Mothers Day

Well since I did a Fathers Day theme, I figured I *had* to do a Mothers Day one too. Neither are themes that we actually do during the calendar year, since we normally take a break when Mother's Day falls, and Father's Day is during summer reading. Usually, we do a theme called "family" that kinda encompasses everyone. However, there are a number of mother books that I enjoy.

Little Rabbit and the Meanest Mother on Earth by Kate Klise. Little Rabbit is *supposed* to be cleaning his room when the circus comes to town. He begs his mother to go, but of course his room isn't clean, so it's a no-go. So what does he do? Tries to join the circus. He can if he sells 100 tickets. His act? The Meanest Mother on Earth. Little Rabbit gets quite inventive in his effort to sell tickets. Needless to say, the audience is quite disappointed when she shows up. Mama manages to turn the tables though, and the audience gets a show and Little Rabbit learns a lesson.

My Monster Mama Loves Me So by Laura Leuck. This is one of those my-mom-is-the-best-for-all-these-reasons book, but with a monster twist.

My Mommy is Magic by Carl Norac. This book lists all the reasons the girl's mother is magic, like when she wears her cloud dress, the sky is clear or when she sings the butterflies gather. It goes through all the reasons and then the girl says "My mommy is magic and one day I'm going to grow up and be magic just like her." A-dorable!

 



 

Ol' Mama Squirrel by David Ezra Stein. This is about a mama squirrel that will do anything she can to protect her babies (and she's really good at it). One day, an ENORMOUS scary problem comes along that she can't handle by herself, but mama squirrel is resourceful and gets the job done!

Mama Don't Allow
So this is actually the name of a book (By Thacher Hurd), but we do it as a song. Maaaaaybe not the best one to do when you're trying to honor mothers, but *shrug*.

Mama don't allow no hand clappin' 'round here (clap, clap, clap)
Mama don't allow no hand clappin' 'round here (clap, clap, clap)
Well I don't care what Mama don't allow, gonna clap my hands any old how,

Mama don't allow no hand clappin' 'round here (clap, clap, clap)

 

Mama don't allow no foot stompin' 'round here (stomp, stomp, stomp) 

Mama don't allow no foot stompin' 'round here (stomp, stomp, stomp)

 Well I don't care what Mama don't allow, gonna stomp my feet any old how,

Mama don't allow no foot stompin' 'round here (stomp, stomp, stomp)

 

Mama don't allow no hog callin' 'round here ("Soo-wee")

Mama don't allow no hog callin' 'round here ("Soo-wee")

 Well I don't care what Mama don't allow, gonna call my hogs any old how,

Mama don't allow no hog callin' 'round here ("Soo-wee")

 

Mama don't allow no carryin' on around here (clap clap, stomp stomp, "Soo-wee")

Mama don't allow no carryin' on around here (clap clap, stomp stomp, "Soo-wee")

Well I don't care what Mama don't allow, gonna carry on any old how,

Mama don't allow no carryin' on around here (clap clap, stomp stomp, "Soo-wee")

 

There's also a couple of nursery rhymes you could do:

 

Old Mother Hubbard
Went to the cupboard
To get her poor dog a bone;
But when she came there
The cupboard was bare,
And so the poor dog had none.

 

There was an old woman who lived in a shoe.
She had so many children, she didn't know what to do;
She gave them some broth without any bread;
Then whipped them all soundly and put them to bed.

 

 

Representation Matters: Stories featuring black characters.

So I was reading to a group of kids the other day and it was the last week of our summer theme. I asked the kids if they knew who Michael Phelps is. One of the kids asked "Is he black?". Important to note - all of the children I was reading to were black - and I suddenly realized, "Wow. I totally could have picked a book about a black athlete to read to them". We just picked Michael Phelps because he's going to be in the Olympics again this year, and the book is cute in illustrating what all he had to do to train to get there. This past week though, I decided to consciously pick out books that had black people as the main focus, just for them. They weren't the only group that I read to, but that didn't matter. (In fact, they cancelled my story time with them before I got to read them - but I'll just save them for next week.)

