Toddler Time - Camping

Today's Toddler Time's theme comes from a request I had last week. Last week one of the little boys that attended asked if I could do a camping theme for him. I said of course and so camping it is!

Stories We Shared
Normally I don't like using popular media books in story time, but the first story this week was cute and I just couldn't resist. We read Maisy Goes Camping first today. It's a super cute one where Maisy and all her friends (including Eddie the Elephant) try to fit in a tent together. It was a definite hit.

Next up was another "can we fit" style book. One Dog Canoe was a new one for me, but I rather liked it.

Flannels We Shared
I brought out a slightly older, but perfect flannel for today's Toddler Time. I dug into my files and brought back the 3(5) Hungry Ants flannel. Of course, our favorite part is the sneezing ants. When we got to the pepper we would take an ant and as we sneezed I would toss an ant into the air. It always produces giggles.

Rhymes We Shared
We sang two rhymes today! (In addition to our usual opening song and clos
ing songs.) First up we sang Ten Little Marshmallows. I saw this somewhere in the past few weeks, but I didn't bookmark it so cannot give credit. My apologies! If you know where I found it, please comment!
We also sang 10 Little Campers which I found on Earlylit.net and comes from Beth Grai, at the Independence (MI) Township Library. Of course we sang Shake Your Shaker and Twinkle Twinkle as well. :)
     10 Little Marshmallows
     One little, two little, three, little marshmallows
     Four little, five little, six little marshmallows
     Seven little, eight little, nine little marshmallows
     Ten marshmallows in my mouth!

     Ten Little Campers
     Ten little campers putting up their tent.
(Put finger tips of fingers together forming tent roof)
     Ten little campers close the vents.
(Intertwine fingers together to signify closure)
     Ten little campers make a ring.
(Form circle putting tips of fingers together and thumbs together)
     Ten little campers start to sing.
(Cup hands to mouth)
     Ten little campers around the fire.
(Form circle putting tips of fingers together again)
     Ten little campers dance till they tire.
(Put all ten fingers up in the air and dance them around)
     Ten little campers close their tent up tight.
(Intertwine fingers together again to signify closure)
     Ten little campers say good-night.
(Wave good-night with both hands)

Early Literacy Tips We Shared

• Introducing your child to songs, rhymes and books is a great way to help your child expand his/her vocabulary since books and rhymes often contain a larger variety of words then what we typically use in conversation.
• Rhymes are fun to sing and say with your child. Because they rhyme, they also help children develop phonological awareness, an important skill for later reading when they try to sound out words

Toddler Time - At The Beach!

Today's Toddler Time was all about the beach! It's summer (finally, even if I don't like the hot), and the beach is such a perfect theme for summer.

Books We Shared
This week we read two of my absolute favorite books. First I had a show and read version of I'm the Biggest Thing in the Ocean by Kevin Sherry. OMG, I love this story so much. It's a perfect story for a show and read/show and tell as well.

Next up we read A Beach Tail by Karen Lynn Williams. I have so much love for the illustrations in this book. They are so detailed and have so much life.

Flannels We Shared
I turned I'm the Biggest Thing in the Ocean into a show and read story this week. As I read the story I placed the pieces on a magnet board. They LOVED this so much, we ended up doing it three times. The first time I read the book and placed the pieces, the next two times we just placed the pieces. I used the patterns from KidzClub which are adorable and free.

We also had a flannel game based off the Little Bird game using pails and a little tiny whale (He's adorable if I do say so myself.) which I found on the Fun With Friends at Storytime blog, and a counting rhyme with shells.
     Little Whale
     Little Whale, Little Whale
     Are you in the [color] pail?

     3 Little Seashells
     3 little seashells all pearly new,
     Swish! went the waves and then there were two.
     2 little seashells lying in the sun,
     Swish went the waves, and then there was one.
     1 little seashell lying all alone,
     I picked it up and took it home!

Rhymes We Shared

As usual we sang our shaker song from Jbrary and our closing song of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. The Shaker Song continues to be a favorie, and no one (grown ups) has gotten bored with it yet!

