A Whole New Story

So the first age group I ever did storytime for was babies, 6-12 months old. The wee little ones! So that's what I'm going to discuss today.

Every storytime we start with the hello song. I like to use ukulele for my hello song since it seems to get everyone's attention. My favorite hello song goes to the tune of London Bridge:

Hi, hello, and how are you?

How are you?

How are you?

Hi, hello, and how are you?

How are you today?

Then we go around to each baby and introduce them with the name song. I love this part because the kids really start getting excited when its their turn to be sung to.

After that we'll go over our early literacy skill of the day. We have six skills and six classes per session, so each class gets its own skill. These skills include:

Vocabulary

Print Motivation

Phonological Awareness

Narritive Skills

Letter Knowledge

Print Awareness

Then I like to do a movement song with the kids, like Baby Hokey Pokey or Acka Backa. Something to get them moving and engaged, since the early literacy skill is really for the parents and not at all exciting for baby.

This is about the time where I introduce the baby sign (American Sign Language) of the day. We choose a different sign for each class so that by the end of the session, baby and caregiver have learned 6 new signs. At this age we stick to really basic signs, like "mommy" and "daddy." Signs for concepts like "hungry" don't come until later.

Mommy

Daddy

I really love Baby Sign Language.com. They have flashcards and video clips for hundreds of baby signs that are good to start with. (The images above are from their site.)

Since we have our fingers all warmed up, I usually move into a fingerplay/nursery rhyme from here. Twinkle Twinkle Little Star and The Itsy Bitsy Spider are special favorites for this age group

From here I'll talk about some simple ways the parents can practice our early literacy skill of the day while reading, then we bring out the book basket! For this age storytellers don't read a book to the group as a whole. Rather, the parents are given a chance to share stories from the book basket one on one with their child. This is because 1) babies can't see too well at a distance, so trying to read to them as a group doesn't do much for them, and 2) the child picks up the importance of reading my seeing their caregiver doing it.

As we put away the book basket we sing the cleanup song which serves as a transition and small distraction from the fact that I'm taking their books away. (Cleanup time can be very traumatic!) I usually try to find a fun/distracting song for right after the books are put up. I want to reinforce that it's okay to put away the books and not dwell on the sadness. My favorite distraction songs are Jelly On a Plate, Let's Go Riding in an Elevator, and Toast in the Toaster.

Then we pass out the shakers and sing some shakey egg songs. I really love Laurie Berkner's I Know a Chicken... it's a good length and a fun one to sing. Our shakers are from Kindermusik and they are super sturdy! They've held up for ages!

And then we have to clean up again with our ever faithful cleanup song. Quickly followed by another distraction song/rhyme. (One that I didn't use the last time through.)

This is where we start winding down, so we review our baby sign for the day and break out the bubbles!

The best bubbles ever are Gymboree Bubbles. They can really fill a room! I like to play some background music while I blow bubbles for the kids and we can get the whole room looking like a snow globe! The bubbles work best in a warm room, but with a little effort you can get them going pretty well even with the AC going.

Then we wind up by giving the parents an assignment based on the early literacy still of the day... just something to work on at home that will help them work on the skill with their child. And then we sing the goodbye song (also with ukulele) which is a mirror of the hello song. It goes like this:

Goodbye, goodbye, we'll see you soon,

see you soon,

see you soon.

Goodbye goodbye, we'll see you soon.

Goodbye until next time!

And there it is in a nutshell! Baby storytime!

Of Blogging, Tweeting, and Teeth

Well here we are... one week since my last post. It's hard for me not to blog more, but I really want to make this sustainable and not burn out crazy fast. That being said... I may still be upping my posts to twice a week. There's just so much to tell you about!

So I joined Twitter this past week. That's right; I've gone to the dark side! Realistically though, I was just avoiding the inevitable. I get so irritated with librarians who don't embrace change, but that's exactly what I was doing. Libraries are moving to Twitter and Tumblr in order to reach the public... I really need to keep up! (I still haven't gotten to Tumblr yet... baby steps.)

JK@RamblingLibrary

But I digress. I'm on twitter now! Check out my feed on the right of the blog (or follow the link above) and come follow me! Or, if you found my blog through Twitter.. follow my blog! I'm not picky!

Last of all... I got my wisdom teeth pulled (all four) two days ago, so I'm currently home healing and generally being in pain. And to add insult to injury... it made me miss my storytime today! I'm very bummed. So today I'm going to post about storytime!

Stay tuned!

Steam it Up!

I actually had a request for this blog post from a coworker, which makes me feel doubly guilty for my brief blogging hiatus. But here we are, and here it is!

A few weeks ago I put on a program for the teens called, "My Clockwork Valentine." The idea was for the teens to make steampunk and/or gothic themed valentines. You know... something outside the "norm."

My flier and bookmark adverts. They look better in person.

To be totally honest, the biggest part of this program was gathering the supplies! It's hard to plan for creativity; if that even makes sense. So I tried to pull from a variety of sources without breaking the bank. I brought some things from home (I had a bunch of stuff from when I made a friend's save the dates) and then went to Michael's and A.C. Moore and just used my best judgment. I had one teen ask if we would be able to use real gears, so even though they were pricier items, I felt compelled to get them.

I sent this as a teaser picture to our teens.

