Astro Babies

I am a person who loves taking pictures and documenting things. When I was a really little kid, my parents bought my a "kids camera", having no idea how much money they'd be spending on film over the next few years. When I was in my 20's I won a travel contest (a trip to Australia!) because I wrote an essay promising lots and lots of documentation (and, by the way, did deliver lots and lots of documentation). So when I say that I ran this whole program and totally forgot to take pictures until the last five-minutes, you know I must have really been enjoying myself!

I had 6 babies join me for my space-themed baby class, Astro Babies. It was back in August and I am only writing about it now, but better late than never, right? We had a great time! Here's what we did:

This was my plan (red = ipod, blue = song I sing, green = book):

1. A New Way to Say Hello by Big Jeff
2. Goodnight, Moon by Margaret Wise Brown

3. Zoom, Zoom, Zoom *

4. Moon, Moon, Moon by Laurie Berkner (with the basic arm-movements that Laurie herself does in the video for this song).

5. Peek-a-Boo Space by DK Publishers **

6. Pete the Cat: Twinkle Twinkle Little Star by James Dean ***

7. Rocketship Run by Laurie Berkner #
8. Yellow Star (parachute + stars) ##

9. Outer Space is Where I'd Really Like To Go (parachute + stars) ##

10. If You're Happy and You Know It (parachute + stars)

11. Blow a Kiss by Laurie Berkner (parachute + stars + bubbles)

* Zoom, Zoom, Zoom can best be explained by my friends at Jbrary, from who I steal basically everything I ever do:



The verses are a little out-of-order in the video above because this is the video for the "extra verses" which I do after the first verse. But the first verse does come at the end of this video, when they show a fun way to end the song (which I don't do). This is the best video on Jbrary for showing all 3 verses I do in one single link.

** Peek-a-Boo Space is, admittedly, not the best baby book I've ever used in my life but it WAS a decent baby book-- especially if you only read the pages on the right side (the left ones make it way too long for kids this age) and, most importantly, it was an available and an on-topic baby book. I really like to have 1 or 2 (usually just 1) board book class set per baby program for the kids and caregivers to share together for a few minutes and, overall, this one fit the bill.

*** Both of my girls LOVE James Dean's Pete the Cat: Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. I don't know what it is that makes it so perfectly engaging for little ones, but even I find singing the full song with all its verses to be soothing and beautiful (and trust me, it's not my singing voice!). This was on Sadie's Top 5 list when she was just 3-months old and it would have been on it again and again if I'd allowed myself to do duplicates. For Astro Babies, I had to gather my courage because reading this book basically means singing a song alone in front of everyone for about 2-3 minutes. It's a little scary but, from time to time, I think this book is worth it. The song and the illustrations together just really work well together.

# Ok. I write about Rocketship Run a lot. Sometimes it seems like I write about it in every blog post I do. But this was my first time ever doing it with babies so, again, it deserves some space!

This is my Rocketship Run "kit:"

In Musical Kids, I do Rocketship Run every week, starting in the 17-30-month-old group, and then also in the 2.5-5-year-old group. With these kids (and also with the school-age kids I did it with in 3...2...1... Blastoff) when I hold up one of these signs, the kiddos all run up and touch their rockets to it, like they're really "going" to the sun/moon/etc. I'VE NEVER TOLD THEM TO DO THIS, and yet every week, it happens. They all do it! It's so funny to see! They totally invented it and it's continued on from week-to-week and from class-to-class. For years!

Obviously, things went down differently with the babies. There was no running. But it was actually super gratifying to show the pictures along with the words of the song because of the intense amount of language acquisition happening at this age. There is absolutely nothing better than the combination of visual aid and music for language-learning--it hits everything at once--so, even though it was different that I'm used to, it felt really beneficial! And, in the end, the parents and kids had fun playing with the rockets-on-sticks together and just getting in that special bonding time.

## Yellow Star is a song written by me. Sort of anyway. It goes to the tune of Baby Shark and goes like this:

Yellow Star doot doot doot doot doot doot

Yellow Star doot doot doot doot doot doot

Yellow Star doot doot doot doot doot doot

Yellow Star.

Blue Star doot doot doot doot doot doot
Blue Star doot doot doot doot doot doot
Blue Star doot doot doot doot doot doot
Blue Star...

And then also, purple star, green star, orange star, and red star. I purchased two sets of these plush stars from Oriental Trading, cut off the strings and tossed the corresponding colors on the parachute as we sang each verse. I think it worked, again, getting in that music + visual combo. Language acquisition? I'm on it!

### Outer Space is Where I'd Really Like To Go is another demonstration of my song writing skills. I found the basic song here on Kidsparkz, but I modified it a LOT. It's to the tune of If You're Happy and You Know It and it made an ok parachute song. Click here to download the words on a handout,which I obviously had to make because this song is way too long and complicated to teach and then re-sing over and over in a 30-minute baby program. This is how it goes:

Click here to download the handout! 

