Here’s a brief outline of what I did each week. But “brief” I mean the craft and one of the books or rhymes… I can’t remember them all!

Week 1: Leaf necklaces (Materials needed: Leaf-shape cut outs, yarn, things to decorate with, glue)
Debuted my new song Who’s My Pretty Baby,(I learned it from Elizabeth Mitchell’s album You Are My Little Bird), with success. Goes like this:

Who’ll be my baby
Who’ll be my pretty little baby?
You’ll be my pretty little baby
Hey, hey, pretty babe

[Chorus]
Hey, hey, pretty baby
Ho, ho, pretty little baby
You’re my, my pretty little baby
Hey, hey, pretty babe.

Who’ll be my little man?
Who’ll be my nice lady
Who’ll be my funny little bunny
Hey, hey, pretty babe

[Chorus]
(lather, rinse, repeat first verse)

Week 2: Monkey paper bag puppets (Materials needed: brown paper bags, pink oval shapes for the face and brown oval shapes for the ears, glue)
The book Monkey and Me by Emily Gravett, (who I laude copiously throughout this blog), worked phenomenally well for Family Storytime! Babies enjoy the simple rhyme and pre-schoolers enjoy reading it as a “read along.” You read a line and they repeat it back. For extra fun – act out the animals!

Week 3: Butterfly straw puppets (Materials needed: Butterfly-shaped cut-outs, straws, crepe paper streamers, markers, tape)
The Baby Goes Beep by Rebecca O’Connell. I love, love, love this book. Babies enjoy the theme and the “baby’s day” aspect of it… toddlers like helping you make the onomatopoeias. It’s easy for parents to help you out – everybody wins!

Week 4: Paper plate flowers (paper plates, tissue paper or crepe paper cut into pieces, glue)
Is Your Mama a Llama (Deborah Guarino) – One little boy liked this so much he took it home with him!

At the end of the hour, several of the mothers came up to tell me how much their children enjoyed the storytime and promised to be back in the fall. In light of all of the extra administrative /off-desk and hands-off type of work I seem to be doing lately, it’s the ability to interact with customers, especially in an environment like storytime, that makes my job worthwhile.

Programming: I’m still trying to find best practices for programming, but it’s helped a lot that MPL has started conducting programming planning by committee. Also MPL is restructuring the programming itself (more on that later) and ideally this will standardize the programming delivered across the system. I have finally found some one-off programs that have worked, though! Over March Break I ran Very Merry Un-Birthday Party and Pizza Extravaganza and they were a huge success! Well – at least the kids had fun, and I felt distinctly less chaotic and stressed than I did for the Anne of Green Gables program last June. So progress, no?

Collections: I still have a LOT to learn about collection development, but to be honest it’s not as interesting as I thought it would be. I love to read, of course, and you definitely don’t have to twist my arm to read anything in the Juvenile department, but the actual mechanics of knowing what’s what, ordering, reading, weeding, and suggesting… OHhhhhhhh the suggesting, feels like a chore, no doubt. Reader’s advisory still sends me into little tiny butterflies of panic and I tend to suggest books that I’ve read as a child and enjoyed. This might be due to the fact that I abhor the pop-lit that a goodly portion of kids read (Hannah Montana and Pokemon, for example) but more likely it’s because I haven’t yet done the legwork to really learn about reading levels, my collections, popular titles and authors, etc. So – I find I remain fairly ignorant. To remedy – I’ve started on a mission to read more books in my collection. It started off with Neil Gaiman as a compromise of my sensibilites – Coraline and The Graveyard Book (both FANTABULOUS reads – I’m so, so happy he won the Pulitzer Prize for The Graveyard Book!!!). Now I’ve moved on to others, Alvin Ho: Allergic to Girls, School, and Other Scary Things and Ruby Lu, Empress of Everything (both by Lenore Look) were great as well. ALSO Stanford Wong Flunks Big Time by Lisa Yee – the not quite a sequel to Millicent Min, Girl Genius (which won the Sid Fleischman humor award) – was phenomenal. Most recently, but not least – I’ve started reading the Joey Pigza books by Jack Gantos (starting with Joey Pigza Swallowed the Key), having been turned on to him by his novel for adults The Love Curse of the Rumbaughs. Whew… so I’m hoping this will help with my collections knowledge and hopefully I’ll sit down and write proper reviews some day soon…

