in a way that appeals not just to kids, but to anybody with even a mildly decent sense of humor.

Both of the stories have great narratives, but also encourage kids to use their memory and context clues to try to figure out what might happen next as well as give them a chance to talk about and share some of their favorite or least favorite foods which, as we’ve discussed before, builds confidence and camaraderie and as preschoolers, it’s the perfect age to do so.

After the first two books, we did an active rhyme that, I think, is a fun little twist on the typical “Five Little _____” rhymes. This rhyme has a lot of good actions that go along with it; counting, rolling their arms / hands, and at one point they even have to clap then point in one swift action. It’s great practice for coordination, and they were pros.

Five big cookies

Five big cookies sitting in the bowl. (hold up five fingers then make arms into a circle for the bowl)
One fell out and started to roll. (Fold up one finger, and roll hands)
It fell off the table and hit my toe (clap once, and touch toes )
How many cookies sitting in the bowl? 1-2-3-4 (Count fingers)
Four big cookies sitting in the bowl. (hold up four fingers)

Continue to count down until there are no cookies left.

I found the original version in various blogs and, once again, tweaked it a bit to my taste. The kids seemed to have a pretty good time rolling their arms and hands fast and slow and were were excellent clappers and pointers. A lot of times with these “5 Little” rhymes, I’ll do it once as “5 little” and then ask if they can do “10 little” or higher, but today I didn’t since we had some longer books and this rhyme was a bit more involved and longer than the usual ones, but they kept suggesting we do 10 or 50! I chuckled and said that there weren’t any more cookies in the bowl, but that I had stashed some in the cupboard for later. One kid then mumbled “That guy has got to keep better track of his cookies” which got a good laugh out of me.

After the rhyme, we did one last book. “Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs” by Judi Barrett. It’s a bit of a longer book, and the illustrations, while detailed, are not very vibrant and somewhat hard to see for large groups so I wasn’t sure how well it would go over. I warned them before I started that it was kind of long but they all wanted to hear it so we went ahead. Lots of parts garner responses of “EW!” or “YUCK!” and some even get kids to speak up saying “I love ___” or “That sounds good!” which is always fun, but it made for an even LONGER read!

After we finished, I could tell we had run over our usual time and some of the kids had gotten a bit antsy and left but the group that stayed, which was most of them, were still quite interested in telling me all about their favorite foods or what they really hate to eat. Sadly, I had to cut them all a bit short since we were quite past our stop time so we said our goodbyes and they all filed out of the room.

I  really enjoyed this storytime and I’m excited to see what my Thursday session has in store for me!

UPDATE
———————————————————————————————————-

Whoo boy, Thursday’s session was a real busy one! There were around 40 people in attendance and they had SO much to share about food they loved! For some reason, this group seemed to want to be much more interactive wwith the stories and books and frequently shouted out things they noticed on the pages or came up to point out the weird pictures during “Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs”  I decided to switch the order up a bit and do that one first since it’s a bit longer and hoped that would make it easier to pay attention when it was at the beginning of storytime, but different days, different crowds. They still seemed to quite enjoy it, even if they were wriggly.  After that book, I jumped right into “5 Big Cookies” this group LOVED it. They giggled and laughed and rolled like mad!

After burning off some energy, I got back to the books. They were much quieter and more focused for the last two books which is nice because instead of having to make sure everybody can see and hear, it gives me a chance to interact more directly with them; ask the questions about what they see and hear or if they can use context clues in the story to guess what happens next. It’s great practice for them, and always fun to hear the responses.

The Taco Flannel went over quite well and when we were done reading the books and I started asking them about their favorite foods, one kid said “I like the taco board” and pointed to the flannel, so, I pulled it back out and we played a memory game!

I put the check mark and the “no” sign back up on the board and I asked them if they could name something RED that dragons like on their tacos, then something RED that dragons DO NOT like on their tacos and so on until we had put all the ingredients and salsa back up on the board.

I love being able to interact with the kids instead of just expecting them to sit down, be quiet, and listen. I think it makes storytime more fun, less stressful and more free-flowing, and it’s excellent for them.