Early Literacy Tips We Shared

• Children learn language by listening. They learn new words and absorb general knowledge about the world around them. Talking to your child can help them develop vocabulary. Stretch your child's vocabulary by repeating what they say and adding new words. "You want a banana? That's a healthily choice."
• Singing slows down language and helps children hear the different sounds that make up words. Singing also develops an awareness of rhythm and syllables.

Toddler Time - Clap and Stomp

I felt the need to do lots of singing and moving around for today's story time, so we had a Clapping and Stomping program today.

Stories We Shared

Today we read a favorite of mine: Stop Snoring Bernard! by Zachariah O'Hara. I LOVE this book so much. Love, love, love. Bernard is adorable and snoring is so much fun. If you have an active group getting them to yell "STOP SNORING BERNARD!" with you is so much fun.

Flannels We Shared

Our flannel today was "Who Said Moo?" from the Clueless Librarian. They loved my cow and horse the most. (Note: chicken feet are hard!)

Rhymes We Shared

Today we sang a lot. A LOT. We started out with If You're Happy and You Know It (just clapping, stomping, and yelling hooray), which we sung twice, of course. Then we moved onto Old MacDonald Had a Farm (cow, pig, and sheep). And of course, our favorite (I do love this too) Shaker Song (with all the verses!) and a new shaker song: Shake It to the East (by guess who!), followed by Twinkle Twinkle.

     Shake It to the East

     Shake it to the east
     Shake it to the west
     Shake it all around
     and then you take a rest
     Shake your shakers up
     Shake your shakers down
     Shake it, shake it, shake it,
     and then you settle down.

Early Literacy Tips We Shared

• Activities like clapping and stomping help a child to build motor skills and boost coordination!
• Introducing your child to songs, rhymes, and books is a great way to help your child expand his or her vocabulary since books and rhymes often contain a larger variety of words than what we typically use in conversation.

Toddler Time - Mud and Dirt

Today's story time was all about dirt and mud. Seemed fitting after the ridiculous amount of rain we've been getting!

Stories We Shared

Our first story of the day was UnderGround by Denise Fleming. I have so much love for this story it isn't funny.

Our second story is more appropriate for early spring, but I love it so we read it anyway. Mud by Ray.

Flannels We Shared

What goes with mud better than pigs? Nothing! Today's flannel was from Sunflower Storytime.

     Five little pigs rolled in the mud
     Squishy, squashy, felt so good.
     The farmer took one piggy out.
     ‘Oink, Oink, oink,’ the pig did shout!

           4,3,2,1

     No little pigs rolled in the mud.
     They all looked so clean and good.
     The farmer turned his back and then,
     Those pigs rolled in the mud again.

 Note: because my kids are so young we only used 3 piggies.

Rhymes We Shared

Today we sang our Shaker Song, but added the rest of the verses to it. Our verses aren't in the same order as Jbrary's, mostly because I had shortened the song to begin with, but we were SUPER excited over this song. We sang it 6 times. Six times. Yes, six. Then we played with our shakers, taking turns deciding where/how we would shake them. Always a huge hit.

     Shake Your Shaker
     Shake your shaker in the air
     Shake it here, shake it there
     Shake your shaker in the air
     Shake your shaker

     Shake it up and shake it down
     Shake your shaker on the ground
     Shake it up and shake it down
     Shake your shaker

     Shake it fast and shake it slow
     Shake it stop, shake it go
     Shake it fast and shake it slow
     Shake your shaker

     Shake it high and shake it low
     Shake it yes, shake it no
     Shake it high and shake it low
     Shake your shakers

We closed with Eensy Weensy and Twinkle Twinkle as is becoming our habit lately.

Early Literacy Tips We Shared

Don't forget, talking with your child helps them learn about the world around them. As children listen to spoken language they learn new words and what they mean while gaining important knowledge about the world around them.

Toddler Time - Bugs

Bugs Bugs BUGS! Today we read and talked about BUGS. We had a very small group today, so didn't follow the format we usually do. I only had one little boy (darn rain!) but we had a great time. He got a tailored story time just for him and some one-on-one action with dad.

Stories We Shared

We read two stories today. First up was a sparkly board book (which I normally avoid because they're so small and hard to see in a group) called Hello, Bugs. Adorable. Simple, eye-catching and perfect for little ones.

Our second story was I Love Bugs, which was super fun in my small group. We got to talk about all the different bugs shown on each page. It was a great learning opportunity.