 

Say Hey!: a Song of Willie Mays by Peter Mandel. This has a great repeating refrain of "Say hey, Willie, say hey" that I had the kids say after every couplet of lines, helping keep them engaged in the story. It's a good, brief telling of his life, though it does gloss over the segregation stuff a little- but hey, it's a kids book. I did briefly talk about segregation and Civil Rights after and one little girl said something like "Yeah, and that's why we have Black History Month..." I didn't say anything to that or point out the theme in all my books that day. I have no idea if any of them noticed. I probably missed a teaching moment. :/ 

 

Aunt Flossie's Hats (and Crab Cakes Later) by Elizabeth Fitzgerald Howard. This is a really cute story about two little girls who love to visit their great-aunt, go through her hatboxes and listen to all the storied that accompany each hat. You get to hear three - including one that they get to help tell at the end. :)

 

Jump Rope Magic by Afi Scruggs. This book is definitely written with a certain rhythm and cadence to it. It's great when you can get into it and go with the flow. You can really get tripped up if you don't get into the beat though. The girls I read this to LOVED it because they recognized some of the jump rope rhymes used in it.

 

We Had a Picnic This Sunday Past by Jacqueline Woodson. This book is told by the little girl who goes to a family picnic with her grandma, and they comment on everyone and everything they bring. And the whole time they keep talking about this one aunt and her terrible apple pies, but they can't tell her that because it would hurt her feelings. FINALLY the aunt shows up with a box - does she have TWO pies?!

 

Nappy Hair by Carolivia Herron. This story is set up as being told at a reunion or some family gathering, so you have the main story teller, and then you have two other voices that chime in and interrupt. The story teller is talking about how this child has the nappiest hair in the world. He goes on and on and on about it - and the voices that interrupt get exasperated with him and can't believe that he won't stop talking about it. In the end, he says that God gave that child that hair, and when he looked at what he created he was proud and said "Well done." For all the teasing that starts out in the story, it's really heartwarming in the end.




Like I said, I haven't had a chance to read these stories to my intended audience. I'll update soon once I do and can gauge their reaction to the stories. I had others picked out too - I only had so much time to read before I had to run to my story time, but some of the other titles were Bippity Bop Barbershop by Natasha Anastasia Tarpley (but couldn't use because half a page was missing :/), Baby Tamer by Mark Teague (the main character just happens to be black - nothing about it is ever mentioned), black is brown is tan by Arnold Adoff (about a biracial family), and Cherish Me by Joyce Carol Thomas. 

 

Spaaaaaace

I think we introduced this one during the Dream Big summer theme. We liked it so much, we decided to try to incorporate it more into our yearly rotation.

 

Krong! By Garry Parsons. When the kid in the story is approached by an alien in the story and the kid doesn't understand him, he runs inside to tell his parents and they offer the most helpful advice of maybe he's Spanish, French, Japanese. He tries all those languages and then you find out the alien is the boy's uncle.  Why don't the parents say "Why are you talking to a stranger?! Come inside this minute!"? I guess that would defeat the message of like, cultural acceptance or whatever.  But seriously? There's just some strange guy your son is talking to and you're totally ok with it?  Regardless, it's a cute book.

 

 

Man on the Moon (a Day in the Life of Bob) by Simon Bartram. This is a day in the life of the man in the moon.  He flies up every day, tidies it up, puts on shows for the tourists, and has never ever seen an alien. I usually keep this reserved for my elementary kids.

 

 

Baloney (Henry P.) by Jon Scieszka. Kids really get a kick out of the outlandish excuse for being late, told from the point of view of the little alien - complete with alien slang. It's quite a fun story to read aloud.

 

 

Mousetronaut by Mark Kelly. Somewhat similar to Hedgie in Space, it's about a little mouse that gets to go on a space mission and ends up saving the crew and the mission. The best part? This is actually written by an astronaut! :D  How cool is that? 

 

 

The Way Back Home by Oliver Jeffers. Y'all should know my love for Oliver Jeffers by now. The story is about an alien and a person who both unexpectedly land and get stuck on the moon. They find each other, and figure out a way to get their vehicles fixed.