Here are the things I made for the “Dragons Love Tacos” Flannel board. As I said earlier, I was overly ambitious with the idea and lacked both time and patience to pull it off and had to resort to making things on the computer with clipart and paint and printing them out, but I think it still worked quite well. The kids loved it. 

Great Big Tacos
and tiny little baby tacos

These are totally ok for dragons tacos

Dragons DO NOT like spicy salsa

Buckets of tacos

Pantloads of tacos

BOATLOADS of tacos

you need approximately this amount of tacos to host a proper Dragon Taco Party.

I’ll be honest, I have NO IDEA what I want to do for the next theme so it’ll be a surprise to us both when I post next week!

Any suggestions?!  😉

Welcome, welcome, everyone!

I figured I’d start off my new blog with an inaugural post about my inaugural Storytime. 

This week Was my first week taking over Storytime at my library. I was SO nervous. I practiced and practiced, spent hours hunting down active rhymes and fingerplays, rewriting and Frankensteining them together until I was finally happy and confortable with what I had.

For my welcome song, I decided to use “Welcome Welcome”; my version is a combination of a few different versions I found around the web, as well as a few lines I changed, moved around, or added.  I really liked the concept of it, but many of the versions I found just didn’t flow well with me, so here is what I ended up with:

Welcome, welcome, everyone
Now you’re here lets have some fun.

Hands go up and hands go down,
I can spin around and round.

I can bend and touch my toes.
I can crinkle up my nose

I can jump upon two shoes.
I can listen, so can you.

I can sit; I’ll show you how.
Storytime is starting now.

The kids seemed to really enjoy the motions and activity involved in this rhyme and were eager to sit right down and listen. We actually did the rhyme twice because it was new for them and I wanted to repeat it to help them remember, but it’s also a good way to get them to get rid of some of their wiggly energy before having them sit quietly (relatively) for the next 20 or so minutes.  I don’t plan to do the rhyme more than once every week, but it is short enough that we can do it a couple times if we have newcomers that aren’t familiar with it, or just lots of pent up energy that we need to get out.

After our opener, I discussed the theme:

COLORS

We talked about our favorite colors and places where we find lots of colors.
I asked: “Can you name something that has lots and lots of colors?”
Answers were excitedly shouted out and included things like: rainbows, markers, crayons, their clothes, and so on; all excellent answers!
I utilized some of the library’s supplies and brought out the ribbon bracelets. They WERE stashed under my chair for an activity I had planned for later, but one of the kids noticed the right away and asked what they were for. I decided to pass them out early since they were quiet and would probably give them something “constructive” to fiddle with if bored. This proved to be an excellent idea, but I would certainly suggest not handing noisemakers out at the very start, but that’s just common sense, right?  😉 Luckily, we seem to have been graced with a very patient and sharing group of children and passing things out, as well as cleaning them back up is quite a painless process as they cooperate very willingly. Once everybody had chosen their ribbons, we found our seats and began. 

The first book I chose was “Mouse Paint” by Ellen Stoll Walsh. This book has been a longtime favorite of mine since I was a child and it’s both easy to read / remember / ad-lib as well as engaging for the kids. It has lots of opportunities for the reader to involve the children in the story by asking them what colors they see, or what colors they think will be created by mixing, as well as helping them to develop memory skills by asking things like “what colors are left” or “do you remember what colors they mixed first?”  I debated between using the Flannel board and the Big Book, in the end I went with the Big Book since it’s a little easier to deal with than keeping all the felt in order as well as remembering the story and I figured I’d take all the help I could for my first run. I also think the kids enjoy seeing such a large book since it’s rather unique and striking.  

After Mouse Paint we did our first “Active Rhyme”. These rhymes are great for boosting memory skills, teaching what rhymes are, general language skills, fine or basic motor skills, as well as, once again, getting out some energy. We stood up and I had them do what I like to call the “chicken pose” I instruct them to put their hands on their hips with their elbows way out so they kid of look like wings, I then usually say something along the lines of “Now wiggle your elbows around like wings, if you bump into your neighbor, you can scooch to the side. This usually gets a giggle or two out of the kids since we all look kinda silly scooching around with our wiggly elbows and arms. After everybody has some room, we begin our rhymes. Here are the rhymes I chose:

If your clothes have any red
Put your finger on your head

If your clothes have any blue
Bend down and touch your shoe

If your clothes have any green
Wave your hands so you are seen

If your clothes have any yellow
Smile like a happy fellow

If your clothes have any brown
Turn that smile into a frown

If your clothes have any black
Hide your hands behind your back

If your clothes have any white
Stomp your feet with all your might!