Here are some of my favorite buys/the teen's favorite supplies:

• Steampunk/vintage washi tape
• Shimmer spray
• Stamps
• Embossing powder/heat gun
• "Found" (metal steampunk) embellishments

Left: Supplies I bought; Right: Supplies from home

I bought the shimmer spray on a whim and it was a huge hit! I love it, the teens love it... just get some. You can thank me later. The embossing powder and tool I brought from home somewhat hesitantly. The powder can make a mess, and the tool can melt and burn if not used properly. However, I'm glad I did. It was a real learning experience for the teens and they were all thrilled to see it in action (which I'm pretty sure we all can relate to; it just looks so cool !).

Teen crafters in action!

One thing that I'm really glad I tried in this program was utilizing Pinterest. We have a number of iPad mini's for programming and I thought, "Why not use them!?" Id been pinning valentine ideas onto a board in my Pinterest account for a while (these will be moved to my programming folder eventually), so I set up an account for the iPads, then followed my own board through it. This meant that the teens could see the ideas I'd compiled for them on their home page and still search for other ideas on Pinterest. They even had the freedom of creating their own boards (although no one did). In the past I've made PowerPoints for craft programs and I just felt too much like I was lecturing them. This made it very personal and relaxed!

And here are some of their finished products! (I missed one boy who ran off before I got pictures of his valentine. He was quite the artist too!)

We had one day stay and make a card for his daughter. Aw!

How cool is this "doodle?" 

Some of the "found" pieces in action.

Love the creativity in the shapes and lettering!

This one's one of mine.

Probably our most elaborate card... front, inside, and back!

Another of mine.

As you saw from the cards, we did have one dad stay, even though it was a teen program. I don't know how to say, "I'm sorry sir, but this is a teen program... and you're not." But he was super cool and no one seemed to mind him. He said he was going to hang out on the computers during the program, but then he saw the supplies and had to stay.

I played part of the movie Hugo in the background. No one really watched it, but I like to have ambient noise, and crafting programs can get very VERY quiet. Besides, the movie fit in nicely. It has a good steampunk feel and a little romantic streak in it to boot!

All in all I'm happy with how the program went. Once again, I should have given them more time, but I planned this too far out to realize it. (Curse you deadlines!) I also had a little computer issue, so I wasn't able to get advertising out to all our branches, and that resulted in smaller attendance than I had hoped. But it was still good. Maybe even worth a revisit some day!

Did Ya Miss Me?

Sorry it's been so long, my friends! It's been a crazy couple weeks with programs, storytimes, and general work... not to mention catching up from all of our snow days! Let me tell you, when the flurries started coming down yesterday I almost fell over. I can't have more days off! I need to get things done! What is it about snow that makes me so incredibly lazy anyway?

But I digress.

I am back. After some discussion with my hubby, I'm going to shoot for a once-a-week blog update. It's not much, but I don't want to dig myself into a hole I can't get out of by making a promise I can't keep. Besides, I maintain the right to post twice a week, should the mood so strike me!

So now I say, "Bring it on!"

Thinking Out Loud

I keep trying to come up with a regular schedule for releasing content on here. First I was trying for twice a day... but that's a lot to ask. Then I was thinking once a day, and that went well up until I forgot to post one day. I'm on here posting now, but I was hoping to post about yesterday's program today too... so we're back to twice a day? Bah! It shouldn't be this hard!

So as of right now, I suppose I'll just have to post whenever the mood hits me and worry about regulating content later. Honestly, once a week is the most realistically maintainable goal, but for now I'm thinking every-other-day.

You know what would be fun? Scheduling content based on the day of the week. Something like:

Storytime Mondays

Ukulele Wednesdays

Program Fridays

Book Review Sundays

What do you think? I just wonder if I can pull that off. Well anyways, keep your fingers crossed! At the very least I can promise you there WILL be content! I just don't know when or what yet. So think of this as a grab-bag blog until I finally mellow out.

A Different Tune

An especially successful element that I've introduced to my storytimes (and other programming) is my ukulele! The story of my ukulele and I is a pretty short, extremely spontaneous one; and it goes like this:

 

I just like this picture. I don't own it.

One day I was answering phones at work and planning out my upcoming storytime series. As was looking up lyrics for one of my songs (just to be sure I had them right) and Google tried to auto fill with “guitar chords.” I thought, wow. How cool would that be!? But I would (1) have to learn to play the guitar (2) I’d have to carry it back and forth and (3) guitars are kind of bulky. In the end I just didn't think it was very pragmatic. So then I thought, "what if I got an ukulele!" They’re smaller, easier to transport, and have fewer strings so learning might be easier. So during my lunch hour that very same day, I drove out to Guitar Center and bought myself a ukulele! (Which is a funny story unto itself, but I digress.)

I bought one that was fairly cheap, but expensive enough that the strings wouldn't slip out of tune. Nothing fancy… just a basic ukulele. And I fell in love!

 

Lanikai Soprano Ukulele... it must have been on sale when I bought mine.

Now the rest is history. Ukulele makes appearances at most of my programs. I have a small repertoire of tunes I can play on it—mostly nursery songs—but they get the job done! A lot of my songs I use are based on simple nursery tunes. They’re easy for parents, easy for kids, and easy for me! I am trying to expand my skill set though. But I admit, I get a little frustrated when I’m not innately good at something and ukulele is taking a bit of work. I’m trying to learn how to hold and strum correctly, use the right fingering for chords, and how to strum one pattern while singing another. It's tricky, but I'm committed!

 

Playing the goodbye song at the end of storytime!

So now I'm thinking about mixing in some posts about using ukuleles in storytimes/programs on here. I can give you guys information about tips and chords that have worked for me. Who knows… maybe I’ll even be so bold as to add my own videos! Some day. Eventually. Let’s start small, shall we?