Program: Family Storytime

Another session of family storytime this fall - here's what we did!

Welcome - this is where I say hello to everyone in storytime, introduce myself and provide some gentle reminders (turn off your phones, keep out of our floor-to-ceiling blinds, and have fun!).

Opening rhyme: "My Hands" - I remembered it still! Yay! I like this one much better than Open Shut Them.

Book: Lots of Dots by Craig Frazier - our theme this week was spots and stripes, so I thought this book was a perfect introduction to seeing all the different things that are made of spots or dots. The kids enjoyed naming the different things the dots made, though not as enthusiastically as they usually do. I think we were having a quiet week this time around.

Flipbook: Little Blue and Little Yellow by Leo Lionni - I actually find this book kind of creepy and made my colleagues laugh by providing an alternate narration while I was flipping through it to decide if I wanted to use it in storytime. I ended up including it because any alternate format to a traditional book is usually a big hit with the kids, so I thought they'd really enjoy this. Like I said, I think we were having a quiet week, so it wasn't as much of a thrill as it might have been normally.

Book: It's a Tiger! by David LaRochelle, illustrated by Jeremy Tankard - I have a review of this book coming up on the blog, but I chose it for storytime today because tigers have stripes. Plus, that striped tail is the clue to finding the tiger on every spread. This was probably the biggest hit of the day.

Song: "List of Dances" by Jim Gill - as you can probably tell by now, I get sick of music and rhymes much more quickly than I get sick of books. The Hap Palmer CD is still MIA and I didn't really want to have a "Silly Dance Contest" this week, so I went with this one. The kids seem to do better with the dancing part if they have specific kinds of dancing to do rather than just free dancing. This would have worked better if I actually made a list of the dances in the song so we would know what was coming next.

Book: The Very Lazy Ladybug by Isobel Finn, illustrated by Jack Tickle - I wanted to use this one because it's just so darn cute and has lots of opportunity for interaction. Plus, our first book showed a ladybug as an example of small dots, so I didn't expect the kids to make the connection, but it was still there. This is a really cute story about a ladybug who is too lazy to learn how to fly so she hitches a ride on a bunch of different animals. But none of the rides suit her very well...until she hops on the elephant. Could this be the answer? The kids liked the end of this one.

Flannel: Dog's Colorful Day by Emma Dodd - my aversion to flannels notwithstanding, this is a cute little book in any format. It is a fantastic concept book, which wasn't as important for my family storytime, but is essential for toddlers. This flannel tells of Dog's colorful day, as she gets many different colored spots on her. Kids can practice colors and counting, plus Dog is adorable.

Closing: "Wave Goodbye" by Rob Reid - okay, after my brief brush with full memorization, I had to look at my paper this time. SIGH. Will I ever get it all?

And that was our spots and stripes storytime! What books would you share?