Caroline Jayne Church

Week Four of Author Highlights: Caroline Jayne Church
This plan is for a preschool storytime, a registered program for 3-5 year olds that attend the program independently without a caregiver.

Opening Activity:
Little Mouse Flannel Activity

Books:

Hungry Hen by Richard Waring (illustrated by Caroline Jayne Church)
Little Lost Cowboy by Simon Puttock (illustrated by Caroline Jayne Church)
Ping Pong Pig written and illustrated by Caroline Jayne Church

Not all of these books are written by Caroline Jayne Church, but they are all at least illustrated by her. This was a great opportunity to discuss the difference between the author and the illustrator and what they are responsible for in the bookmaking process. It might be hopeful thinking, but I really think my kids are starting to get the whole author concept!

Scarf Song:
"The Airplane Song" by Laurie Berkner from Whaddaya Think of That

This song was not intended to be a scarf song, but my preschoolers seem to really respond to scarves. I have kids that will ONLY participate if a scarf is involved. I'm lucky enough to have enough scarves to give each of my kids two, so we used them as our airplane wings in this song. It is also a good listening song because it gives specific actions throughout.

Jazz It Up Moment #1:
I use board book sets in my toddler programs a lot. We have sets of 15-20 books of the same title so that each child can hold their own copy of the book I'm reading aloud to them. I've tried using these board books sets once or twice with my preschoolers with great results so I brought it back for this storytime because we happened to have a board book illustrated by Caroline Jayne Church.

You Are My Sunshine illustrated by Caroline Jayne Church

This was a perfect choice for this storytime. We just read through the book together at first with me pointing to each word as I read it. I went extremely slow so the children could follow along with me in their own copies. They LOVED being able to do this with me. The second time through the book I sang it, a lot of them sang it with me too!

Jazz It Up Moment #2:
This was completely improptu and wasn't in my plan at all. I had a couple of extra minutes and decided it would be fun to sing the song "The More We Get Together" and teach the children the signs to go along with it. I used the signs for "more", "together", "happy", and "friends". The Skokie Public Library has a great YouTube video of this, HERE.

This is typically a song I use in my toddler programs, but I thought these kids would like it and would really appreciate what sign language was and understand it's meaning. Turns out, they really enjoyed it! I'll probably be quizzing them on it next week and see if they remember the signs.

Goodbye Song:
"Goodbye" by Old Town School of Folk from "Songs for Wiggleworms"


What Went Not So Great:
Timing. I was all done with my songs, books, and activities and still had 5 minutes left of my 30 minute program. So I decided to teach the children the sign language for "The More We Get Together". I thought about this song because Caroline Jayne Church has illustrated a board book of this song. We have a set of that title as well so I was considering using it when I was doing my planning. Maybe that's why the song was on my mind.

What Went Right:
Really, everything. The only thing I would add is possibly a prop or flannel retelling instead of doing the sign language, only because it would go along with the author theme better.

I would say the absolute most successful moment was the shared board book reading. It was great seeing the kids get so engaged in the program. I might invest in some higher level board books for our collection so I can do this more often. I loved how it presented such a perfect opportunity to practice  early literacy with print awareness!