 



 

Hush, Little Alien by Daniel Kirk. Obviously a take on Hush, Little Baby. Yes, the whole thing can be sung, and I often do it. I stop and ask questions though, so they don't miss the cute play on words or illustrations.

 

 

It Came From Outer Space by Tony Bradman. When I did a search for this image, I found out this was also the name of an old sci-fi film.  I have no idea if they are similar. In this one, a visitor from space comes to an elementary school. They talk about how weird and ugly it was, and how they couldn't understand what it was trying to say. They take a picture with it and get to see the inside of the spacecraft, and then it's time for the visitor to go. In a Twilight Zone-like twist, you see the picture and see that the class are all aliens, and the visitor is a human.  

 

 

Zoom! Zoom! Zoom! I'm Off to the Moon! by Dan Yaccarino. With simple rhyming text and graphic illustrations, this books goes through one little boy's trip to the moon. It's a short, quick read, so I like to do this one with my two year olds.

 

 

Other good books for this theme are:

 

Astro Bunnies by Christine Loomis.

 

 

Moo Cow Kaboom by Thacher Hurd

 

 

As far as songs or fingerplays, I do Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star and in the past I've gone this:

 

 

9 Little Planets (sung to the tune of 10 little Indians)

 

 

One little two little three little planets

Four little five little six little planets

Seven little eight little nine little planets

Orbiting round the sun.

 

I know.  Pluto is technically a dwarf planet, but didn't they add it back recently?  It's so hard to keep up with this crap.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Ocean

It's a little weird to do a post on what feels like it should be a summer theme, but I live in Florida, so a summer theme is anytime really. 

Secret Seahorse by Stella Blackstone. Each page of this book, the seahorse is hiding somewhere and you have to find it. I try to let the kids take turns and show me where it is, but this usually devolves into chaos.  Beautiful illustrations by Clare Beaton.

Papa Fish's Lullaby by Patricia Hubbell.  My problem with lullabies is that I always want to sing them.  I can't remember if I've cracked a tune for this one or not. There are several lullaby books that I read that I just can't get it. Basically this is papa fish calling the kid home as he passes all the other sea creatures.

Just Grandma and Me by Mercer Mayer. Classics have that status for a reason. This book is totally a classic. It's about Little Monster and his grandma's day at the beach, the ups and downs, all told from his perspective.

The Three Little Fish and the Big Bad Shark by Ken Geist. It's another take on the 3 Little Pigs - and we all know how many of those there are out there. This one is cute because in the end all the shark's teeth fall out.  What they don't address is that the shark could just grow new teeth (or they'd move up), but I guess the little fish might be dead by then and he could terrorize new ones. *shrug* I have a great shark puppet from Folkmanis that I use whenever I do this story. The kids love it, but they all want the shark to bite them, and that can get a little out of hand.

Other books good for this theme include:

Over in the Ocean in a Coral Reef by Marianne Berkes

Bored! Bored! Bored! by Jill Newton

Fidgety Fish by Ruth Galloway

I've done a couple of fingerplays with this over the years.  One I tried last year is Did You Ever See a Fishy? (sung to the tune of Did You Ever See a Lassie?)

Did you ever see a fishy,

A fishy, a fishy?

Did you ever see a fishy

swim this way and that?

Swim this way and that way, 

and that way and this way?

Did you ever see a fishy 

swim this way and that?

You can also substitute with words like slide and splash on subsequent verses, but I'm doing good just to teach it to them and get them to sing it with me with the words that are there.

I've also done 5 Little Fishes 

5 little fishes swimming in the sea (wiggle 5 fingers, move arm)

The first fish said, "It's cold to me!" (hug self and shiver)

The second fish said, "It's really deep" (use low voice)

The third fish said "I want to sleep" (yawn and stretch)

The fourth fish said, "I spy a ship" (hand shading eyes)

Fishing boat comes, line goes kersplash! (throw in line)

5 little fishes swim away in a flash (fingers "swim" away quickly)

I found a site that had different wording, but I changed it because I didn't like that they said "pool".  

Fall Crafts

I said I'd go back and add crafts to the themed posts, but instead I just decided to go ahead and make them their own post.  All of the ones shown are what's been salvaged from years past.  I still have yet to make what we're doing this year, so there may be another post coming up.