Flannels We Shared

Today's flannel was 5 Hungry Ants from Miss Mary Liberry! I didn't have time to create awesome flannels, so I used laminated cardstock images. The kids didn't mind. :)

     5 Hungry Ants

     5 Hungry Ants marching in a line,

     Came upon a picnic where they could dine.

     They marched into the salad,

     They marched into the cake,

     They marched into the pepper….

     Uh oh, that was a mistake!

     AHHHH-CHOOO! (throw ant into the air!)

          4 hungry ants….etc….

Note: We only did 3 Hungry Ants. The favorite was when I tossed the ant into the air after sneezing!

Rhymes We Shared

This boy LOVES the Shaker Song so we sang it a billion times today. OK, maybe like 3. But he loves it. We also sang Eensy Weensy Spider and Twinkle Twinkle today.

Early Literacy Tips We Shared

• We didn't actually share any specific tips today, because we were one-on one. Instead dad and I just chatted about the different ways learning can be incorporated into play. This dad is fantastic and I am SO glad he's started coming to story time with his son.

Toddler Time - Purple

Still going strong in our color series today! We're almost done though. I think we're all just a little relieved. The 7 week series was ambitious and interesting, but we're all getting a little bored. If I do a series like this again (IF), I'll limit it to 3 weeks. Today's theme was purple!

Stories We Shared

Today we read Purple Little Bird. I've seen some adaptations of this in flannel, and I would love to do that some day, but the story is adorable on its own.

Flannels We Shared

Once again we did our Little Bird flannel. The kids love matching our birds to their nests, but are pretty much done with the rhyme. We now just ask which bird goes with which nest and play with them. Which works!

Rhymes We Shared

Our first song of the day was We Love Purple. I found this one on Preschool Express. It's from Heather McPhail. It is fun, but it will get stuck in your head!

     We love purple, we love purple.
     Yes, we do.  Yes, we do.
     Purple grapes and eggplant,
     Purple plums and grape juice,
     Just for me, just for you.

We also played a game today. We played a scavenger hunt style game where I had taped purple crayons all over the program room and while we sang the Color Chorus from Teaching Mama. My kids found purple crayons on the wall and put them in my basket. Totally adorable.

     If you see a purple crayon, pick it up.

     If you see a purple crayon, pick it up.

     Stand and wiggle, give a SHOUT!

     If you see a purple crayon, pick it up!

Of course we sang the Shaker Song, Eensy Weensy, and Twinke Twinkle Little Star today.

Early Literacy Tips We Shared

• Babies can begin to associate words with objects and people as early as 6 months. Parents who identify the color of objects and frequently repeat this concept will find that their toddlers will start to recognize color names quickly.

Toddler Time - Blue

Welcome to week 5 of my color series for Toddler Time! This week we're focusing on the color blue! This week I disovered that it isn't super easy to find short, easy to remember rhymes about the color blue (if you have any leave them in the comments! I'm always looking for more.). Stories are easy, but rhymes not so much. I didn't want to have to fall back on Two Little Bluebirds [Blackbirds] so I went to pinterest and the Flannel Friday board to find an easy rhyme that went with the color blue.

Stories We Shared

It has been SUPER nice here this week, so everyone was wicked full of energy. So today we focused more on things that kept us moving and singing, and only read one book. We read My Blue Boat by Chris Demarest. It was a super cute story with awesome illustrations.

Flannels We Shared
We're still in our color series (only two weeks to go now) so we did our usual routine of the Little Bird rhyme and one new flannel. This week's flannel comes from Storytime Katie. The original rhyme is 5 Big Whales, but I wanted blue, so changed it to 5 Blue Whales. We had more fun just playing with the whales and making them swim than with the rhyme, but I think that was in part due to everyone wanting to be outside. This week I had a teen volunteer help me with my flannels.

     Five Blue Whales
     Five blue whales in the sea offshore
     One swam up to spout and that left four.
     Four blue whales in the deep blue sea
     One swam up to spout and that left three.
     Three blue whales in the sea so blue
     One swam up to spout and that left two.
     Two blue whales having loads of fun
     One swam up to spout and that left one.
     One blue whale longing for the sun
     He swam up to spout, and that left none!

