Sadie's Top 5, 3-Years-Old

At the end of my last "Sadie's Top" post, I wrote the sentence "Hopefully I will have enough non-TV/movie character books for another post around Sadie's third birthday!" At the time that I wrote it, most of the books Sadie gravitated toward were books based on TV and movie characters-- Paw Patrol, Moana, Frozen, etc. We were in a not-so-great reading phase and I was sad about it. Now, at three-years-old, Sadie definitely still does enjoy those character books, but she has totally come back around to reading other things! She asks me to bring home new books constantly! And, even though our bedtime has changed, we're back to reading books together at night! Hooray!

Once again, I'm going to omit the books based on TV and movie characters (although, FYI, she's REALLY into this specific Frozen book with a spinning Elsa in the middle.) because the reason those books are hits are because of the recognizable characters, not because of the quality of the writing or the story-line. So, those books aside, here are Sadie's Top 5 books, as a sweet, big-girl, three-year-old:

Little Bear Needs Glasses by Bernd Penners is super fun. It's about Little Bear, who, as the title suggests, need glasses. He asks to try on all his friends' pairs but none are quite right. The cool thing about this is that you can actually try each pair of reusable sticky glasses on Little Bear's face! It comes with 5 plastic, reusable stickers! So it's totally interactive! In the end, Little Bear does find the perfect pair (spoiler alert: It's the red, circle pair that none of the other animals are wearing) and everyone is happy! Also, if you like this and your kid is really into the whole reusable sticker thing, try All Better! by the same author. This one is the "original" removable sticky story book and has pretend bandaids instead! Both great!

Hi, Pizza Man by Virginia Walter is a storytime favorite of mine! I have been using it for years in programs and I'm so excited that Sadie likes it now too! The story is about waiting for pizza and greeting whoever brings it. The first pizza deliverer is a human man, so we say "Hi, pizza man!" Then it's a human woman, so we say "Hi, pizza woman!" Then we say things like "Meow meow, pizza cat!" and "Ssssss, pizza snake" when a super formally dressed cat (including a cape!) and a friendly snake in three bow-ties and a top hat deliver the pizzas. There are a total of 8 greetings and then, finally, the pizza comes! Who's going to deliver it? It's a surprise! I love this book because it includes animal sounds and silliness, plus a gentle nod to children having to wait patiently from time to time, even though it's difficult.

Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus by Mo Willems-- Yay! We're finally reading Mo Willems! Even though sometimes Sadie immediately allows the pigeon to drive the bus the very first time he asks to, every time we read it, it clicks a little more in her brain. In case you're not familiar with it, this book is about a pigeon who's begging the reader to allow him to drive a school bus. The book very specifically starts off with the bus driver asking the reader to keep an eye on things for him until he gets back and to make sure NOT to let the pigeon drive the bus while he's gone. So then, as soon as the driver walks away (on page 2), the pigeon pokes his head in and says "I thought he'd never leave." Then he asks, "Hey, can I drive the bus?" (to which the reader is supposed to answer "Nooo!"). His pleading with the reader gets more and more dramatic until he explodes about halfway through the book with, "LET ME DRIVE THE BUS!!!!!!!" Other pleading attempts include "I bet your mom would let me," "I'll be your best friend," and "How 'bout I give you five bucks?" It's a great storytime book and a great one-on-one book and is probably good for kids until, at least, first grade. I'm even inclined to say that there is no upper age limit, except that there comes a point where kids would find reading picture books super uncool. Also, FYI, there are a ton of other Pigeon books like Don't Let The Pigeon Stay Up Late, The Pigeon Finds a Hot Dog, and The Pigeon Wants a Puppy, so there's no shortage of chances for kids to have control over the character in the book while giggling along the way! I can't wait to introduce other Mo Willems books to Sadie soon!

