Karen Beaumont

Week Six of Author Highlights: Karen Beaumont
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

Books:


Dini Dinosaur by Karen Beaumont
Doggone Dogs! by Karen Beaumont
Where's My T-R-U-C-K? by Karen Beaumont

Jazz It Up Moment #1:
Retell Move Over, Rover with puppets and cardboard box

I used a cardboard box I found in our Receiving Room to use as a dog house. Then I gathered all the puppets to match the animals in the story (dog, cat, raccoon, squirrel, blue jay, snake, mouse, and skunk). Luckily I had puppets for everything but the blue jay, and for that I substituted a robin instead.

I adapted the book a bit and wrote a little script so it would be easy to follow when telling the story, but it was basically just taking the text from the book and typing it up so I knew what animal came next.

It was extremely fun to stuff all the puppets in the box and then throw them all out when they started to smell the skunk at the end of the story. I hid the skunk puppet under the dog before the children got in the room for the element of surprise.

Action Song:

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

Jazz It Up Moment #2:

Give each child a paint brush and have them follow along "painting" themselves while reading I Ain't Gonna Paint No More.

I've done this activity in the past successfully and I was really excited to bring it back for this storytime. I knew my kids could really grasp the idea of pretending, so we had a discussion about what it means to pretend to paint themselves with pretend paint. I even added another element to the activity by having the children guess which body part we would paint next based on the rhyming text. All together a very successful activity that really encouraged active listening.

Goodbye Song:

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

What Went Not So Great:

Doggone Dogs was the biggest let down. I chose it as more of a filler book and I ended up needing it in my morning session. The children just didn't get into it or enjoy the humor.

What Went Right:

Basically everything else! The puppet retelling was a hit, as was the paintbrush activity. The books were a blast to read aloud and the children really got into it. They loved seeing Dini keep getting into the bathtub with all his clothes on and my first group of kids didn't know what T-R-U-C-K spelled so that was a fun guessing game for them too.

Lauren Thompson

Week Five of Author Highlights: Lauren Thompson
This plan is for a preschool storytime, a registered program for 3-5 year olds that attend the program independently without a caregiver.

Note: I was in a haze during this storytime. I ended up going home sick right after this program and found out I had strep! So, there isn't really a Jazz It Up Moment for the program. I was lucky to just get the storytime done. Also, because of the sickness there will be no Music Maker post this week.

Opening Activity:
Little Mouse flannel

Books:

How Many Cats by Lauren Thompson
Little Quack's New Friend by Lauren Thompson
Mouse's First Spring by Lauren Thompson

Bean Bag Song:
"Bean Bag Rock" by Georgiana Stewart from Action Songs for Preschoolers

Special Request Book:

Little Quack by Lauren Thompson

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


What Went Not So Great

• Obviously the sickness prevented a truly great storytime, so the whole thing was pretty low energy. I had grand plans to make a magnet story out of Little Mouse's First Spring in hopes of elevating the story to a preschool level. I ended up not getting it done and therefore the book fell a bit flat for the kiddos. They were a bit bored by it.
• I really wanted the bean bag song to go over well. Unfortunately I've noticed that my preschoolers aren't really into the bean bags. We have this set from Music in Motion and I don't know if it's because they are small or what, but the children just don't like this prop as well as scarves or rhythm sticks. It was a bummer because I've found great success with this song in the past. The only thing I can think of is that the song is possibly a little young for my current group of preschoolers.

What Went Right

• They LOVED Little Quack! My plan was to read Little Quack's New Friend and in our discussion about authors and Lauren Thompson I wanted to talk about how she wrote about the same characters a lot (Little Quack, Little Mouse), so I had other Little Quack books on display. They enjoyed New Friend so much that I ended up reading the original Little Quack as well by special request.

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!

Denise Fleming

Week Three of Author Highlights: Denise Fleming

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

This time I hid spring related items under the houses. The kids loved it!

Books:

Action Song:

"List of Dances" by Jim Gill from Jim Gill Gets Noisy in Boise

This is a great storytime song because it's got so much directed action. I decided to turn this into an early literacy moment and focus on text in the song. I wrote out on the white board all the different dances we do and pointed to each before we actually sang the song and practiced. We talked about the word meaning the specific dance and even the order of the numbers. 