Apples.  This one was truly pulled out of thin air.  In the past, we'd done things like a wreath made of paper apple cut-outs, but I wanted something different.  I know the kids don't care, and I have different ones from year to year, but still. So I found this or came up with it at the last minute. We pre-cut the holes in the plates as well as cut out the leaves.  All the kids had to do was glue on the tissue paper to color the apple and glue on the leaves.

Owls. In NO WAY do I ever expect anyone else to be able to do this craft during a regular week, but we had the stuff sitting around, so we did.  I had all these pairs of kids sunglasses from something the department was going to do years ago. So popped out the lenses and then hot-glued cardstock in the shape of these giant owl eyebrows onto the top of the frames. The kids glued feathers onto the cardstock, and voila! Owl glasses. I love them, and my adult friends all wanted a pair. 

Pumpkins. Since we try to avoid Halloween and jack o'lanterns with this week, it's a little hard to do crafts with it sometimes. I love doing mosaics, so we've done that a couple years, giving them split peas, barley, and of course pumpkin seeds to use. A LOT of the pumpkin seeds never make it to the paper. Heck, a lot of the pumpkin seeds never make it to the kids. I have to buy an extra pack just for me to eat.

Halloween!  As stated before, I LOVE Halloween! So I'm giving you a two-fer.  First, the ghost.  I think it's pretty straightforward, but if you need directions, you can find them here. We simplified them a bit because we didn't want to cut out as many things, so the eyes aren't layered.

Cotton Swab Skeleton.  Again, to me this looks very self-explanatory.  If you'd like a guide to help you, click here. We did this with our elementary school kids because we felt it was a bit more difficult than the ghost.

Thanksgiving! Luckily, we have die-cuts to help us with this feat! :D A couple of years we've done a banner made of paper turkeys and fall leaves, and the kids wrote things they were thankful for on each.  Last year we decided to make a turkey hat.  Easy with our cut-outs. If you don't have one, ask around. We let people use ours as long as they bring their own paper.

HALLOWEEN DECORATIONS!!!

Last year we decided to switch up our decorations a bit. We used to have these giant Martha Stewart fans hanging in our picture book section. (See below) In junior fiction, we had gigantic spiders and spiderwebs everywhere, and in young adult we had huge scary bat wall clings. So we decided to make everything a bit nicer and prettier and not so scary. (Though I love the scary, trust me)

In our YA area, I decided to do a Dia de los Muertos banner.  I made all these little skull cut-outs, and then my coworker and I had a blast decorating them!

For the picture book section, I found a couple of banner tutorials to try out. The "Happy Halloween" banner I did based on this tutorial I found about using coffee filters. The one in the back (which is hard to see, I know) is mainly using our cutouts of a cat, owl, and jack o'lantern against different backgrounds.  If you want a tutorial, I found one here, but that person gets REALLY in-depth on the process.  I think I may have used it just for the measurements.

Finally, in our junior fiction section, we decided to keep it simple and just went with a ton of hanging bats.  Also - some bats taped to the windows for depth of field or something.  Who is it by?  Martha Stewart, of course.  Though if you look at the bats on her page, and the ones on ours, you can see a noticeable size difference.  I don't know why you'd want them as big as she has them.

Hope you enjoy and maybe use some!  I plan on posting more crafts soon! 

Happy Birthday toooooo MEEEEEEE!!!!

Actually, my birthday was a month ago. When I come back from our little mini-break between summer and fall programs though, I tend to do a birthday-themed story time.  Why? Because I'm a summer baby and my birthday always falls in the right time to miss everything.  We don't have programs the week of my birthday. I never had a cool birthday with all my friends from school when I was little because of when my birthday fell. So I do this for myself and all my summer babies who have missed out.

Whopper Cake by Karma Wilson. I talked about this with another post, so I'll keep this brief. This sweet old man sets out to make his wife the biggest and best cake for her birthday, and it turns out to be a doozy.