Rock-a-bye, Baby by Jane Cabrera ticks all the baby love boxes for Sadie. I'd say that this book is probably great for kids a lot younger than she is, but Sadie really enjoys it too. Maybe she finds it comforting. It's the classic song we all know, but re-imagined with lots of woodland animals and extra verses. For example: "Rock-a-bye Squirrel, high in the tree, in Mommy's arms, cozy as can be." I always sing (instead of say) the whole book and when I do, Sadie always pretends to scoop up and rock all the different animal babies on the pages in her hands. Then she goes "Awwww! So cute!" while pretending to pet them. She really loves babies and therefor, she really loves this book!

Can You See What I See? Seymour Makes New Friends by Walter Wick is one of many search-and-find books and magazines (hello, Highlights!) that Sadie enjoys. She seems to like these particular ones best because they're a little easier than some of the others that we've tried. Like, she can actually find the stuff. I think that they're better for her age. There's even a little story about Seymour along the way, although that part is totally lost on Sadie and even kind of lost on me. This was the first Seymour book that we tried and was, possibly, her favorite one, but all of them are great... and basically the same familiar thing!

Quick aside: I just had a patron ask me for potty books for her daughter and it reminded me of the potty book that really really sealed the deal for Sadie as far as potty training books go. I figured I'd recommend it here in case anyone else is looking for a great potty book recommendation. It's called A Potty For Me by Karen Katz. There are a lot of potty books out there, and a lot of other great ones too, but this is, by far, the one that Sadie always both enjoyed reading the most and the one that, absolutely, made using the potty a feasible and relatable experience for her. This book was a game changer for us-- and we read a lot of potty books!

Anyway, Sadie's Top 5 will be back in 6-months with her 3½-year-old faves!

Elephant and Piggie Party #2

Approximately two years ago, my coworker Jen (also of National Oreo Cookie Day Taste Test) and I hosted an Elephant and Piggie Party to celebrate the release of the Thank You Book, the final book in the Elephant & Piggie series. WELL, it was so much fun that we decided to do it again! Just for the heck of it! Because Elephant and Piggie never get old and are always in style. And also because we don't need a stinkin' book release to celebrate our love for these guys! We love 'em all the time!

For ages 4-6 (aka the PERFECT age group for this), we tried this program from 4:30-5:00pm, a time slot neither of us would normally go for. It worked out! We had 15 kids signed up and 11 in actual attendance (two opted out of the group picture below).

We started off with two dramatic readings: First, we did We Are In a Book (because, it's sort of just necessary?) and then we did Waiting is Not Easy (because Jen said it's appropriate for me as an 8.5-month-pregnant person and I sort of agree). I feel like it's almost unnecessary to even say this but, OBVIOUSLY, the kids loved both books-- not because we're so awesome or because we chose the perfect stories (although we are and did), but just because you really can't go wrong with any Elephant & Piggie reading. At all. Mo took all the work out of it!

After our reading, we handed out the supplies necessary for Elephant and Piggie Bingo (made by me!). Here is a sample board, done in Microsoft Publisher:

We used M&Ms as Bingo markers but told the kids NOT to eat any of them until the game was over. Amazingly, they all listened! As usual (for me), I instructed everyone to keep their pieces on their boards between rounds. Then we played round after round until, eventually, everyone was a winner and everyone got a prize (from a basket of leftover stuff we had).

By the time Bingo was over, we had about 10-12 minutes left for a snack and craft. We served animal crackers and water as the kids made their way back to the activity table. We had a bunch of simple stuff out, but the main craft was all thanks to Jen's wonderful prep-work. These: 

        

Paper bag puppets! She found the templates for these on the blog, Three Little Birds, and had a page pre-cut all the pieces so the kids could easily glue the parts onto the bags. Quick and easy and perfect for this age group in the limited time that we had!

Our other activities out included Elephant and Piggie MadLibs (which you can download here), a Pig Day Scrambler (which you can download here), and a Pig Maze (which you can download here). The MadLib was a Pinterest find, while the Pig Day Scrambler and Pig Maze were both from The Happy Pig Day Kit, available through PigeonPresents.com (under "Grown-Up Stuff").  Also, we had Mo Willems stickers lying around the department so we gave those out too (as sort of a party favor), which was a fun surprise for the kids!

