Storytime Favorites: Way Up High in the Apple Tree

Have you got a go-to fingerplay? One that when you get the slightest opportunity to use, you do it? This is mine.

Way up high in the apple tree (stretch arms up high)
I saw two apples looking at me (hold up two fingers)
I shook that tree as hard as I could (shake your arms vigorously)
Down came the apples… (make a downward motion)
And mmm, they were good! (smile and rub stomach)

I've had it in my collection for such a long time that I forget where I got it from. For some reason, the arm-shaking thing really gets the kids grinning. Maybe it's because I really get into it, maybe it's because most of the other movements I do involve feet and legs and this is a chance to shake some wiggles out. I don't know. But I do enjoy it, and so do they.

Storytime Favorites: Mouse Paint

Ellen Stoll Walsh's Mouse Paint, the tale of three little mice who find paint to play with and discover color combinations along the way, was one of my early favorite storytime books. I love the color combinations, I love the clean art, and I love hiding from the cat. As you might guess, our storytime kids had heard this as a book a number of times. I'd been thinking about creating a flannel board somehow, but there was a more exciting option.

One of my staff members had mentioned this kit, inherited from a prior children's librarian. I always thought we should dig it out and try it on our kids, but I never have. When we selected "colors" as a storytime theme, I decided to go ahead and just do it. And guys, it's genius.


What you need:
Six plastic cups
One large water bottle
Food Coloring
White tape (optional)
Mouse die-cuts (optional)
and of course a copy of the book.

To prep, wrap  a thin strip of tape around the base of the plastic cups and tape a mouse to the outside of the cup. (As you can see, I didn't get the chance to add mice. But I want to next time.)

Before storytime, put one or two drops of food coloring in three of the cups (red, yellow, or blue), and leave the other cups empty. Do not fill of the cups with water yet.

I set the whole thing up on a small moving table we're fortunate enough to have. I pushed it against the wall behind me until we were ready for this story, then pulled it out so the kids could see.

When the first mouse jumps into the red puddle, pour water from the bottle into the cup with red food coloring. Wow - magic! Kids see clear water suddenly transforming into red water.

As you read, do this with the other colors, so you have one cup each of red, yellow, and blue. But what about the three empty cups?

In the book, the red mouse jumps into the yellow puddle and dances around until he gets orange, of course. The other mice follow suit with different puddles, creating the other secondary colors.

You can recreate this by mixing your colored water in the empty cups. Get the kids to predict which color you'll get with each mixture. It's worth noting, too, that as long as you put enough food coloring in and have perfectly clear cups, the colors are beautiful and jewel-like. Love it.

Some things to note: It's a good idea to run through this a couple of times to work on timing and water amounts before doing it for real. Also, in storytime, I was juggling the book, the water, and the cups. If you're lucky enough to have an assistant (an intern, a volunteer, or even a helpful parent) they could take over the water and the cups as you read. Or you could type up the story on a piece of paper and read from that, but I do love Walsh's illustrations.

We have the whole kit (cups, water bottle, food coloring) saved in a bag for when we want to use it next. And we will be using it again.

Storytime Favorites: Color Pockets

Like most children's librarians, I inherited a treasure trove of odd things from past librarians. This prop is one that sat on the shelf in my storytime closet until one day I was poking around for a movement that would work with a "colors" theme.

My color pocket consists of five crayons on vari-colored cardstock, with a cardstock "pocket" made of two pieces taped together and a space at the top, and everything laminated for sturdiness. Surprisingly, all the crayons fit in the pocket quite nicely.

But how exactly to use them? A little Googling produced the idea of the "Color Pokey."

You put your purple in, you put your purple out

You put your purple in and you shake it all about. 

You do the Hokey Pokey and you turn yourself around

That's what it's all about!

 (continue on with all the other colors)

The webpage I found suggested colored streamers, but I liked this better. There was some lag time in between verses as kids found and fished out the next color, but they didn't mind. 

I want to use this again, and I also want to figure out other ways of using it. Thoughts?

Got Kleenex?

Okay, I'm posting this Ounce of Prevention ad not only because it will bring tears to your eyes (WAAAAAAAH), but also because of its focus on early childhood education, including--you guessed it--reading together as a means of cementing family bonds.



Thanks to Pima County Public Library's Facebook feed for the heads-up.

Sing to Your Baby

A tweet from @abbylibrarian alerted me to this unspeakably adorable video of YA author John Green singing to his four-ish-month-old. (Though I must say, for a kid I'm convinced was born in January, that one certainly has plentiful hair.)