Management (Time and otherwise): Hahaha… with my wedding (last November) out of the way I’ve gotten marginally better at not being completely rushing around like the proverbial decapitated chicken, but I still have a ways to go. This isn’t really helped by the fact that all job descriptions are currently under review in terms of responsibilities and committee work, etc. BUT it should all be worked out soon and then I’ll have a better idea of how much I need to freak out about various deadlines on a daily basis, haha. People management – still not very good. Because I can’t stand doing it! Especially since the people I’m … well not “managing” per se – but delegating, suggesting, requesting, etc. are mostly a few decades my senior. I just don’t feel comfortable telling people what to do. I even feel like I should be paying the teen volunteers! Argh. Well that’s just my temperament – I’ll work on being bossy this year. Probably…

Story Time: Story times, I think, are my biggest accomplishment of the year. I think I’ve grown a lot as a story teller and a performer, and I think it shows. (The ABC Canada rep said I was one of the best readers of Robert Munsch he had seen this year!!!) I’m definitely not as nervous as I was December 10, 2007 when I gave my very first story time, haha. I was… petrified. I’m an out-in-the-open champ, more or less… and I’ve also just about conquered the Baby Goose Beast, too!  So I guess it’s safe to say it’s taken about a year (a little less) to hit my stride in story time. But there’s always more to learn!!!

So that’s it – my year in review. A little bit of good and a little bit of “needs improvement” – but when are we ever done? We’re 3 months into the next set of adventures in librarianship and we’ll see how it goes!

We’re Going on a Bearhunt

Anyway, this time we’re reading:

Snowballs by Lois Ehlert

A Winter Day by Douglas Florian

and Ten in the Bed by Penny Dale (board book form).

As well as the standard reference rhymes and songs. A particularly cute one I pilfered from my coworker:

Where did you get that little red nose? (point to nose)

Jack Frost kissed it, I suppose (nod head)

He kissed it once. He kissed it twice.

Poor little nose! It’s as cold as ice!

So… we’ll see how this new season goes.

As a disclaimer: The Out in the Open initiative is incredibly successful in our branch for other programs like Tales for Tots (Ages 2-5) and Family Story Time (All ages). Markham, as a community is full of (and growing with) many new families who are generally newcomers to Canada. This initiative was created with the intention to promote library services to people who might not normally seek them out, such as newcomers. Yes, it has the best of intentions, but all early childhood literacy studies show that for infantliteracy, you basically need to keep them in lock-down so they can properly focus on going the 15 miles from Wibbleton to Wobbleton.

So, I compromised with Lois, she is doing a paid program in the room, as well as one section of Baby Goose, and I’m doing the other one. I’m learning fairly quickly, but a baby story time is a beast the kind of which is very different from a regular preschool story time, which I enjoy very much. 30 min. of rhymes and songs? The parents are the main audience? You depend on their participation for the babies to enjoy it? For realz? It’s tough.

I’m not completely un-prepared, Ontario Early Years, the early literacy program for which I’m a liaison is 0-5 years, with a fair amount of babies… and I have seen people do Baby Goose… but so far (2 programs in) I’ve come away with a sense of inadequacy and embarrassment. We’ll see what works and what changes! At least the babies seem to like me.

Here are some of the songs and rhymes I’ve been using:

The More We Get Together (You can make this song muccccchhhhh longer by adding verses like “the more we sing together/read together/share together” etc.)

Open Them, Shut Them (Extra verse: Creep them, creep them, creep them creep them/ Right up to your cheek/ Open up your little eyes and through your fingers peek)

We’ll see how the other sessions go…

The program itself was bit harder because I was exhausted and I got really hot jumping around with the kids. Usually their enthusiasm has proven to give little attention seeking me the fuel to finish the 20 minutes or so of story times. But I think the kids were as restless as I was tired so it was a struggle. Not to say they didn’t have fun… they shook their sillies out, but they spent more time kicking each other than actually listening, haha.

