Library Day in the Life Round 5: Tuesday or “The More We Get Together the Happier I Will Be.”

mmgarza — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 01:24:06 +0000

Today was my last day of storytime for the summer. We only ran Family Storytimes this summer – for ages 0-5 years. This is a notoriously strange storytime to do since it’s hard to select materials appropriate for that age range and even more difficult to keep all those involved engaged for a full 30 minutes without slipping into utter chaos. Not going to lie – there was some chaos involved, particularly since the numbers went from 45 people the first week, to 75 to 90 back to a manageable 70-something today. Action rhymes became some baby mosh-pit action! It was wild and totally fun. If I could make a living free-lancing storytimes for libraries… I would. Except, y’know, there’s librarians to do that sort of thing.

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.

GARZ4LIB » elizabeth mitchell

Library Day in the Life Round 5: Tuesday or “The More We Get Together the Happier I Will Be.”