Rhymes We Shared
This week's big winner was the Shake Your Shaker song from Jbrary. This week the toddlers were huge into the song and we sung it three times, each time to giant smiles. I think we'll continue to use this song when the color series is over.
As as usual for our color series we danced to De Colores and sung Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.

Early Literacy Tips We Shared

• Parents, don't forget that repetition helpls children develop and maintain connections in their brains. This is one of the reasons we've been repeating so much in Toddler Time recently. 
• Parents who identify the color of objects and frequently repeat this concept will find that their toddlers will start to recognize color names quickly. 

Toddler Time - Green

Today was the fourth week of my color series, so our color was green. I had a parent tell me that I do a wonderful job and how much her toddler loves coming, so I think that's some good feeback. :) It's always super nice to hear that I'm doing something good.

Stories We Shared:

Today we read two stories about green. The first was Green by Laura Vaccaro Seeger (super fitting). This is perfect for Toddler Time. PERFECT. Each page has a color of green and a matching illustration. We didn't read every page, but the pages we did read fascinated the toddlers. Our second book was a big book version of Jump Frog Jump by Robert Kalan. This is another classic, and the big book format was awesome.

Flannels We Shared:
Since today was green I had to sing Five Green and Speckled Frogs. I just had to. And Five Green and Speckled Frogs is fantastic for flannels, so I made five flannel frogs to go along. (my photo is a little blurry, it doesn't do my frogs justice.)

Rhymes We Shared:
It's the middle of my color series, so we repeated the same rhymes from before. We shook our shakers to Shake Your Shaker from Jbrary, waved our scarves to De Colores by Raffi, and twinkled our scarves, fingers, and shakers to Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star.

Early Literacy Tips We Shared:

• Parents, you may have noticed that we're repeating a lot recently. This is because research shows that repetition helps young children form and maintain connections in their brain and nervous systems. 
• Color and shape are among the first concepts babies learn. Babies can begin to associate words with objects and people as early as 6 months. Parents who identify the color of objects and frequently repeat this concept will find that their toddlers will start to recognize color names quickly. (I try have my tips memorized, but for some reason even though I've been using these tips for a couple of weeks I lost this one halfway through and had to dig out my notes. It was pretty funny. I just wish my parents had been able to complete my tip for me, that would have been awesome!)

Toddler Time - Yellow

Today was week 3 in my color series! Today we focused on the color yellow. :) Appropriate since this has been a dreary rainy vacation week, and I needed a little yellow to brighten things up.

Stories We Shared:

Since today was all about yellow we read books about ducks and construction! Our first book was Job Site by Nathan Clement. Perfect for short attention spans, but with a good vocabulary. Next up was a book that we didn't exactly read, but went with our felt song- Five Little Ducks by Ivan Bates. And we wrapped everything up with Who Made This Cake? by Chihiro Nakagawa, which I really like, but I think went way over the heads of my toddlers. :)

Flannels We Shared:
Just like the previous two weeks we did our Little Bird flannel game. Color matching is a big hit with the kids in my group, so this is a fun game for them all. (Click the link above to check out the felt board.)
Then we sang Five Little Ducks, looked at the pictures in the book above, and used my simple felt board to count down as we sang. Five Little Ducks isn't my favorite song, but it's a classic.

Rhymes We Shared:
It's the middle of my color series, so we repeated the same rhymes from before. We shook our shakers to Shake Your Shaker from Jbrary, waved our scarves to De Colores by Raffi, and twinkled our scarves, fingers, and shakers to Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star.

Early Literacy Tips We Shared:

• Research shows that repetition helps young children form and maintain connections in their brain and nervous systems. 
• Color and shape are among the first concepts babies learn. Babies can begin to associate words with objects and people as early as 6 months. Parents who identify the color of objects and frequently repeat this concept will find that their toddlers will start to recognize color names quickly. 

Toddler Time - Orange!

This was week two of my color series! Last week we read about the color red, this week we're doing orange! Last week was the first of this color series. Hopefully it works well.

Stories We Shared:
Due to a couple of factors we only read one story today. Everyone had so much energy that I focused on more movement, and I had no one to cover the Children's Desk so I had to cut Toddler Time short today.
We read Orange, Pear, Apple, Bear by Emily Gravett today. It's a nice short book with fun illustrations. It worked perfectly for my distracted group today.