What worked least: I don't think anything worked least about this program! It was all fun, timed out nicely, and, when it was over, one girl left the room asking, "When's the next Elephant and Piggie Party?"

What worked best: I think our dramatic reading really shone here. I'm not sure how we looked to outsiders but to me, Jen and I really became Elephant and Piggie.

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.

Campfire Stories for the Fourth

Last July, I did a program called Campfire Stories, where we read stories around the "campfire," did a fire-themed craft, and made s'mores. It was mostly a success (aside from me not being wild about my story choices or really loving my craft).

So this year, I brought out the campfire again, but to alleviate my issues with last year's version of the program, I made the program less "campfire-themed" and more about July 4th.

When the kids came in the room, I had the lights out, the campfire set up on the floor with logs around it (care of my husband's wood burning stove stash), books set up, and pieces of foam mats (borrowed from my Share & Play Babies program) as spots to sit on (because I will forever associate campfires with Girl Scout camping, where we had to tote homemade situpons through the woods so we'd have a cleared-off spot to plant our butts).

Here's how it looked:

I had each kid plop on a mat (with the flashlights they'd brought with them) and I began to read. Before the program I'd pulled five books out and decided that I'd choose my stories based on the group. I wound up reading Red, White, and Boom! by Lee Wardlaw and Should I Share My Ice Cream?: An Elephant & Piggie Book by Mo Willems.

Red, White, and Boom! was only okay. I kind of felt like I had to read a Fourth of July book since this was a Fourth of July program, but when I looked through a bunch of them, I didn't find one that I absolutely loved. I picked this one because it was easy, the illustrations were nice, and it rhymed. But I didn't love it. And from the looks of the kids, I don't think they did either. Maybe if I start looking now I'll find a better book for next year.

Anyway, it's good that I read this book first because the kids had a pretty good attention span at the start of the program and, once I announced that  I'd be reading Elephant and Piggie next, all was right again with the world.

I may have bragged about this before but I have to say, I do a mean Should I Share My Ice Cream? monologue.

I considered reading a third book but decided to skip it since there was so much else to get to. Still lined up I had two crafts, a photo backdrop, and s'mores!

The first craft was fireworks painting, stolen from CraftyMorning.com.

It's so easy! It's just toilet paper rolls with slits cut vertically along the bottom so you can fan them out to make burst-shapes. I did change my version of this craft a tiny bit from CraftyMorning. I swapped out the white paper for black (way cooler!) and traded the red, white, and blue paint for the similar-but-prettier magenta, white, and teal. I also put out white crayons so the kids could add details if they wanted to and, at the end, I offered red or green glitter (which was only to be applied by adults) to top off their fireworks!

It didn't occur to me that I had already put out the 4th of July Self-Adhesive Shapes (these from Oriental Trading) in preparation of our second craft, so many of the kids wound up sticking these on their fireworks scenes as well. Luckily we had plenty (500 to be exact), so this was no big deal.

Here are a few of the beautiful fireworks scenes. They came out really nice!

  

Next it was time for craft number two! Picture frames! I used these frames from Oriental Trading, these Fourth of July stickers from Oriental Trading, and this fireworks backdrop from Oriental Trading. Here are two of the results:

This was fun and cute, but not without a hitch. The plan was: The kids were supposed to come up to the backdrop one-by-one as they were working on their crafts, get their photo taken, and then I was supposed to email the pictures really quickly to our clerk, Mary, who would hop into her office, print them out and then come back and deliver them to the children before the end of the program.

"I don't think so!" said the library's wifi!

The kids were happy to make their various crafts, then sit around the fire with s'mores, but unfortunately, everyone had to wait for their pictures until I could make my phone and the wifi play nicely with each other.

S'mores around the fire was the last thing I had lined up the night. Like last year's program, I used marshmallow fluff, chocolate bars, and graham crackers. No, the chocolate bar doesn't melt next to fluff the way it does next to a roasted marshmallow, but my options were limited here without access to anything hot! And I wasn't about to have a line of kids at the microwave.