Here’s the outline of the program:

Song: Shake My Sillies Out

Book: What Did You Put in Your Pocket?

Song/fingerplay: Five Green and Speckled Frogs

Five green and speckled frogs,
Sat upon a speckled log,
Eating the most delicious bugs!
Yum! Yum!
One jumped into the pool,
Where it was nice and cool.
Then there were four green and speckled frogs!

Glub! Glub!
Repeat for 4,3,2,1

Action rhyme: Bouncing Ball

Book: The Mud Puddle

Song: Mr. Sun

Oh Mr Sun, Sun Mr. golden Sun
Please shine down on me.
Oh Mr. Sun, Sun Mr. golden Sun
Hiding behind those trees.
These little children are asking you
To please come out so we can play with you.
Oh Mr. Sun, Sun Mr. Golden Sun
Please shine down on me.

Song: The More We Get Together

Book: Jamberry

Song: Head Shoulders Knees and Toes

Book: Peanut Butter and Jelly

Song: Do Your Ears Hang Low?

Book: Slop Goes the Soup

Song: If You’re Happy and You Know It

Actually, I didn’t get to Slop Goes the Soup, cuz the kids pretty much were just bugging each other by the time I got around to “Mr. Sun” but… I had planned it. Overall, I think The Mud Puddle (by the wonderful Robert Munsch) was a bit too old for the majority of the kids, although it’s a great book for story telling and they listened politely. What Did You Put in Your Pocket (Beatrice De Regniers) was possibly a bit too trippy for the kids. It’s a strange book – great visuals , putting pudding in your pocket, but it doesn’t really flow as well as I’d like. I feel like there should be a rhythm (“What did you put in your pocket? What did you put in your pocket? In your pockety-pockety pocket? Early Monday morning…) but somehow I’m not getting it very well. It lent itself well to a great tie-in craft, though: I had the kids make their own “pockets” by cutting out a pocket shape in construction paper, and then stapling a plastic baggie to card stock under the pocket shape. It made a transparent pocket which they could decorate then stuff it full of strange things, just like the book. I gave them glitter, feathers, foam shapes, crepe paper and cotton balls. Hm. Might have to post a picture of that one, haha. So, I think they had fun… Wellll, that’s my report for this “Family Fun Day Monday”… tune in next time for “Hilarious Hats and Headwear” (ohhhhh I am such a children’s programming cheeseball).

Family Story Time 1

Shake My Sillies Out

Baby Bear, Baby Bear, What Do You See? by Eric Carle

Little Bunny Foo-Foo

Bouncing Ball

I’m bouncing, bouncing everywhere

I bounce and bounce into the air!

I’m bouncing, bouncing like a ball

I bounce and bounce until I fall!

Oh My Gosh, Mrs. McNosh by Sarah Weeks

Row, Row, Row Your Boat

Row, row, row your boat

Gently down the stream

Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily

Life is but a dream!

Row, row, row your boat

Gently down the river

If you see a polar bear

Don’t forget to shiver

Row, row, row your boat

Gently down the stream

If you see a crocodile

Don’t forget to scream

Row, row, row your boat

Gently to the shore

If you see a lion

Don’t forget to roar

Row, row, row your boat

Gently to a stop

And if you see a bunny there

Don’t forget to hop!

Zoom, Zoom, Zoom

We’re Going on a Bear Hunt by Michael Rosen

The More We Get Together

Do Your Ears Hang Low?

We’re Going to the Zoo words by Tom Paxton

If You’re Happy and You Know It

We’re going on a Bear Hunt was really popular… actually one mother actually asked to check it out after the story time! All in all, despite the thrown-together, last minute nature of it all, the kids loved it! (or appeared to) and the parents didn’t make any comments on the … “crappyness” of the craft. Lesson learned? Marian maybe is right. Maybe you don’t need to re-invent the wheel every time you do a program. I guess I’m still learning to stop trying to go above and beyond time and time again. And I don’t mean that in a bragging way… Summer Reading Club case in point, my bright ideas aren’t always the easiest way of doing things.

