Welcome to the first Andersen Library Story Time blog post! Andersen Library hosts a monthly story time visit for the UW-Whitewater Children’s Center. Student library staff members plan and carry out story time activities with the support of the Education Librarian. One goal is to provide hands on, relevant practice for students who are considering an early childhood, elementary, or other education-related major. This story time was for the Hummingbirds and Robins (infants and toddlers). A second goal is to feature materials available in our Curriculum Collections.
With the infant and toddler groups, we focused on animal movements – creeping mice and hopping rabbits. We are also including a Spanish language connection for each story time this academic year, as we have been adding more Spanish language children’s books to the collection.
Opening Song: If you’re ready for a story, Clap your hands / Touch your nose / Stomp your feet / Tap your toes / Sit right down
We made up a few silly verses as we went along, such as “wiggle your ears”! As we sang each verse we got quieter and quieter – a simple strategy for settling down for the first story.
Book 1: From Head to Toe by Eric Carle
Song: Head, shoulders, knees and toes
Book 2: Little Mice/Ratoncitos by Peter McCarty
This children’s book is based on the finger-play song “Cinco ratoncitos de colita gris”. This time we read the rhyme in English and added plenty of movement. Next time – Spanish!
Activity: Little mouse, little mouse, Are you in the red house?
This is often done as a flannel board rhyme. Instead, we used old periodical boxes and taped a different colored house shape on each one. Before we started, we placed a cutout mouse inside one. Despite all the animal puppets and stuffed animals we have in the Teaching Tools Collection, we don’t have a mouse! (There’s a Materials Request Form for that!) As we said the rhyme, we let the toddlers pick the color and look inside each as the color was said. They were very much engaged! Thanks to King County Library System for the idea.
Book 3: Oh! by Kevin Henkes
With the lapsit group, I generally expect that three stories might be one too many, but always have a third ready, just in case. The friends were still attentive, so we plunged in! It actually did snow the night before story time, and the story features animal movements on each spread, so this was a nice connection.
Closing Song: Goodbye, Friends!
