Stories in the Garden

My blog hasn't been getting much attention this summer because, instead of exciting-looking, blog-worthy parties and crafts at work, I've been hosting weekly simple programs for lots of different age groups: Musical Kids, Stop In Stories, and--new for this summer and the subject of today's post--Stories in the Garden!

My library is on a busy main street without any outdoor space whatsoever so it's really a special treat to have any kind of program out of the building. When I found out that my coworker arranged for us to be able to borrow the garden from the church across the street, I was SO excited to be part of it! (To be fair, it was March and I was still wearing boots, so it's possible that that played a small roll.) I wanted to make sure we fit lots of different age groups into the outdoor fun, so I did one session for ages 6-16 months, and one for ages 17 months-5 years. 

The big challenge with this program was that, since there were no outlets, I didn't have access to any recorded music--something I tend to rely heavily on in most of my programs for this age group. This meant that I had to come up with some new material: New songs, new parachute games, and--the most dramatic of all--a new hello and goodbye song! (Anyone who's ever stepped foot in one of my programs knows that I have been a loyal fan of Big Jeff's A New Way to Say Hello and Laurie Berkner's Blow a Kiss for what feels like forever).

The program, other than having totally weird-for-me hello and goodbye songs, went really well. On rainy days it was held inside and even then it was still fun, albeit slightly less well-attended. 

Here's me, barefoot (a nice perk), and ready to sing Five Little Ducks:

Since, above all else, this was a storytime, I'm going to list all the books that were read over the course of this program.

B = Baby class (6 - 16 months)

T = Toddler class (17-months - 5-years)

Are You My Mommy? by Mary Murphy (B)

Babies on the Bus by Karen Katz (B, T)

Baby Faces by Margaret Miller (B)

Baby Parade by Rebecca O'Connell (B, T)

Baby Pets by Margaret Miller (B)

Barnyard Dance by Sandra Boynton (B, T)

Breathe by Scott Magoon (B, T)

Cat the Cat, Who Is That? by Mo Willems (B, T) *

Elephant and Piggie: Elephants Cannot Dance by Mo Willems (T) *

First the Egg by Laura Vaccaro Seeger(B, T)

From Head to Toe by Eric Carle (T)

Hello Lamb by Jane Cabrera (B)

Hi Pizza Man! by Virgina Walter (T)

Jump by Scott M. Fischer (B, T)

Peek-a-Boo Zoo! by Jane Cabrera (B, T)

Pete the Cat: I Love My While Shoes by James Dean and Eric Litwin (T)

Pouch! by David Ezra Stein (B, T)

Say Hello Like This by Mary Murphy (B, T)

Toot Toot, Beep Beep by Emma Garcia (B, T)

The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle (B, T)**

* Mo Willems' books are PERFECT for two-librarian storytimes! Andrea (of Disney Princess Tea and Mall Storytime) and I have totally mastered these! Reading Elephant and Piggie: Elephants Cannot Dance with Andrea feels like straight up acting, which is kind of fun, and Cat the Cat, Who Is That? has a sort of "call and response" feel, which flows a lot more naturally with two readers. Lately I try to work a Mo Willems book in every time I know there will be another librarian able to read with me.

** I've written briefly about our wonderful Very Hungry Caterpillar kit in the past before, but it's truly a wonderful storytime prop! The kids love holding up all the signs and "feeding" the different things to the caterpillar puppet throughout the story. They also like sticking their heads through the giant holes, as seen below.

Doing a storytime outside was SO much fun with both age groups, and coming up with a new hello and goodbye song turned out to be easy enough. Thanks to Jbrary (as usual), here is the song we used:

We Clap and Say Hello/Goodbye (to the tune of The Farmer In the Dell):

We clap and say hello
We clap and say hello
With our friends at storytime, we clap and say hello
We stomp and say hello
We stomp and say hello
With our friends at storytime, we stomp and say hello
We nod...
We jump...
We wave...

(I altered the actions a bit on a whim if it felt right for the group.)

Here's a picture of my baby group (and three moms) melting in the sweltering sun one week:

What worked least: Relying on the weather is something I'm not used to doing for a program. There was really only one week (the last week) where the weather was REALLY good, not to hot, not too wet. And actually, one week, it was so insanely stormy out that, even though I held the program it inside, nobody came to the baby class.

What worked best: The parachute, always! And what's more fun that the parachute OUTSIDE?! Hint: Not much.

Construction and Building Competition

For the past three Julys, my coworker, Corinna, and I have planned a fun, Summer Reading Club-themed competition at our branch library. Two years ago we hosted Super Hero Training Camp; last year we hosted Olympic Training Camp. And this year, we did a Construction and Building Competition. They have all be SO MUCH FUN. (But I am already racking my brain for activities to accommodate next year's music-theme and coming up completely empty).

