Thursday, March 10, 2011

This Week at the Library

Baby Time

We've had quite a few new baby faces lately. And many of the "regulars" are definitely brightening up when we do the lap-bouncy rhymes. Once they have come enough times to start recognizing the rhymes and songs, they anticipate getting whooshed in the air and tickled on the tummy, and they love it.

Today we read the book Brown Bear, Brown Bear, by Bill Martin Jr. It's a perfect book for growing with a baby. At first they are taken in by the large, simple and bright pictures and the rhythmic language. As they get older, they start to anticipate the repetitive phrases. Then they identify the frog, cat, and dog and learn to say their names. Next they learn the color names and can say "blue horse" and "yellow duck." Finally, they are extremely proud of themselves when they can say before you turn the page, "I see a white dog looking at me." This book is pure genius!

Toddler Time

Well, we did "Animal Action" today and nobody cried, and the boy I traumatized last time seemed to enjoy himself. Whew!

I tried a new book today, and it held their attention well. The Thursday group is generally older than the other two, and they mostly were able to guess what came on the next page. The book is First the Egg, by Laura Vaccaro Seeger. This is a Caldecott and Theodore Seuss Geisel Honor winner. "First the egg," says the first page, with an egg shaped hole in the page. "Then the chicken," says the next page, where the hole reveals the chicken. I'm interested to see how many children will be able to guess successfully next time I present this book. Many were able to finish "First the caterpillar," with "then the butterfly."

Our other book was Clip, Clop, by Nicola Smee. This book does an amazing job of telling an exciting story in very few words.

Preschool Storytime

We had a huge laugh trying to do our wiggle rhyme with the first sound in the word "owl." Every week we say our wiggle rhyme (see the label below), and then say it again with every word starting with the first letter of our theme word, like "h" for "hippos." This week our theme was "owls." It's very hard to start all the words with a vowel sound. "I ow-iggle my ow-ingers. I ow-iggle my ow-oes." We had some huge fits of giggles over that!

Our books were:

Look Whooo's Counting, by Suse Macdonald. While there's not a lot of exciting text in this book, everyone enjoyed looking for the numbers in the animal's bodies and seeing the numbers in the owl's wings.

Owl Babies, by Martin Waddell. I used a finger puppet to be "Bill" this time and it was a hit. "I want my mommy!"

Lazy Ozzie, by Michael Coleman. This is a fun story just reading it straight, but the real fun is going back and finding Mama Owl on each page "Where's Waldo"-style.

We learned about real owls with a Zoobook on the subject.

I told the story Good Night Owl, by Pat Hutchins, on the flannelboard. The kids had fun with "Owl tried to sleep!"

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