Jazz It Up Moment:

Retell Lunch by Denise Fleming using flannel pieces and a mouse puppet

This was a HUGE success! I kept the food pieces hidden in the pockets on the back of the easel and described each item before I put it on the board. That gave a chance for the children to guess what food I was presenting. Once it was on the board I made a big show of "Mr. Mouse" gobbling it up for lunch. I adapted this (and got the idea from Miss Courtney Meets Bobo). 

Goodbye Song:

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

What Went Not So Great:

• I wanted The Cow Who Clucked to be received better, but the children were not enthused and they just thought it was overall a bit short and boring.

What Went Right:

• Retelling Lunch was fantastic! It's been a couple weeks since I did this activity and the children are still asking about Mr. Mouse. It was a great way to turn a very simple book (that is really too low for my preschoolers) into a more complex activity for the children to enjoy. It really did Jazz Up the program.

Karma Wilson

Week Two of my Author Highlights: Karma Wilson


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

Books:

Bear's Loose Tooth by Karma Wilson
The Cow Loves Cookies by Karma Wilson
Moose Tracks! by Karma Wilson
Mortimer's First Garden by Karma Wilson
Sakes Alive! A Cattle Drive by Karma Wilson

Jazz It Up Moment/Song:
"Cake" by Juice Box Heroes from No Sugar Added

I tried something new with this song, normally I encourage the kids to free dance and jump whenever they hear the word 'cake', which is pretty often (it's to the tune of "Faith" by George Michael). This time I decided to introduce a new prop, Boomwhackers!

Boomwhackers are big plastic, hollow tubes that make specific musical notes. The longer the boomwhacker, the lower the note. We have used rhythm sticks a lot in storytime so the children are familiar with the general rules of a prop this shape and size. The difference with these is that they are specific to musical notes! We discussed that and then listened to the different notes and what was high and what was low. Every child got one shorter boomwhacker and one longer one.

Then I just let them go! We danced and hit our boomwhackers along with the song. A lot of them mimiced me when I slammed my boomwhackers on the ground every time I heard the word 'cake'. The loved the colors, the size, and all the noises they could make! I'm really encouraged now to take the next step with these props and assign notes to each child and possibly play a song together.

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



What Went Not So Great

• Moose Tracks is a hilarious story with a great punch line. Unfortunately none of the children got it and were just kinda lost at the end.
• Sake's Alive! A Cattle Drive is another story that the kids didn't really get all the humor. They didn't really understand what a cattle drive was so they missed the main plot of the book. However, they really loved watching the silliness of the cows driving the truck all around.

What Went Right

• Mortimer's First Garden went really well even though I was very nervous. I was concerned because it discusses God and  miracles, but I just changed the words a bit and made it more of a story about Spring and the miracle of growth. The older kids really enjoyed it.
• The boomwhackers were an enormous hit! The children really seemed to understand that the longer ones made lower notes and the shorter ones made higher notes. A great success and first try-out with the props.
• Bear's Loose Tooth was a great choice because a lot of the the children could really relate to Bear and his loose tooth. The only I would do different is allow more time for discussing this book because every child wanted to tell me story about their loose tooth or one of their siblings'.

Margaret Wise Brown

Week One of Author Highlights: Margaret Wise Brown

This plan is for a preschool storytime, a registered program for 3-5 year olds that attend the program independently without a caregiver. This is the preschool version of the author highlight I did in Toddler Time.

Opening Activity:

Little Mouse Flannel Game

Opening Song:
"These Are My Glasses" by Laurie Berkner from Whaddaya Think of That

Books:

Big Red Barn by Margaret Wise Brown - I used the Big Book version of this.
The Diggers by Margaret Wise Brown
The Golden Egg Book by Margaret Wise Brown
Sleepy ABC by Margaret Wise Brown

Jazz It Up Moment:
I brought in a small biography, Margaret Wise Brown by Jill C. Wheeler. The cover had a nice big picture of her on the front. We started by talking about what the word author meant (which almost all of the children knew). I told them that Margaret Wise Brown was the author of every book we were going to read to today and then pointed out her name on every cover of the books I had displayed.

Next I asked them if they knew what the word biography meant. A lot of them thought it was the illustrator of the book. I explained what a biography was and that they are different kinds of books they seemed to get it. I liked having the opportunity to bring up new vocabulary in storytime.