Moira's Birthday by Robert Munsch. This is about a girl who wants to invite grades 1,2,3,4,5,6 aaaaand kindergarten to her birthday party. Her parents refuse and say she can invite 6. By the end of the day however, she has invited everyone.  The day of the party EVERYONE has shown up to the house and now they have to feed them. So Moira calls and orders 200 pizzas and 200 cakes.  Each can only deliver 10 at the time.  The kids devour them, and want more food.  So they all leave, bring back more food, and devour that. Then in return for cleaning up, they all get to take home a present. At the end of the book, the other 190 pizzas and cakes get delivered. :)

Birthday Present by Catherine Stock. A simple, short book about a boy going to a birthday party. He wants to get the girl all these other toys, but the mom picks out a ball, and it turns out to be just what the girl wanted.

What's Cookin'? A Happy Birthday Counting Book by Nancy Coffelt. Short, cute rhymes, I love when I can incorporate a counting book into a program. This one is great because it has tips in the back for cooking with children, a page about math in the kitchen, AND it has a recipe for cake and frosting!

Birthday Customs Around the World by Sarah L. Schuette. Each page of this book has a short sentence about a custom from another country. There are about 7 or so countries covered. This is a good way to introduce a little non-fiction into the story time, and also start a (hopefully short) conversation about some special traditions people might have on their birthdays.

Other cute ones for this theme include:

Hello! Is This Grandma? by Ian Whybrow

Don't Spill the Beans by Ian Schoenherr

So other than singing Happy Birthday to everyone (unless someone's birthday is really close - or we just missed it), then the only other thing I do is the following:

Apples, peaches, pears, plums,

Tell me when your birthday comes!

We clap and go around the room chanting that and each child is supposed to tell me their birthday.  Usually whatever parent is there with them is who ends up answering.

The Farm

There are probably some people that would break the theme "The Farm" into a week each of cows, pigs, and ducks.  There are probably enough books featuring each animal to do so.  Instead, we lump them all together and have one SUPER AWESOME week of stories. 

Punk Farm by Jarret J. Krosoczka. Farm animals by day, punk band by night. Will they get caught by the farmer?  It's near impossible to read this book.  Luckily, there's a great online resource for the book where they have the song! (Well, songs - there's also Punk Farm Goes on Tour, which is pretty cool too)

Baby Danced the Polka by Karen Beaumont. Maybe not the first book you'd think of when it comes to farm, but it's great! It's lift the flap, and it rhymes, so I have kids try to guess the word (which is an animal) at the end of the verse.  I always establish that they understand rhyming words first, of course.  There are always at least one or two kids who get it and get the ball rolling, even if the rest take a little longer to catch up.

The Cow Buzzed by Andrea Zimmerman. I haven't used this book in awhile, just because it can be a bit lengthy. It's about a bee who brings a cold with him to a farm.  When animals catch the cold, they also catch the sounds of the animal before them.  I like to do it at the beginning of the school year to emphasize to kids the need to cover their mouths when they cough and sneeze.

Click, Clack, Moo: Cows That Type by Doreen Cronin. The animals find and old typewriter in the barn, and decide to start making the demands. The farmer refuses the demands, and the cows go on strike.  Eventually the chickens join in and the duck is the neutral party. The kids love saying "Click, clack, moooo", but it can be really hard to break their cycle once they get going.

Pigs to the Rescue by John Himmelman. This series of books is so cute.  In case you're not familiar, there's also one for chickens and another for cows. I like the pig one though, because in contrast to the other two, the pigs are total screw-ups.  The path to hell is paved with good intentions, and while these pigs have the best of intentions to help out, they ruin everything.  I get the kids to help me out with the book by yelling out "Pigs to the rescue!"

Other great books include:

Duck on a Bike by David Shannon.

The Day Jimmy's Boa Ate the Wash by Trinka Hakes Noble.

The Cow Loves Cookies by Karma Wilson

Hogwash by Karma Wilson.

There are also a TON of songs and fingerplays you can do for this theme, such as Old MacDonald, Down on Grandpa's Farm, and 6 Little Ducks. Not to mention nursery rhymes like Hey Diddle Diddle, Baa Baa Black Sheep, Hickety Pickety, Mary Had a Little Lamb, etc.