Flannels We Shared:
Again this week we did the Little Bird flannel from last week. We'll be repeating this one for the next few weeks. (To see my flannel for this one check out the link above.) Little Bird is a great color learning rhyme.
     Little Bird
     Little Bird you've flown so far,
     And now it's time to rest.
     Fly back and sleep in your
        RED nest!
     Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Purple

I also wanted a flannel STORY this week. I went looking for either a good flannel story of The Carrot Seed (not my favorite because the book is teeny) or a version of The Turnip. I ended up finding an awesome version from an old Flannel Friday post by Miss Mary Liberry talking about the story The Great Big Turnip from The Bilingual Book of Rhymes, Songs, Stories, and Fingerplays. It's  a shorter story with only 4 animals, so kept the attention of my toddlers. Little Bear discovers something orange (in the original purple) in the ground and wants to take it to Momma Bear. She gets help from Squirrel, Skunk, and Mouse and they bring it to Momma Bear who identifies the veggie and makes soup!

I'd like to send a HUGE shout out to the wonderful librarians at the Scarborough Public Library for scanning the story and emailing it to me the day before my program! They totally made my day.

Rhymes We Shared:
Since I'm focusing on a lot of repetition for this color series we again sung Shake Your Shaker by Jbrary. It's fun, it's easy to sing, and it's shakers! Win all around.
Shake Your Shaker
     Tune: London Bridge
     Shake your shaker in the air
     Shake it here, shake it there
     Shake your shaker in the air
     Shake your shaker

     Shake it up and shake it down
     Shake your shaker on the ground
     Shake it up and shake it down
     Shake your shaker

We also sung Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star and danced with our scarves to De Colores by Raffi again today. Both are always a hit.

Early Literacy Tips We Shared:
Again, since I'm doing repetition for this series my tips were repeated from last week.

• Research shows that repetition helps young children form and maintain connections in their brain and nervous systems. 
• Color and shape are among the first concepts babies learn. Babies can begin to associate words with objects and people as early as 6 months. Parents who identify the color of objects and frequently repeat this concept will find that their toddlers will start to recognize color names quickly. 

Toddler Time - Red

Today's Toddler Time kicks off something new I'm trying. I'm starting small "units" or as I'm calling them to the parents "series." Each series is going to tie together several weeks of programming. I'm starting with a Colors Series. For 6 weeks we'll focus on a specific color and then on the 7th week we'll do a rainbow Toddler Time tying all the previous weeks together. Other series ideas I have planned for the future are "Things That Go," "Animals," and possibly "Shapes." It's just something to keep me motivated and investigating new opportunities for Toddler Time.

Books We Shared:

Our first book is a very sweet and simple story. Red Sled by Patricia Thomas is a rhyming story about a young boy and his dad who take a
late night sled ride. This is perfect for short attention spans since each page has no more than 4 rhyming words on it.

Our second story is one of my absolute favorites. So much that I have the book memorized, lol. It isn't a new story by any means, but to me it's a classic story time book. The Little Mouse, The Red Ripe Strawberry, And the Big Hungry Bear by Audrey and Don Wood is adorable and has wonderful illustrations.

Flannels We Shared:
For the Colors Series we'll be repeating the same flannel every week. I want the kids to recognize the game/flannel and play with me every week. I'll probably add other flannels, but I want to have some aspects that are the same for all 7 weeks of the series. I found this flannel game over on Hushlander's blog. Little Bird is a relatively easy game for kids and the rhyme is an easy one to remember.

     Little Bird
     Little Bird you've flown so far,
     And now it's time to rest.
     Fly back and sleep in your
        RED nest!
     Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue,
     Purple

Action Rhymes We Shared:
We did three action activities today! Our first was a fun shaker song from Jbrary. We only sang the first two stanzas of the song since we have a young group that loses focus with long songs, but the two were plenty for us. They loved the song. And it's an easy one that I can remember! :)

    

 Shake Your Shaker

     Tune: London Bridge

     Shake your shaker in the air

     Shake it here, shake it there

     Shake your shaker in the air

     Shake your shaker

     Shake it up and shake it down

     Shake your shaker on the ground

     Shake it up and shake it down

     Shake your shaker

Our second movement activity was to dance with scarves to Raffi's De Coloroes. While the music played and the kids danced and I asked them to do specific actions with their scarves. We waved them up & down, side to side, high & low, over our heads & toes, in circles, behind us, and anything we could think of. They always love this type of activity so it was a big hit.
Finally we finished up with a rousing rendition of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star with our shakers, scarves, and twinkled with our hands.