Maybe it’s the digital education doing it to me… I feel like I have to do these pioneering and great things in the department and in programming. In all seriousness, the children’s department doesn’t necessarily need to be on the bleeding edge of anything, as much as I would like it to be. The dire reality of the situation is that in order for something cutting edge to really work in a children’s department… well of course, it needs to be something that kids will like doing, but even more importantly, it needs to be something that the parents will understand and support. Oh well, for the time being I’ll live vicariously through my teen librarian coworkers and their forays into Facebook. I wonder if I could do Webkinz story time?

]]> http://garz4lib.net/2008/07/15/family-story-time-a-lesson-in-not-being-cool/feed/ 0 http://garz4lib.net/2008/07/08/family-fun-day-monday-week-1-funny-foods-i-can-haz-out-in-the-open/ http://garz4lib.net/2008/07/08/family-fun-day-monday-week-1-funny-foods-i-can-haz-out-in-the-open/#comments Tue, 08 Jul 2008 14:26:06 +0000 mmgarza http://accidentalchildrenslibrarian.wordpress.com/?p=19 My very first story time that I have created… planned… and will do for longer than 15 minutes! Hooray! I was really really nervous. This is also Angus Glen’s very first “out in the open” story time ever.

Good thing it went much better than expected!

The kids were incredibly cute. I’ve found that small children like stickers and clapping their hands and jumping around more than … oh, I don’t know… Donald Trump likes money? That much. Kids would maybe even eat bugs for a sticker. And if anything involves clapping and jumping around it’s an instant hit. So “Shake Your Sillies Out” = instant success! Altogether this was a much more positive experience, despite my nerves, than previous story times. Hurray!

Funny Foods

The Beastly Feast by Bruce Goldstone

Shake My Sillies Out

Apples and Bananas

I like to eat, eat, eat apples and bananas
I like to eat, eat, eat apples and bananas

I like to ate, ate, ate ay-ples and ba-nay-nays
I like to ate, ate, ate ay-ples and ba-nay-nays

I like to eat, eat, eat ee-ples and bee-nee-nees
I like to eat, eat, eat ee-ples and bee-nee-nees

I like to ite, ite, ite i-ples and bi-ni-nis

I like to ite, ite, ite i-ples and bi-ni-nis

I like to ote, ote, ote oh-ples and bo-no-nos
I like to ote, ote, ote oh-ples and bo-no-nos

I like to ute, ute, ute, ooh-ples and bu-nu-nus

I like to ute, ute, ute, ooh-ples and bu-nu-nus

Mmm, Cookies! By Robert Munsch

Betty Botter bought some butter,
But, she said, the butter’s bitter;
If I put it in my batter
It will make my batter bitter,
But a bit of better butter
Will make my batter better.
So she bought a bit of butter
Better than her bitter butter,
And she put it in her batter
And the batter was not bitter.
So ’twas better Betty Botter bought a bit of better butter.

If You’re Happy and You Know It

Who Took the Cookies from the Cookie Jar? By Philemon Sturges

5 Little Cookies

5 little cookies sitting on a tray

5 little cookies smiling all day

Along came a little child rubbin’ her tummy

One cookie disappeared, yum, yum, yummy! (Repeat 4.3.2.1)

Do Your Ears Hang Low?

Bee- Bim Bop by Linda Sue Park

I guess when librarians plan programming consistently, we don’t realize how much we also program customers. I had maybe 2 families here for the actual story time itself… the rest were just people I wrangled and co-opted to come to the story time, and those who just happened to stop over. After the program ended and during the craft portion of the program itself I got all sorts of questions like “you really have a story time Monday nights? Every Monday? Really?” I was told later it was because Mondays at AG have traditional NOT been story time nights. So have we confused them or “delighted” them? Who knows? At least the kids seem to enjoy it. Too bad it all ends in the fall. We’ll see what happens to the customers then! Mwahahaha…