Mall Storytime

Starting this past weekend, the Walt Whitman Mall began hosting its last-Saturday-of-the-month storytime in the mall's Center Court. Each week, this storytime is run by one of 8 Huntington-area libraries, rotating around from library to library, and guess what? I got to do the first one ever!

I was super excited and, of course, a little nervous. It's always a bit overwhelming when a storytime is open to all ages and you have no idea if you'll get 4 kids or 40 kids. Luckily, I wasn't in it alone. My coworker, Andrea, and I got to man this storytime event together.

What we lacked in ability to plan, we made up for in quantity of books. Since we just had no idea what to expect, we brought quite a stack along with us--20 books to be exact. Here is our pile:

We tried to pack books for every scenario: a group of moms and babies, a group of antsy pre-schoolers, a really large group of antsy pre-schoolers, a quiet and focused group of pre-schoolers, school-age kids, a group with a mix of older and younger kids...any scenario that was possible, we had the books for it!

What wound up really happening was that we had a core group of three really attentive, 4-year-old girls + a few other kids who came and went throughout the storytime (including Andrea's two sons and one of my Musical Kids regulars!).

We crammed a lot into 30 minutes. Here's what we did:

1. Jump! by Scott M. Fischer

2. The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle (with this activity kid)

3. Pete the Cat, I Love My White Shoes by Eric Litwin and James Dean

4. Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus by Mo Willems

5. Five Little Monkeys (with the monkey mitt)

6. Elephant and Piggie: We Are In a Book by Mo Willems

7. If You're Happy and You Know It by David A. Carter

8. Can You Make a Scary Face by Jan Thomas

9. What Pet To Get by Emma Dodd

What worked least: All things considered, this storytime went pretty well. I asked Andrea her thoughts and she agreed that it really worked. Sure in an ideal world, we'd have been able to do a bit more prep work, but for not knowing the ages of the kids or how many of them we'd have in attendance, we pulled this off nicely...if I do say so myself.

What worked best: I think we both agree that The Very Hungry Caterpillar activity kit is like gold. This is one of my longstanding favorite storytime props and one of Andrea's also. The kids love holding all the different signs and "feeding" the different things to the caterpillar. As the caterpillar eats through each piece of fruit in the story, I use the puppet to "chomp" through the holes in the signs as the kids hold them out, half scaring/half tickling each kid. They all shriek with glee at this! It's a sure-fire win time after time and definitely was yesterday also.

Books n Play for Pre-K 1/27/16: A Mixed Bag

Yay, Books n Play for Pre-K! I've written about this program so many times before but it's different every time that I do it and sometimes, the mood strikes and I just straight up wanna write about it again. Wednesday's group was, quite literally, the young and the restless. I had a chatty collection of moms and a justtttt barely eligible collection of kids. It wasn't my smoothest of programs, but I'm really proud of the cool stuff I did and I wanted to show it off. And also, I write about successful programs a lot. And unfortunately, once in a while, one isn't as successful, and those programs deserve attention too (maybe even more attention, really). So, without further ado... Books n Play for Pre-K, 1/27/16, AKA Books n Play for Pre-K, A Mixed Bag:

Wednesday's theme was colors. I leaned on some book stand-bys this week, although I did try out a brand new song, thanks to TeachingMama.org. As usual, first up was our Hello Song (still A New Way to Say Hello by Big Jeff... always A New Way to Say Hello by Big Jeff), and then I read Dog's Colorful Day by Emma Dodd (coupled with corresponding "spots" that I made [contact paper covered card stock with tape for sticking] and our adorable Golden Retriever puppet from Folkmanis). Then I read Pete the Cat, I Love My White Shoes by James Dean. The kids were SO good during these books--super-smart and good at counting, singing, and color identification. A PLEASURE, despite being the young and the restless. For my song, I introduced the color song, an adorable find from TeachingMama.org. It's not only cute and easy-to-pick-up-on, it's interactive too! Here's how it goes:

I had the kids put their fingers on their heads, smile, frown, etc. I'm not sure if they all got the concept entirely, but either way, everyone had fun. Here they are stomping with all their might:

Then it was time to break off for 20-minutes or so of crafts and play. Here's where the chaos started. This is usually the highlight of the program for many of the kids, and maybe it's because of that that I have high expectations for myself regarding what kinds of stuff I put out...and maybe it's because of THAT, that I get annoyed when it's more chaotic than it should be. So when, for whatever the reason, the kids were super antsy, I found this part of the program to be just really frustrating.

