One Day in Space

The sound of the day today was "SP" at the beginning of words so of course we had to do Space (all the spaghetti books were checked out).

The first book, The Astronaut Handbook by Meghan McCarthy went over pretty well and it set us up perfectly for Laurie Berkner Band's Rocket Ship Run, which is always a huge hit. Crouch down at the 5,4,3,2,1 and Blast Off! launch your entire body into space!

There's No Place Like Space was not as big of a hit (loved the rhyming though), too many non-fictionals in a row I guess. By the end I was dropping every other paragraph. I probably should have done Joey and Jet in Space here instead.

I don't often use long made up songs for the themes as the kids don't know the words, but the one I found on Preschool Education.Com worked splendidly! Of course we did the blast off motion again.

We're Flying to the Moon  Sung to: "The Farmer in the Dell"             

We're flying to the moon, we're flying to the moon.
Blast off, away we go, we're flying to the moon.

Other verses:
We're flying in a spacecraft. . . Blast off, away we go, we're flying to the moon.
We're walking out in space
We're landing on the moon
We're flying back to Earth
We're landing on the Earth

Joey and Jet in Space by James Yang was short and sweet, then we did a few verses of Twinkle, Twinkle. I passed out some left over SRP erasers and we held them in the air as we sang in a tiny voice, low voice, alien voice, quiet, and loud voice.

The Three Little Big Aliens and the Big Bad Robot by Margaret McNamara is rather long, but kids feel pretty proud when they notice the similarity to The Three Little Pigs, and they all think the third aliens name is just a hoot.

Our craft was pretty simple: paint with white paint on a dark paper and SPrinkle SParkling SPace dust to finish it off.

November Displays

 Our Thanksgiving books were getting checked out before November even started, so I didn't even put up a Thanksgiving display for the picture books. Parents are finding them much easier with our picture book reorganization!

The kids are helping me out with the calendar this month.

Add some eyes, a beak and a waddle to a brown paper peanut shape and you get a turkey! The feathers are being added as kids come to the library and write/draw what they are thankful for.

The sixth grade classes at the public school are reading historical fiction this month.

A clock on a vortex with some book covers in lieu of numbers on one poster, wings with historical fiction on them on another and I have this display. There are also some flying clocks, double sided of course!

peTS

I have been working with our local school district this year in a partnership type of relationship with some of the early childhood teachers. The early childhood speech and special education teachers come to our preschool storytime with their students and their parents. I start the day off by introducing what we will be reading about, then one of the speech and special education teacher talks about the sound of the day that we will be emphasizing with the children and how they can work on that sound with their children at home. This is a great partnership because kids that aren't eligible for this particular service the district provides (but could still use the help), still get to work on the emphasis of the sound of the day and their parents hear about the sounds and how to practice them at home. Also kids who might never come to the library or get social interaction in group settings are having these needs fulfilled by coming to our combo storytime. This particular storytime we talked about the "ts" at the end of words, so of course we had to do peTS.

The first book was A Pet for Petunia by Paul Schmid and Petunia "wanTS, wanTS, wanTS" a pet skunk.
I started off by showing the kids that PETunia has the word Pet in it. . .We had fun with this one, the kids were a little confused that the skunk Petunia was carrying around was a stuffed toy, but I tried to point that out early on so they would understand what happens when she meeTS a REAL skunk.

I had borrowed some bean bags from our library federation and used them with Greg & Steve's Bean Bag Boogie. There were enough for all of the kids and most of the adulTS, so we were able to have some goofy fun balancing the bean bags.

Pet Show by Ezra Jack KeaTS was our next story, the kids were a little wiggly during this one. Dancing seems to wind them up instead of calm them down! It has a great message and has multi-cultural images in it which are great for the kids in our area to see.

We sang Ears, Whiskers, Tail & Paws to the tune of Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes that I found from The Perry Public Library  The kids had a lot of fun with this one, we sang it twice.

I read "My Neighbor's Dog is Purple" from Jack Prelutsky's Something BIG Has Been Here. I used a flash card with the picture of a dog and the word dog for the kids to recite along with me in a Rebus type activity. They were surprised at the end when I showed the picture of a purple alligator crocodile instead of a dog!.

We sang BINGO with flannel props of letters and black doTS. We clapped and jumped for the black doTS as they replaced the letters.

We finished off with The Best Pet Ever by Victoria RoberTS. Then the kids drew pictures of a pet they would love, love, love to have. We had playgroup time to finish off the morning in which we sorted peTS and used different food to feed different animal depending on what each animal eaTS.

