This Week at the Library

Baby Time

This week we got to discuss the joys of trying to get your baby to sleep through the night, what it's like to listen to your baby cry it out, and the irony of your baby keeping you up most of the night, then going to sleep in the morning when you have to get up.

Toddler Time

This week we did a new fingerplay (though we use our bodies, not just our fingers).

Everybody Do This
(Think of a movement to do with your body while you say this.)

Everybody do this, do this, do this.
Everybody do this, just like me.

Very simple, but fun when you have your child make up the movements for you!

The books we read were:

Spot Bakes a Cake, by Eric Hill. We talked about how asking questions while you read a book out loud helps a child with early literacy skills like getting information from the illustrations. In this book I asked "What's the funny looking stuff on the birthday cake?" (bones) "Why are there bones on the cake?" (because they're dogs)

Good Morning, Sam, by Marie-Louise Gay. There is a lot of the story in the illustrations in this book, like when Stella looks in the closet and asks "Are you in there?" and Sam says no, but you can see his feet in there.

Preschool Storytime

Our theme this week was "Colors." We had some really fun books and even did a science experiment! I took three bottles filled with water colored the primary colors and mixed them into a fourth bottle to show how mixing colors produces new colors. You can try it in the bathtub next time your little one takes a bath. Ordinary food coloring works fine - and it doesn't stain the skin.

We read:

The Blue Balloon, by Mick Inkpen. The fold-out pages make it so much fun.
Mouse Paint, by Ellen Stollen Walsh. This is what led into the color mixing experiment.
Winnie the Witch, by Korky Paul (great name!). Winnie keeps tripping over the black cat in her black house until she gets a bright idea.
Color, by Ruth Heller. This is the one with the transparent pages that show you how the colors overlay to make all the colors in the rainbow. Very impressive to kids!

I told the story Little Blue and Little Yellow by Leo Lionni on the felt board.

On Tuesday I also read Lemons Are Not Red, by Laura Seeger, but I didn't have time for it on Wednesday.

One book I wanted to read but didn't get to either day was The Chalkbox Story by Don Freeman. It's a wonderfully imaginative story of a box of chalks that create a picture that comes to life and gets a little too dramatic for them.

We did the Color song on the CD Wee Sing Games. They're finally getting the hang of it!