To start, we gave each kid a hard* hat that was labeled "Construction and Building Competition" on the front and had their name written on the back, which, to be silly, I wrote as their first initial and their last name (ie: S. Jones).

*Hat was not actually hard at all.

We sat them all down and talked to them about things like how Corinna and I were the "site managers" and how they had to follow our rules in their construction projects. Then it was time to begin the activities, which went as follows:

Marshmallow Towers

The goal of "Marshmallow Towers" was to create the most aesthetically pleasing marshmallow-and-toothpick creation possible. It didn't have to be big. It didn't have to be strong. It just had to look pretty. We gave them 10-minutes, and off they went. When the time was up, we had to declare a winner. Corinna and I knew for sure that we wanted one winner and no "loser." We also knew that we didn't want to be the decision-makers. So we had the kids come up to us one at a time, whisper their favorite (other then their own) in our ear so nobody could hear, and then calculated the results. Luckily, there wound up being a clear winner.

Bridge Building

Split into two teams (Boys vs girls, naturally), the goal of Bridge Building was to make a bridge between two tables that supported the most weight. It didn't matter how ugly or pretty it was-- it just had to be strong. We gave the kids 15-minutes for this one (they kept asking for more and more time!) and had them use piles of popsicle sticks (both the thin kind and the thick kind), masking tape, and sticky putty (this kind).

They did a great job and I was surprised how much weight the two bridges were able to bear. Once their time was (finally) up, we tested the bridges--first with one rock, then with two rocks, then with a whole pound of rocks. Although the 1 lb bag had to be place strategically on the strongest part of the boys bridge, both bridges were able to hold an entire pound of rocks! How exciting! Then we tried two pounds and, of course, both bridges broke. So it was a tie!

I got the idea for this contest from The Ardent Teacher.

Human Bridge Tester

The wood plank and baby pool, in some form or another, have become summer competition staples. Two years ago, in Super Hero Training Camp, we dyed the pool water red, called it a lava pit, and had the kids cross over the pit on the plank. Last year, in Olympic Training Camp, we had the kids run through  the pool as the "swimming" portion of our "triathlon" and used the plank as a balance beam. But this year was the easiest! We filled the baby pool with water, put the plank of wood over it (attached with duct tape to two stools), called it a bridge, and had the kids "test" it by walking across it and making a silly pose/face in the middle. There was no judging or winning for this event; it was just for fun.

Ultimate Oreo

The goal of Ultimate Oreo was to build the tallest Oreo cookie possible in 5-minutes. I found this game on Stumingamescom, but decided to have the kids work individually instead of as teams. Using nothing but a bunch of Oreos and a plastic knife, they had to make the tallest, craziest, most ultimate Oreo cookie possible. They needed to have one cookie on the bottom, as much frosting as possible in the middle, and one more cookie on top. Then, after 5-minutes, we stacked the "ultimate cookies" up next to each other to see who'd made the tallest one. This was what it looked like:

Spoon & Block Catapults

This was a catapult building contest that involved wooden blocks, plastic spoons, rubber bands, and  ping-pong balls. The kids had to band the spoons to the blocks, then use that to catapult ping-pong balls across the room. Initially, this was a contest to see who could get theirs to soar the farthest, but it quickly just became noncompetitive catapulting. In fact, it became more of a cooperative game, as the kids were encouraging and helping each other! Great to see!

Cookie Head Tower

After lots of Googling for ideas, this was the last game that I found, here. Again in teams (and again, boys vs girls), the kids had to choose one member from each team to be the "cookie balancer" (ideally, this is the person who can lie on the floor the most still and not laugh). Then the other two members of the each team had 2-minutes to stack Chips Ahoy on the cookie balancer's head, as high as possible. If the cookies fell, they had to start over. The boys definitely giggled less, but in the end, once both towers had fallen and been rebuilt several times, the girls squeaked by--2 cookies to 0 cookies. Mostly though, this was just about having fun and giggling.

Tower Destroying

As a "reward for all their hard work," this final activity gave the kids a chance to destroy something instead of build something. Except the irony here is that, after the tower was destroyed once, the kids were all excited to rebuild it for the next person in line. Again, cooperation and helping each other were big themes here!

At the end of the hour, we gave the kids certificates, took a group photo, and let them snack on some (clean) Oreo and Chips Ahoy cookies.

What worked least: I think this may have been the last year for our wood plank. While everything worked out totally fine, the Human Bridge Tester activity gave me a bad case of wood-breaking anxiety. Our wood plank had a great, three-year-run, but I am ready to say goodbye to it.

Work worked best: Totally surprisingly, Bridge Building was awesome! It was so satisfying to see the kids work in teams (with other kids they'd never met before) and make bridges that could support a whole pound! And they really enjoyed it much more than I'd expected them to!