An Egg-cellent Storytime!

Baby and Me is so much fun!  It is 45mins of baby playing, baby singing and baby reading!  Who could ask for anything better?

I currently have six mommies and six babies join me every Wednesday for our Baby and Me class. Today was the second class of our six week session. Their ages range from three months to sixteen months.
Here is an outline of our class:

 Arrival

We always start about 10 minutes late. This allows time for busy moms and babies to arrive without missing any of the fun.

 Storytime and Songs

I usually choose a collection of short simple books with large pictures and often without a plot. Many of the books rhyme and some have only one word on each page.

These are the books we read today:

Llama Llama Zippity Zoom by Anna Dewdney

Look at the Baby by Kelly Johnson

Hugs & Kisses by Christophe Loupy

I Love You Through and Through by Bernadette Rossetti-Shustak

Ten Little Fingers by Annie Kubler

We have a long list of songs that we often use in our Baby and Me class. Many of the songs are well known such as, "Twinkle Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" and "The Itsy Bitsy Spider."  However, we have several songs that are not as well known. Here are a few to share...

Welcome Song

Hi, hello and how are you?

How are you?

How are you

Hi, hello and how are you?

How are you today?

Giddyap, Giddyap

Giddyap, Giddyap ride to town (bounce baby on lap)

Giddyap, Giddyap up and down (raise baby up and down)

Giddyap fast (bounce baby quickly)

Giddyap slow (bounce baby slowly)

Giddyap, Giddyap, Giddyap

WHOA!!

(dip baby backwards gently)

Ticka Ticka Tum Tee

Ticka Ticka Tum Tee

Bidda Badda Boo

Ticka Ticka Tum Tee

I Love You

We Wave Goodbye Like This

We wave goodbye like this

We wave goodbye like this

We clap our hands for all our friends

We wave goodbye like this

Brown Bear and Shaky Eggs

Brown Bear, Brown Bear What Do You See? by Bill Martin Jr.

This is such a wonderful book for all ages. We use it in every Baby and Me class and each family is provided their own copy to read from. We read it, sing it, make the animal noises... the list could go on and on. There are so many different learning opportunities that can be explored with this book. Today, we read it once and sang it once. As always, it was perfect!

Shaky Eggs

After reading and singing, I pass out bags that have a copy of Brown Bear, Brown Bear What Do You See?, another board book for the mom and baby to share and two shaky eggs. We sing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star while shaking the eggs and listen to Laurie Berkner's I Know a Chicken. This song gives prompts to shake the eggs fast and slow as well as high and low.

Playtime!

Laurie Berkner's I Know a Chicken is a wonderful song, but it can get a little long. About halfway through, I put stuffed animals and books on the floor for the babies to explore. I also hand out bubbles for the parents to share with the little ones. This is a great time to interact with the babies and get to know the parents, as they also get to know each other. I begin cleaning up after about 15 minutes and that signals the end of Baby and Me.

However, today was a very special Baby and Me class. It was Valentine's Day! Before each family left, I gave them their very own shaky egg to take home with them. I attached a valentine tag that read, "You're an Egg-cellent valentine!

We had so much fun and I can't wait to do it again next week!

What? A Blog? Ha!

So, I have a blog.  I never thought I had anything so important to say that I needed a blog. I mean, it seems a little presumptuous.  Don't you think?  That the world just HAS to hear what I have to say! 

Well, you won't hear this often but... I was wrong. I have learned that blogging is a great way to share and learn new ideas for storytime, as well as simply providing a place for me to share all of my ridiculous stories. (because I have a ton of them my friends!)

Storytime has become a major part of my life as a Library Assistant. I absolutely love to share exciting books with kids and watch as they experience the book for the first time, and even sometimes for the one hundredth time. Either way, it is a new experience for them and it brings me joy to be the one sharing it.

I am very fortunate to work with three other outstanding library assistants and one amazing librarian. Together we provide several storytimes within our library as well as outreach storytimes to schools and child care centers. Currently, I plan and provide a weekly baby and me storytime for infants to 18 months, a toddler storytime for ages 18 months to 3 years and a preschool storytime for ages 3 years to 5 years.

In addition to storytimes, we also provide other programs for children. Once a month our library hosts Footloose Friday for toddlers and preschoolers to come and shake, wiggle and move with us!  Toddler and preschool programs tend to be the most successful programs within our library system.  We do, however, try our best to provide programs for older children. We have monthly programs for school-agers as well as teens. These programs give older kids an opportunity to come and participate in hands-on activities and hopefully meet some new friends too.  Teens are definitely our biggest challenge here. I'm sure I will  elaborate more on that in future posts.

Anyway, that is the gist of what I will be blogging about. I am open-minded and like constructive criticism. I welcome any and all suggestions, ideas and comments. I look forward to joining the blogging world.  I only ask that you go easy on me... I'm a newbie guys!