Pizza Pizzazz

The first book I read was Curious George and the Pizza Party by Cynthia Platt, it was a little long and wordy for the kids, but they made it through. Then we sang and danced to Charlotte Diamond's I am a Pizza. The Italian verse sure threw us for a loop, but the repetition made it an easy song to do with the kids. 

The second book was Hi, Pizza Man by Virginia Walter. The kids really got into saying hi to the next character behind the door, and it was a definite pick me up after Curious George. I found this song at Perpetual Preschool and took pictures of the characters from Hi, Pizza Man to print out and show to the kids as we sang each verse.

Do you know the pizza man, the pizza man, the pizza man?
Do you know the pizza man, who brings it fresh and hot?

I had the kids sub pizza man with pizza woman, cat, dog, duck, cow, snake and dinosaur from the book depending on which picture I held up.

We team read Jack Prelutsky's A Pizza the Size of the Sun from the same titled book. I held up a pizza shape and the kids and adults shouted out "Pizza!" I finished off with The Little Red Hen Makes a Pizza retold by Philemon Sturges, the Hen shared a little more nicely in this version. The "Not I's" really helped the kids interact with the story.

Our craft today was painting a paper plate with "pizza sauce" (red paint as I don't like to waste a lot of food with art projects) and adding the toppings. I used the paper shredder to make mozzarella out of 1.5 inch paper strips.

Those are MY Jeans!

 

By far one of the easiest displays I've ever done. This was up in September with all of our diary-esque juvenile fiction books. I printed out a big poster that read Dear Diary and printed out the pencil on a different paper and made it pop off the page with a piece of crunched up masking tape under the eraser.

These books will SCARE your pants off!

 My daughter was NOT amused when she came into the library after school and saw her jeans on top of the library shelves! We've had a lot of comments on this display already!

Go Dogs, Go!

The question of the day was, "Do you have a dog?" More kids had dogs than did not have a dog.

We sang our welcome song, and I asked the kids if they knew what we were going to be reading about. I always have the books standing up on a table for the kids to see as they walk in the door. "Dogs!"

First up for storytime was Oh No, George! Chris Haughton. Poor George tries to be good, the kids were so so with this one. Thank goodness I'm super over dramatic to hold their attention. There was a lot of opportunity with this one to ask the kids what choice they think George will make.

Then we danced to Jim Gill's Tempo Marches On to get some of our wiggles out, this is a younger group of threes and there are a lot of boys (just sayin').

I read My Dog He is an Ugly Dog from Jack Prelutsky's New Kid on the Block. I printed off a dog picture and every time I read the word dog, I held up the picture of the dog and the kids got to say it for me. I hesitated at the word "stupid" but luckily no kids told me I said a "bad word"!

Bark, George Jules Feiffer The kids liked the silliness of this story with the different animal noises. I read another good crowd participation story, Rrralph Lois Ehlert which got giggles from the parents, and the kids liked to say the different dog sounds. We did a little Jumping and Counting-by Jim Gill (I must have been in the mood for some Jim Gill that day).

We finished with Dog's Colorful Day by Emma Dodd. The project at the end was using bingo dotters on Dog to give him more spots!

Alphabet Madness

I used this line up for my preschool storytime and a Head Start Parent Training Session.

The Letters Are Lost Lisa Campbell Ernst, which is kind of a boring book, but I used it for a lot of audience participation and I could point out some of the beginning sounds to the kids. We sang and jumped to There's a Dog in School by Bill Wellington, it is always a hit with the kids. I like to use it because there were a lot of different animals in The Letters are Lost, and hey animals singing the alphabet is super weird and fun. As we sing, or bark, or neigh the alphabet, I have the kids jump with each letter to get them moving a little.

Then we read Chicka Chicka Boom Boom! by Bill Martin Jr. I put flannel letters up on the flannel board while we very slowly sang the alphabet. Then we sang it in a big daddy voice, a teeny tiny baby voice, and the grand finale was singing in a fish voice (rub forefinger up and down over your lips as you sing). Kids love it! At the Head Start visit one of the teachers had the parents participate in this verse, it was awesome!

I heard about adding poetry to storytimes in a poetry presentation by Jenna Gilles, a co-worker in our library system. Since then I've done a couple and am trying to add them more frequently. At the Head Start visit I added the poem My Snake from Something BIG Has Been Here by Jack Prelutsky. I had a string snake and gave each of the kids a string snake and talked about letter play to the parents. We made a few of the letters in the poem with the string snake. We only read one verse of the poem because the kiddos were super tiny 3's and weren't interested, I used it as a teachable moment for the parents about moving on when their kids aren't interested in listening.

So, we moved on to Z is for Moose by Kelly Bingham. I LOOOOOOVE, love, love this book. The emotion, the trauma, and the drama make it such a fun read aloud. The more over the top I am, the more the kids love the book.

We finished off storytime by making our names with block letters and markers, most boring "art" project ever, but it got each of the kids names on the wall. Having their names on the wall gives them a sense of ownership and belonging that I like to foster at storytime.

Most Rewarding Job EVER!

Best moment of the week (okay, probably month)! I was walking by the desk yesterday and I noticed a little boy from my Monday Storytime putting movies in the drop box. Monday had been his, and his dad's, first time at the library EVER! A little collaboration with the school got them in the door. Monday morning they did not have time to sign up for a library card, and on Wednesday, they were returning some movies they had checked out. So doing the math, they came back once to get the library card and then came back a THIRD time to return them and look for more stuff to get. While they were here, I could hear the dad talking to the little guy as they spent time together in the children's area. AWESOME!!!