I followed this up with classic If You're Happy and You Know It, because I'd always prefer to sing the classic song also when I sing an alternative version of it.

What worked least: I think Outer Space is Where I'd Really Like To Go was only ok. It was sort of more effort than it was worth-- writing the song, making the handout, singing 4 verses-- when all of it was just lost on the kids because they were so little. I think it was one of those examples of the theme detracting from the quality of the program, where if I'd just done a few of my really good tried and true parachute favorites, it would have been less work for both me and the parents, and, quite possibly, the kids would have gotten more out of it.

What worked best: This is so crazy but, AGAIN I think I have to say the winner is Rocketship Run! This one's always a favorite in Musical Kids, but it surprised me when it was a favorite with the school-age kids in 3...2...1... Blastoff and now it's surprising me again by working really well with the babies too! This song is magic! It's literally always good.

3, 2, 1... Blast Off!

Librarian friends, I am tired. I wasn't going to blog about "3, 2, 1... Blastoff!" because, honestly, my coworker, Jen (of National Oreo Cookie Day Taste Test, and of two Elephant and Piggie Parties), did the brunt of the prep work for it. But it was cute and fun and successful so, other than me being tired and the program being a whole month ago, why not give it a quick post? Summer is over now; things have quieted down; and I'm ready to discuss it. So, here goes.

This program, for kids entering grades K-2, began with two stories, chosen and read by me. First was How To Catch a Star by Oliver Jeffers and next was Bitty Bot by Tim McCanna. I just think How To Catch a Star is SO SO sweet. It's about a boy who wants to catch a star to keep in a jar. It's so innocent and touching, with those gorgeous and full-of-wonder illustrations that Oliver Jeffers does so well. The kids really enjoyed this! So much so that I was almost afraid to ruin a perfectly good storytime by reading another book, but I went for it anyway. I chose Bitty Bot, which is told in rhyme (or, as I called it, "a giant poem") and about a robot who builds himself a rocket and heads to the moon for an overnight adventure. The kids liked this one too! 

I think I have said this here before, but I am always kind of surprised when the kids are super-engaged through the storytime portion of my programs. Maybe I shouldn't be, since I expend a lot of effort choosing engaging books and reading them in a way that I hope is interesting to the kids, but yet, I am. I always am.

After the stories (against my will, but with lots of convincing from Jen) I did a full out, Musical Kids style, Rocketship Run with the kids. This was my first time ever doing a song with school age kids and I was nervous! I thought they'd think it was too babyish! I tried to make it fun and silly, sort of like, "Come on! Let's do this silly, babyish thing together!" I seriously LAID ON the enthusiasm, probably as sort of a defense mechanism...

Guess what? IT TOTALLY WORKED. It was seriously so much fun. Like, I couldn't believe the great time that we were all having playing with cardboard rocketships on sticks and dancing around to a Laurie Berkner song. Big kids! Doing Rocketship Run! So awesome!

I have written about this song time and time again, but this is my Rocketship Run "kit:"

In Musical Kids, when I hold up one of these signs, the kiddos all run up and touch their rockets to it, like they're really "going" to the sun/moon/etc. I'VE NEVER TOLD THEM TO DO THIS, and yet every week, it happens. It's so funny! They totally invented it and it's continued on from week-to-week and from class-to-class. For years! Because a handful of the school-age kids in this program were "Musical Kids graduates," they immediately did this! In fact, they were super into it. Seriously ya'll, this was awesome! I am SO glad I reluctantly agreed it it!

Then we moved on to the crafting, which, again, I can take absolutely ZERO credit for, other than, I guess, agreeing to it. This craft was Jen's baby. It was astronauts with photos of the kids faces (which she took of them as they arrived and had our clerk, Mary, print out while I did the storytime) glued on black paper that she spritzed with watered down white paint to make a cool, starry effect. I feel unqualified to discuss the prepping of this in detail but it looks like kind of a lot of work, honestly. Lots of cutting and spritzing. 

Here are the kids decorating their astronaut selves:

 

As the crafting wrapped up (when there was about 5-minutes left in the program), Jen ushered the kids over to the astronaut snack tasting table, where I was waiting with samples of different astronaut fruits for them to try. Fun fact: We meant to order ice cream! Either I messed up or Amazon messed up, but either way, we got fruit instead! Luckily, it worked out and was, possibly, even more fun since we got FIVE different types of fruit instead of ONE type of ice cream. We sampled cinnamon apples, peaches, bananas, grapes, and strawberries.

The consensus: The bananas and peaches were the stand-out faves; nobody liked the grapes except for me; the strawberries were decent but you can get the same thing in cereal; and the apples were "fine." 

Now, here are some of the finished crafts:

What worked least: I think the timing got a little rushed at the end but it wound up not being a big deal. Ideally, I think we would have wanted the tasting to go on a little longer, but in reality, 5-minutes was actually plenty of time for them to take a bite of each thing and discuss it a bit. Probably, 10 minutes would have actually been too long anyway.

What worked best: Rocketship Run! SO MUCH FUN.