Here's what was at the craft table:

1. Dog from Dog's Colorful Day coloring sheets and do-a-dot markers (see below) *
2. Pete the Cat, I Love My ____ Shoes coloring sheets (similar to the ones that can be downloaded here)
3. Blank rainbows printed on card stock + water colors, paint brushes, and water
4. Hand print color mixing (as seen here from De Mello Teaching) (see below) **

And here's what was at the toy table:

1. Early Math Activity Jars from Lakeshore, set up for sorting the balls by color (see below) ***
2. Colorful wood blocks
3. Color sneaker matching game from MessForLess.net
4. Chromatography Science Experiment! (see below) ****

* The Dog's Colorful Day print-outs are from MakeLearningFun.com. I put these out with dot markers (like these), so the kids could dot-up dog like in the book. Whenever I use these print-outs, I always think "eh, just an easy extra thing to put out," but then, they wind up being one of the kids' favorite activities! That knowledge alone should teach me to keep it simple (but it doesn't). Anyway, the kids love using the dot markers! And I think the story-tie-in makes this one especially exciting for them. Also, the dot markers are pretty un-messy so we all like that! Here's some pictures of dotting fun:

** The hand print color mixing has been hit or miss. I've had success with it in the past, but on Wednesday, it didn't really work. I am blaming this again on the younger age of the kids. Here are pictures of the this craft when it was done successfully over the summer:

Look how cute it was! But, unfortunately, on Wednesday...a totally different story. The littler ones b-lined straight for the paint and, before I was even able to explain what they were supposed to do, they just went at it. So we have: the young and the restless + paint + no direction = A MESS. Then, once the haphazard painting started, it was impossible to get make it go away. Everyone freely painted landscapes, scribbles, and sweepingly long versions of their names. I tried to right it, but they were in too deep. At least they enjoyed it.

*** This is the Early Math Activity Jars from Lakeshore set up for sorting the balls by color:

The kit itself allows you to sort balls, cubes, and pyramids by color, shape, and number. But I decided to keep it simple and just put one kind of sorting activity out. This went over better than I'd expected! In particular, I had a little brother who couldn't pull himself away from the sorting jars.

**** I was really excited about this chromatography experiment! I got the idea for it from the Science Buddies kit that I borrowed from the Suffolk Cooperative Library System. Unfortunately, most of the science experiment stuff in the kit was too old for my crew, but, after a good amount of testing different things out, I was able to take their version of a chromatography experiment and modify it to work for the 3-5's.

Here's how you do the experiment: 

1. Take a piece of paper towel and dip it in water (not until it's totally saturated, but wet enough). 

2. Use a black marker to scribble a big splotch on the paper plate. Not all black markers work! I had two different ones that I used and I found that Mr. Sketch worked the better.

3. Use the wet paper towel to “wipe up” the black splotch. 

4. Wait a few seconds, then watch what happens on the paper towel. 

Spoiler: There are colors! Red and blue and black! It's cool! Here is a picture of some results:

I think the small number of kids that did the chromatography experiment were into it. And I think one or two of them even "got it," like, understood that the point of it was to see that the color black was actually made up of many other colors. Unfortunately, not a ton of kids were interested in trying the experiment, so it went largely ignored. So disappointing!

At the end of play/craft time, I wrapped up with one more stand-by story: Mouse Paint by Ellen Stoll Walsh. This is when the chatty moms were at their chattiest. I actually had to shush them, which is totally awkward for me. Any tips on shushing noisy moms would be greatly appreciated!

What worked least: Ugh! I'd say the hand print color mixing--or lack there of, was probably my biggest disappointment of the program. However, it worked great over the summer! Don't dismiss it! With the right group, it can be a great activity.

What worked second-least: The chatty moms. Please, folks, any tips for shushing them in a non-awkward way would be welcomed. Let me also say that I can't really use a "set up the ground rules at the start of the program" type method. These patrons were late, and, in general, lateness is something I'm pretty easy-going about. What I need is something to-the-point and maybe even funny that I can say quickly, mid-book, to the offending chatters.

What worked best: Time to be positive. Dog's Colorful Day by Emma Dodd and Pete the Cat, I Love My White Shoes by James Dean have always worked well for me. They probably always will work well for me. Can't go wrong with the stand-bys! Also, my new color song from TeachingMama.org was awesome! Highly recommended!