Again, we are helping develop and reinforce basic motor skills, learning to recognize colors, practicing rhymes, and getting out energy! While reciting these rhymes, I like to pause a bit when saying the second line because many kids will actually be able to guess the action based on words that rhyme with the color you say. Again, I asked the kids how they liked the rhyme and if they wanted to do it again or move on to the next story; this time, the general consensus was STORY! 🙂

My second story was originally going to be “Monsters Love Colors” by Mike Austin which is very similar to Mouse Paint, but quite a bit more energetic, however, I couldn’t get my hands on a copy so I went with my backup book; “The Teeny Tiny Mouse: A Book about Colors” by Laura Leuck. This book engages the kids by asking them to find items in the book that are certain colors. It also makes it easy to ad-lib and go with the flow of the kids rather than the book. For example, I had a group that were very awake and energetic which meant excited answers so I ended up not really reading the second page in the 2 page spread sequences and just let them name things. The pages go like so:

“‘Can you name some brown things in our teeny tiny house?’ Said the teeny tiny mom of the teeny tiny mouse”

The second page lists off items of that color in a rhyming, rhythmic verse but the kids seemed more interested in pointing things out on their own so I stopped trying to read over them and just went with it.

I did have to stop a handful of times to remind some kids to back up or sit down so others could see because this book does seem to encourage kids to want to get right up in it and point to things, but I’d rather have to remind them because they are having too much fun than the other way around.

After that story I could tell we were getting fidgety again and it was time to move around before ending Storytime.  The final activity was my attempt at bringing in some of the Common Core Standards, specifically ELA-Literacy  concepts; including the Anchor Standards for Speaking and Listening. I asked the kids if they’d like to make a rainbow. This is where I had originally planned to use the colored ribbon bracelets, but since we already passed them out, I just reminded everybody to get them ready and explained what we were going to do.

I told them we were going to sing the rainbow song:

My intention was that when they heard the color of their ribbon, they would come stand in front of me so that we would end up in a single file line in the order of the colors in the song. Once in order, we could wave our ribbons and make a rainbow. Unfortunately, my group was either a little too rowdy or the concept was a bit too advanced for them so we ended up in a mishmash group in the middle of the room, waving our ribbons, singing the song. which is TOTALLY fine by me since they seemed to quite enjoy it regardless. 🙂

After that, it was time to end Storytime. I asked them to return their ribbons, which they did fabulously, and then taught them my Goodbye Rhyme. The Goodbye Rhyme is almost the same as the Welcome Rhyme, with just a couple changes.

Goodbye, Goodbye, everyone
I’m glad you came, it sure was fun.

Hands go up and hands go down,
I can spin around and round.

I can bend and touch my toes.
I can crinkle up my nose

I can jump upon two shoes.
I can clap and so can you.

I can wave; I’ll show you how.
Storytime is done for now.

After the closing rhyme, I thanked everybody for coming and offered printouts of all the rhymes and the opener and closer so that they could take it home and practice if they wanted. I also offered them to the children during Storytime and said that they could use them to follow along and practice reading. This also opens up the opportunity to ask them if they recognize and words or letters on the page. This also helps introduce them to another Common Core Standard: Reading and provides reinforcement of the concepts introduced to them during Storytime as well as providing a fun activity for parents and children to participate in together at home.  Another added benefit is that as they practice and become more comfortable with the rhymes and actions, they will develop self confidence when they come back to Storytime and are able to remember the words and actions they practiced.

In conclusion, yes, I had to stop the story and “reprimand” children for their behavior, BUT, no blood, no tears, and no angry parents! In fact, I even had a couple parents come and thank me and commend me for my patience with the rowdy group we had today; all in all SUCCESS!

Now, on to planning next week’s Storytime. I’ll give you a clue…