Anyway, does this look like it didn't work to you?

Nope. It worked perfectly! And do these kids look like they're upset by their non-melted chocolate?

Nope. They were enjoying themselves completely!

As the program came to a close, Mary started to appear with some of the printed photos. The wifi finally cooperated! The parents and kids were actually totally content to wait a couple of minutes extra so they could take home their pictures. What a great community I work in!

Here are few of the cuties against the backdrop:

What worked least: The pictures! What a mess that whole thing became. While it all worked out fine in the end, it certainly wasn't ideal for me to have to send the photos to Mary three times or for the families to have to wait around an extra 10 minutes after the program for the pictures they were promised. This needs to be ironed out if I decide to repeat the program next year!

What worked best: The obvious answer here is the s'mores, because the snack is pretty much always what works best in these types of programs. The insightful answer here is the fireworks painting paired with the foam stickers, because it was the perfect mix of process and product, it was mixed media, and it included the use of recycled materials (and then, of course, countered that with foam stickers. Oh well.)

Such a fun program! Hope everyone had a great Fourth of July!

Summer Solstice Stories

June 21 is my favorite day of the year--the summer solstice, the longest day of sun, the OFFICIAL start of summer, and the day before my birthday! Last Wednesday, to mark the day, I did a program called Summer Solstice Stories with my favorite age group, the 3-5 year-olds.

I started by reading three summer themed books: First, How Will We Get to the Beach by Bridgitte Luciani (which I lost my felt board for! It was such a good visual aid in the past and I was afraid the book wouldn't work without it, but luckily, the kids totally got it anyway), then Duck Dunks by Lynne Berry, and last, my favorite, Elephant and Piggie: Should I Share My Ice Cream? by Mo Willems, of which I must say, I do a mean dramatic reading.

These books worked. I wasn't completely confident about Duck Dunks going in, but even that one was a total success.

Then it was time to decorate beach balls. I ordered these from Oriental Trading. I made sure to include in the newsletter description of the program that we would be using Sharpies. This is not exactly my craft medium of choice with the pre-k crowd, but I really wanted to do this craft and Sharpies are the only thing that will work on this material. It worked out fine. I made sure to tell everyone that these markers did NOT come out of clothes and to be very careful. They were.

The kids LOVED decorating the beach balls! Most decorated it after their parents/caregivers inflated it first (I don't have the lung capacity to pre-inflate more than one or two beach balls) but a few chose to decorate it flat and blow it up after.

After they were done coloring, they kids just loved bouncing and tossing their balls around the room. Like playing with the balloons in the Unbirthday Party was, this was probably the best part. It's always the simplest thing that is the most fun!

What worked least: This program was simple and successful. There wasn't really anything that didn't work! Yay!

What worked best: The craft. I was worried about the Sharpies but everyone was careful and, in the end, they got to take home something cool! Better still, they got to play at the library with something cool. And play catch with the librarian! Super fun!

New Book Storytime

I've talked about this thing I do a few times on this blog before. It's this thing were I plan a program and then, as soon as I commit to it (newsletter commit to it), I immediately regret it and don't feel any excitement for it whatsoever. New Book Storytime was one of those programs. I thought it was a smart idea when I came up with it, but as soon as it was in stone, I was like, Ugh, WHYYYY did I sign up for this? The good thing about this thing that I do though, is that most of the time, the program is fun and successful anyway. And luckily, that was the case (for the most part anyway) with New Book Storytime.

The newsletter description of the program left a lot of room for flexibility: Do you feel like you've read every book in the library? This storytime is for you! We'll read a new book or two, plus some old favorites, then make a craft. 

Despite all that flexibility, for whatever reason, I just couldn't muster up any enthusiasm for this program.

In planning the program, I knew I wanted to do a different theme each week. However, instead of my usual first choosing themes and then looking for books to fit in that theme, I perused the new book section of our library for good new books, since that was the ultimate requirement-- at least one new book per week.