Watercolor Workshop

This morning I had Watercolor Workshop for ages 3-5. It was easy to do and both the kids and the parents loved it!

This program was inspired 100% by this post on CraftWhack. I saw it on Pinterest a few months ago and the next day Watercolor Workshop was on the calendar for October!

First, I started with a short storytime. I read Dog's Colorful Day by Emma Dodd (accompanied by our golden retriever puppet and my homemade sticky spots, which sadly, are losing their sticky) and Perfect Square by Michael Hall. The kids liked them both, although I think the started to get a little squirmy toward the end of Perfect Square. No problem though! It was time to move on to the painting!

I had five tables set up, each with the supplies for a different watercolor technique to try. I handed each child a watercolor palette and told them to carry it around with them from table to table. Since the kids were with their parents, I let them move around freely between the tables so they could try all the different things. This definitely worked and I think treating each table as a "station" made this all extra exciting for the kids. At each station I had: my sample (see below), a sign explaining what technique to do and how to do it, and all the necessary supplies. A PDF of the 5 signs can be downloaded here! These signs really, really helped because the parents were able to show their kids what to do without having to wait for me to come to them. Again, a PDF of the 5 signs can be downloaded here. I would highly recommend using them or making your own if you do a program like this!

Here are the five watercolor techniques:

Wax Crayon Resist

This is probably the most popular and most "classic" watercolor technique. It's easy to do and especially cool because the crayon drawing is invisible until you paint over it (unless you use a crayon color other than white). It's like a little magic trick, the way the watercolors resist the wax to reveal the drawing. Some kids totally loved revealing their hidden art; some were frustrated by not being able to see what they were drawing. But I think most of the kids didn't feel strongly one way or the other, barely noticing the wax resist at all and just enjoyed painting and mixing colors on the paper. That's cool too!

Draw Over with Pencil

When I made my sample above, more of the watercolor dried than I wanted. I guess I just waited a few minutes too long to start doodling, but actually it was still fun to draw on the colorful canvas I'd painted myself. I told the kids to try drawing on some parts when it was kind of wet and some parts when it was dry so they could see how the two differed, but actually many of them drew on it first and then painted over it. Not exactly what I'd envisioned, but again, it doesn't really matter. The kids had fun being creative with different art mediums so it's all fine by me. This also wound up being the station that the slower working kids skipped, so only a handful of the group even went to this table at all.

Blot with Paper Towel

This requires very wet paint. All you do is wad up a ball of paper towel and blot at the wet paint to make a white, textured shape appear. Some of mine look like sideways hearts! For whatever reason, maybe just that it was a little less cool than the others, I don't know if this station was much of a hit. It wound up being the table where the kids just painted pretty pictures. Eh, again, doesn't matter since everyone had fun.

Masking Tape Resist

This one is always more of a challenge than it should be because ripping masking tape off of watercolor paper is just plain hard. It's definitely an adult job and not for pre-school hands (not even necessarily for all adult hands). BUT today, I figured out a secret accidentally! When I grabbed what I thought was three rolls of masking tape from the draw, it turns out I'd accidentally grabbed a roll of painters tape instead. It wound up being wayyyy easier to pull off! So that's the secret to this! Painters tape! This table was possibly the kids' favorite of all of them. They had a good time painting and mushing around the colors and then were appropriately impressed by their finished products when they saw the perfect, straight, white lines that were revealed upon taking off the tape. Super fun!

Salt on Very Wet Paint

I think this one was one of the parents favorites and one of mine too, although I feel like it was kind of lost of the kids. The effect of the salt doesn't "develop" immediately upon sprinkling; it takes a few minutes and then, as the water colors start to dry around the salt, you really see the coolness of it. Then when the paint is dry, you wipe the all the salt away. For some reason, this sort of reminds me of those Smithsonian crystal growing kits we played with as kids, except in paint form. You can see the results best in the blue part of my sample. Again, maybe this one was just more impressive for the adults than the kids, but they had fun painting anyway and making sure their paint was extra wet for the salt.

Overall, what a great time! The kids all got really creative this morning!

What worked least: What what worked least is actually that this program worked so well, that I should have made it longer! It was scheduled for 45-minutes but some of the more meticulous kids didn't get to try everything. With a little more time, maybe they could have. But I'd say that's a pretty good problem to have though, right?