I quizzed them throughout the program on who Margaret Wise Brown was and each time I did this program (four, if you're counting) I had at least one little person shout..."ME!". Most of the older kids got it and would point to the biography I brought in when I asked that question.

Songs:
"The Wheels on the Bus" by The Learning Groove from Groovy Green
"Rhythm in the Scarves" by Johnette Downing" from Second Line Scarf Activity Songs 

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


What Went Not So Great

• It was a bit of an overload to do Little Mouse and an opening song. Next time I'll just pick one or the other, or a song that the kids are more excited about. I think my kids are starting to get bored with "These are My Glasses".
• The biography discussion seemed to go over the younger kid's heads (my preschool programs are 3-5 year olds without adults). 
• Sleepy ABC was just a big fat fail, it is just better suited for one-on-one reading I think.

What Went Right

• I can never stop using Little Mouse. The children will revolt and stop coming to storytime. He is the biggest draw, by far.
• Diggers was one of the most successful books. They liked talking about digging a hole big enough for a train to fit in.
• "Rhythm in the Scarves" made the kids really happy. Giving each of them a scarf to dance around with just seems to make their day. Plus this song focuses on counting, which I think is great to reinforce early literacy without beating them over the head with it.

Toddler Time: Margaret Wise Brown

When we plan our storytimes at my library we decide to choose one theme a week for the registered storytimes across the board for all ages. That way we can have a big pool of ideas and resources for all the storytime presenters to choose from. It's a great way to collaborate and talk about new ideas and what works and what doesn't.

For our six week long session this time we decided to focus on authors. Each week we highlight a different author. The thought behind this was it would be great way to talk to preschoolers about what an author is and the different parts of a book. We also liked it for the toddlers because the parents are in the program with them and thougt the children might not get the theme, the parents would and we want to use this opportunity to introduce parents to some great authors.

I usually do 2 preschool storytimes a week and one music program for 2 and 3 year olds. My music program never follows the group theme, but this week I filled in for a co-worker today and got to do a Toddler Time (just 2 year olds and a caregiver) on the theme! Because I filled at the last second...there is no glaring Jazz It Up moment. Hopefully you'll forgive me.

This week's author: Margaret Wise Brown

 

Opening Song

"Tony Chestnut" by Carol Hammett from Toddlers on Parade 

I start all my toddler-based programs with this song. It's a great song to use while sitting down, and it points out a bunch of body parts that young ones know. In all of Carol Hammett's songs she sings through the song once, does an instrumental version, then sings it again. The repetition is perfect for the toddlers who end up signing with me by the last time through.

Movement Songs
"Warm Up Time" by Georgiana Stewart from Action Songs for Preschoolers
"Jump Up, Turn Around" by Jim Gill from Jim Gill Sings Moving Rhymes for Modern Times

Book
My World of Color by Margaret Wise Brown, Illustrated by Loretta Krupinski

I had never used this book in storytime before, and had actually never heard of it. I decided to share because I liked the idea of sharing something that wasn't as insanely popular as Goodnight, Moon with the crowd. The whole idea of this author highlight is to introduce people to new things! The children really enjoyed it and shouted out the different colors featured on every page. While the text may have been a bit high for the toddler crowd, they really enjoyed "helping" me read it.

Sitting Song
"Little Red Wagon" by The Learning Groove from Yummy Yellow

Even though this song takes place sitting, it's still very high energy. I have every child find an adult lap and then we just bounce up and down, tickle, and sway along with the song. I use a puppet to demonstrate while the toddlers sit with their caregivers.

Shared Board Book
Big Red Barn by Margaret Wise Brown, Illustrated by Felicia Bond

Each child/caregiver pair gets a board book to follow along with as I read the story aloud. This is a great bonding activity for the child/caregiver pairs and it allows book exploration for the children.

Rhythm Stick Song
"Nursery Rhyme Tap" by Pamela Schiller from Leapin' Literacy

I love using props with toddlers and this is a fun beginning prop song because the whole thing takes place sitting down! 

Closing Song
"Skinnamarink" by Carole Peterson from Stinky Cake
 
Overall it went really well. As always the movement and prop songs were the most successful. I really like having board book sets so that we can do shared reading. I think allowing the little ones to hold their own books help a lot with print awareness. I had fun doing Toddler Time this week, but I'm looking forward to putting all my focus back into my regular storytimes.