The program was for ages 3-5 and was 3-weeks-long. That meant that I needed at least 3 books appropriate for that age group from the new book section. After a lot of reading, the ones that piqued my interest were: Chicken Storytime by Sandy Asher, Go to Sleep, Monster by Kevin Cornell, and Bitty Bot by Tim McCanna.

This meant my themes were:

Week 1: Chickens
Week 2: Monsters
Week 3: Robots

Then it was time to fill in the details. I needed 2 more books and a craft for each theme. Here's a break down of what I did each of the 3 weeks:

Week 1: Chickens

Books:
Chicken Storytime by Sandy Asher (New)
Egg by Kevin Henkes (Also pretty new! Bonus!)
If You're Happy & You Know It (Unrelated song break!)
First the Egg by Laura Vaccaro Seeger

Craft: Found on Pinterest here, I had a page do all my cutting--egg halves in all different colors and little yellow chickens. When I set up, I put one chicken and one paper fastener out at each spot, plus crayons and leftover foam stickers (these from Oriental Trading) for each table to share. Then I came around to each kid and had them choose their two egg halves from the stack (mostly because there was a distinct top half and a distinct bottom half which would be easily confused, but also because I learned this as a tip for letting kids choose at a workshop I attended about a year ago). Here are a few of the results:

In conclusion: This was a good week. All three stories were great, totally age-appropriate and engaging and also, the craft (while very simple) seemed to really be a real crowd-pleaser!

Week 2: Monsters

Books:
Go to Sleep, Monster by Kevin Cornell (New)
Leonardo the Terrible Monster by Mo Willems
Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes (Unrelated song break!)
Go Away, Big Green Monster! by Ed Emberly

Craft: I did a classic Go Away, Big Green Monster! craft this week. I put out paper plates and had the kids color them however they wanted, then loads of pre-cut shapes (thanks to our super cutter page) to glue on. Then, because I hate when crafts don't involve any element of creativity (and I didn't think coloring a plate was enough), I also put out popsicle sticks for them to decorate and and tape, so they could make their faces into masks. Here are a few of the results:

 

In conclusion: I was worried that the monsters theme would be too scary for the kids, but it totally was not at all. The kids liked all three stories, but I think they might have been a tiny bit too young to full appreciate Leonardo the Terrible Monster. The craft, though, was fun and totally age-appropriate for this group.

Week 3: Robots

Books:
Bitty Bot by Tim McCanna (New)
If You're A Robot and You Know It by David A. Carter
Wheels on the Bus (Unrelated song break!)
Robot Smash! by Stephen W. Martin

Craft: I made this week's craft up completely by myself, but I think it was possibly too complicated. I used a whole bunch of stuff for this: paper bags, old CDs, the tops of baby food pouches (like these), foam rectangles (for robot mouths), pipe cleaners, strips of paper, pre-cut printed robot circuit boards (this one, specifically), crayons, tape, and glue. Phew. This was my sample, which I think pretty accurately represents what I had in mind for the craft:

And here are a few of the finished products:

In conclusion: This was not such a good week. I felt like, other than If You're A Robot and You Know It, my books were too weird and probably also too advanced for this age group. PLUS my craft was way too hard. I even heard one grandma complaining about the glue not sticking. I wish I just did another theme entirely, but what's done is done. Just... thank GOODNESS for If You're A Robot and You Know It. This book works for a lot of different age groups but the 3-5's are definitely the perfect audience. It was really a light in a dark week of storytime.

What worked least overall: It's a tie between the book Robot Smash! and my robot-themed craft. I think the book totally lost them and the craft was way too hard and way too glue-y. You live, you learn though, right? Not everything can be the best.

What worked best overall: Again a tie. This time it's between If You're A Robot and You Know It and my Go Away, Big Green Monster! craft the second week.

Overall, this was mostly a fun program but I don't think I'll be having it again. Also, it should be noted that this program was at the exact same time and for the exact same age group as Musical Kids and every single week, the kids seemed to be disappointed that we weren't singing and dancing.