What worked best: This program was a total success! It was my first time doing it and I wasn't sure what to expect but it was really, really fun (again, thank you x 1000 to this post on CraftWhack). But probably because it surprised me and helped me for the future, but I'd say the best thing about this morning was my accidental painters tape discovery. I can't believe how much easier painters tape is to rip off than masking tape. I mean, it makes sense, as this is painters tape's only job, but man! Of course!

What other art programs can I do? This was awesome!

Books n Play for Pre-K 1/21/15

Books n Play for Pre-K is my current favorite ongoing program. This is the kind of program that almost 100% depends on the kids who sign up-- it could be quiet and kind of slow or it could be lively and utterly adorable. The kids make this one. Weirdly, I used to dislike this program so much that I almost ditched it entirely a few months ago. It was actually by mistake, that it wound up getting included in the newsletter for January, but I'm SO happy that it did! This month's group is, well, completely perfect.

I do this program about every other month in three or four weekly sessions, each 45-minutes long. The kids are ages 3-5 (aka, my absolute favorite age group ever) and I do a different theme with them each week. The time is broken down like this:

~20 minutes: Hello song, two books, two songs
~20 minutes: Open play + craft/coloring table (with music)
~5 minutes: One book, maybe one song, Goodbye song

Obviously, this isn't a perfect breakdown because, with kids in this age group, you never know what kind of cute and funny distractions might present themselves but this is the basic breakdown that I plan for.

This afternoon's class was the best Books n Play For Pre-K yet. The theme today was Colors (other themes of the past: Animals, Transportation, Shapes, Whatever season it just became, Funny Books, Water, Bugs, etc.).

Today, after our Hello Song (A New Way to Say Hello by Big Jeff), I started with Dog's Colorful Day by Emma Dodd (coupled with corresponding "spots" [contact paper covered card stock] that I made to stick on our adorable Golden Retriever puppet from Folkmanis). Next I read Pete The Cat, I Love My White Shoes by James Dean and Eric Litwin. About 50% of the kids had never had Pete The Cat read to them before and they totally got a kick out of it. As long as you're open to singing and looking silly, this book is always a hit. Hands down. Always. It's like a little librarian magic trick.

Next, I moved onto our songs. We did the shakers this week, which, for whatever reason, I tend to do the more often than any of the other instruments. The first song we played shakers to was Laurie Berkner's I Know a Chicken (a  longstanding favorite with the kids in my storytimes) and then we tried a new song that I'd never done before: De Colores sung by Martin Enciso from the Songs for Wiggleworms album (side note: I sang De Colores in the the third grade chorus and still weirdly kind of know it). It wasn't the greatest shakers song, rhythmically, but it was short, good enough, and nice for filling in the colors theme. I like when at least one song can at least sort of correspond with the theme for the class. So, for that, it worked.

After that we broke up for 20ish minutes of crafts and play. I used to try to keep the toys in the theme of the class but, as I don't have an unlimited supply of toys at my fingertips, I abandoned that idea for this 3-week session and it's been quite liberating, I must say. On the craft table, I put (1) Dog from Dog's Colorful Day and do-a-dot markers:

(2) Pete the Cat, I Love My ____ Shoes coloring sheets, and (3) Blank rainbows on card stock and water colors. I always try to include a few different kinds of creative/good motor skill activities. Various crafts that may appear on the coloring table are paints, crayons, markers, stamps, colored pencils, easy collage, secretly educational activity sheets, do-a-dot markets, and learn-to-draw (I only did this once when I found a "Learn to Draw Pigeon" worksheet online. Nobody actually did it so maybe it was too hard, but I'll probably try it again anyway.)

The kids always migrate to the crafts more than to the toys. I used to have a small craft table and a big toy table but today I swapped the tables around and I definitely think it was a good move. I admire these kids' creative tenancies.

After the clean up song (Clean it Up by Laurie Berkner, NOT the Barney song. This is to maintain my sanity), we gathered in a circle again for one last book and our goodbye song. I read Mouse Paint by Ellen Stoll Walsh. This one's also always a hit because they get to name colors and I get to secretly teach them about the color wheel. Win, win. Usually I'd try to cram one more song in before the Goodbye song (Blow A Kiss by Laurie Berkner-- yes. I do love Laurie Berkner), but today we took the adorable group photo seen above instead. 

This is a nice, easy-to-run program with the absolute cutest age group. I'm glad I didn't give it up and I'm excited to keep doing it! Happy books-ing and play-ing!