Early Literacy Tips We Shared:

• Color and shape are among the first concepts babies learn. Babies can begin to associate words with objects and people as early as 6 months. Parents who identify the color of objects and frequently repeat this concept will find that their toddlers will start to recognize color names quickly. 
• Rhyming breaks down words into easy to understand syllables.
• We had some newcomers to Toddler Time today as well, so before we began we had a discussion of how children may not participate at first, but they will learn from their grownup and from watching their grownup participate. This is something I say at the beginning of every Toddler Time, but this dad was new so we had a nice dialog going. 

Toddler Time - Bunnies!

Wow! Two weeks in a row without having to cancel! I'm on a roll. I had a good sized crowd today, with lots of new faces, so the word about Toddler Time is spreading. Which is totally awesome. The program is still pretty much organized chaos, since Toddlers. But they have fun, the parents have fun, and I enjoy it, so that's all that matters.
This story time was all about Bunnies because it's spring. And I like bunnies. (Also I was told to do an Easter story time, but I don't think it really has a place in Story Time since it's a religious holiday. Bunnies was my compromise.) This was also slightly shorter as a story time since I'm still coughing and under the weather.
Onto the books!

Books We Shared:

The first book we shared was What Does Bunny See by Linda Sue
Park. While it isn't my favorite I do love the illustrations in this one. They're bright, colorful, and full of things too look at. The kids who knew their colors liked saying what colors Bunny saw too.

Our second book is an old favorite of mine. We read Little White Rabbit by Kevin Henkes. Kevin Henkes is a favorite of mine. His stories are so readable- even the longer ones like Wemberly Worried (though I have a soft spot for Wemberly Worried since my cat Winston is a Wemberly). In this one I just love the way Kevin Henkes draws. His rabbit is just so darn cute. And the giant two-page illustration spread of what Rabbit daydreams really got the attention of my kids today.

Flannels We Shared:
This wasn't strictly a flannel, since I just used paper images cut out with a magnet on them. Since I've been sick I've been slacking off on the actual flannels. I will turn it into a real flannel at some point though. This "flannel" is one I created myself based on a rhyme by Jean Warren. I added a few stanzas to her rhyme and made the bunnies a little silly.

     Four Little Bunnies

     By Jean Warren
     Four little bunnies went out to lunch.
     They found some carrots and took a bunch.
     They ate the carrots with a crunch, crunch, crunch!
   
     Four little bunnies went out to lunch.
     They found some lettuce and took a bunch.
     They ate the lettuce with a munch, munch, munch!
          Broccoli, apple, oranges, spaghetti, cookies

This rhyme was a hit. If nothing else than for the big pictures of food. Even the littlest ones got excited when they saw pictures of food they recognized.

Action Rhymes We Shared:

I found this rhyme on Verona Story Time, a storytime blog by the Verona Public Library. This was a HUGE hit and we ended up singing it four or five times. Which is a lot when it's repeated three times.

     Hop, Hop, Hop Along

     Hop, hop, hop along

     Or bounce on someone’s knee

     Higher and higher and higher and higher

     Bunny-hop with me!

          [Repeat 3 times]

This also makes a great lapsit song with parents holding their baby on their laps. Since I have toddlers we bounced. A lot.

For a second activity I handed out egg shakers and we danced to Raffi's Shake My Sillies Out. I also sang, which surprised some of the parents. :) What can I say? I love Raffi.

Early Literacy Tips We Shared:

This week I tried something different. I reused most of the same tips from last week. I wanted to see if any of the parents rememberd them. I didn't get any comments, but I did get more nods. I might try doing some more repetition. 

• Learning different animal names will help a child to build their vocabulary. The larger a child’s vocabulary the more words he will be able to recognize and understand in print and in speech.
• Activities like hopping in place will help your child build coordination and the large muscle groups in his or her legs.