I've started handing out parent hand ouTS again as part of our Growing Wisconsin Readers and 1000 Books programs. I handed them out in the middle of storytime before we sang Ears, Whiskers, Tail & Paws so no one could really say no. In the past I've had a lot of trouble getting parenTS to take them, but not one was left behind this week! On the front I put ways to incorporate the ECRR2s Five Literacy Practices about the theme of the week at home into activities at home and a few of the songs. On the back is some brief information about the sound we talked about and ways to work on it at home.

Who Better than a Librarian

Image via Henriksent on Flickr Creative Commons

I've been thinking about using apps in storytime a lot. I've been on the fence for awhile. I've been reading the arguments on the list serves, and blog articles online. I was not sure why I was reluctant to join this new library storytime movement, but it made me uncomfortable.

Last week I went to a Growing Wisconsin Readers workshop and the presenter, Gayle Tylka (Early Childhood Response to Intervention Statewide Coordinator and Early Literacy Instructor at Viterbo University), gave me an aha moment. I can't quote directly because the aha did not happen until after she was done with her presentation, but to paraphrase. . .  you as librarians are modeling for young children and families. Your goal is to build a desire in children to want to learn to read.

I am choosing to not use apps and screen time in my storytime sessions. Here is why:

1. American Association of Pediatrics: "Television and other entertainment media should be avoided for infants and children under age 2. A child's brain develops rapidly during these first years, and young children learn best by interacting with people, not screens." 

I strongly agree with this statement. There is a time and place for everything and if we are modelling best practices, then we as librarians should not be including screen time in our toddler storytime sessions at all, period. I live with a medical professional, and I hear his complaints about how people don't listen to doctors and disregard their advice when it conflicts with what they WANT to hear, rather than what they actually hear. Jessica Simpson (cough, cough).

Here is a disturbing statistic for you (also from the AAP): Today's children are spending an average of seven hours a day on entertainment media, including televisions, computers, phones and other electronic devices. It does go on to say: Children and teens should engage with entertainment media for no more than one or two hours per day, and that should be high-quality content. This part of the statement seems to be where most people who do use apps in storytime get their arguments for their choice. I agree, that as librarians we should be recommending the best web sites and apps, but most people using the apps are tech savvy enough to figure out how to use them for themselves. A list would probably suffice.

AAP Press Release Statement from 2011:
"Parents who watch TV or videos with their child may add to the child’s understanding, but children learn more from live presentations than from televised ones. 

The report recommends that parents and caregivers: 

Set media limits for their children before age 2, bearing in mind that the AAP discourages media use for this age group. Have a strategy for managing electronic media if they choose to engage their children with it; 

• Instead of screens, opt for supervised independent play for infants and young children during times that a parent cannot sit down and actively engage in play with the child. For example, have the child play with nesting cups on the floor nearby while a parent prepares dinner; 
• Avoid placing a television set in the child’s bedroom; and 
• Recognize that their own media use can have a negative effect on children."

The last bullet, really hits the nail on the head. If parents see librarians using apps with children, they are definitely going to think it is okay to be using apps with their children when they are not at the library. 

2. YOU CAN HAVE FUN WITHOUT AN ELECTRONIC DEVICE IN YOUR HAND! 

No really, you can. 

This is my own personal argument, which probably has all of you millennials rolling your eyes at me! I am disturbed by the number of kids and adults at restaurants on devices, in waiting rooms at the doctor's office, or at the grocery store in a cart, I can go on and on. At some point someone has to step up and say, Whoa! You can have fun without an electronic device! Who better, I ask, than a librarian? 

I know that librarians out there rock storytime with their songs, stories, flannel props, puppets and more. I've seen many of them in action.

What librarians do in their storytimes is individual to each librarian, so I am not saying those who use them are WRONG, because hey, if they feel using apps enhances their storytime and helps them get excited about sharing early literacy with families, that's great. I, on the other hand, will be enjoying my screen free storytimes.

Picture Books: Six Months In

I was really freakin' nervous honored and privileged to present a session about our library's picture book reorganization project at the Wisconsin Library Association's Annual Conference! Now that some of the results are in, I can let the whole world know how it is going!

Comments from REAL patrons!

The increase in circulation numbers is awesome, but I had to take into account that everything in the children's collection is up as well. The difference between the two: 25%.

 I will let the numbers speak for themselves!