Besides being cute and hilarious, it brings up one of my favorite pre-literacy tips, and that's singing to your baby.

There are oodles of kiddie CDs, and they're marvelous. Ella Jenkins and Hap Palmer and my own personal childhood favorite, Raffi. It's all out there. But when you sing to, or with, your children, it's a million miles removed from simply popping in a CD. It's all the fun and benefit of music, plus opportunities to cuddle and be silly and get face time, and teach them by example that music is not only something you consume, it's something you produce and take joy in. Letting them make their own music later with rattles, drums, and, yes, singing, has a host of benefits, some of which are mentioned in this article: 5 Scientific Ways That Music Benefits Infants and Toddlers.

How does this all tie into literacy? Words are literacy. Letting children hear words, how they match up with other words, how a melody breaks them down into syllables, makes them familiar to a baby brain that will soon start assembling its own toolbox of speech.. From "Hush Little Baby" to "Hey Jude," songs also tend to use wider vocabulary than regular speech, exposing your baby to even more words.

Listen, you may not know all the lyrics, and you may not have a concert-ready voice. You may not even be karaoke-ready. But to your little one, you're Mommy or Daddy, and that's a bigger superstar than Lady Gaga or Justin Bieber. You might even give Elmo a run for his money.

Keep Your Eye on This One

I'm easing back into this blogging thing. Stuff has been going on in my life, mainly the acquisition and moving-in-to of a condo. Yay me! But it means there's less time for blogging. Sadness. That's all going on right now, but there's no time like the present to get back in the blogging habit.

I'm linking to the start of a valuable series over at Booklights. Written by Jen Robinson from an old, popular post at her own blog, it's called Tips for Growing Bookworms, and she kicks things off by recommending ways to read aloud. Check it out, and keep an eye on this series.

It's Not Always Easy

Over at Booklights, Susan talks about some of the struggles involved in reading aloud to her son.

When he was younger, he wouldn't hold still for anything, let alone a book. He wiggled. He squirmed. He was totally uninterested. It was tough on a parent like me who had been waiting for years until she had kids of her own to read to. It was hard not to feel like I was doing something wrong.

All kids develop differently, even when it comes to reading aloud.

She goes on to give a few pointers and reassurances. Don't miss the comments, where some other parents share their own travails and advice.

Language Development, AKA Cute Baby Video!

YA author Lauren McLaughlin recently posted a video of herself and her new daughter, babbling gleefully at each other.

Okay, okay, it's a great excuse for an adorable video, but Lauren makes a good point in her post about the basics of language. Sure, it's a cute baby and we all go awwwwwww, but important things are happening in Addie's little baby brain. Reading doesn't happen in a vacuum, but builds directly on early language development.

Her other good point is how exciting it all is. For baby, for mom and dad, this is the most amazing babble in the history of the world.

Have you babbled at your baby today?

What's in it for Mom and Dad?

In literacy circles, we talk a lot about the benefits of reading aloud for kids (which, make no mistake, are legion). But recently, Andrea Ross of the kidlit podcast Just One More Book!! wrote a piece at the Children's Book Review about what she gets from reading to her small ones. Here's a sample:

Read-aloud time is a time to connect. I can’t cook, gab or plan while I’m reading and any of my own grumblings, nagging or less than stellar moods are put aside. What I’m reading, in these cases, barely matters. They want to know that I’m there for them and reading aloud lets me show them I am.

All together now: awwwww. Click the link for more.

Proud Reader

One of my favorite non-library, non-book blogs is Dooce. She posted a video recently of her five-year-old daughter reading The Cat in the Hat aloud for the camera. (Sorry, folks--I can't embed.)

The kid's a good reader, but what got me was the expression of pride on her face right around 0:45. Check me out, y'all. I'm reading the crap out of this book.

Child Prodigy (or maybe just a great memory)

I got this video from Fuse #8's Top 100 Picture Books countdown. It was attached to the Knuffle Bunny post (#10, as if you aren't following it rabidly yourself).



Just in case you ever thought your two (and-almost-a-half!) year old wasn't listening the 56,923 times you've read their favorite book. Watch how he occasionally begins to recite, then pauses and carefully turns to the correct page. And how he pronounces "school."

I joke, but this is part of print awareness, a pre-reading skill--associating a particular piece of narration with a particular page. The book/narrative, while it can be viewed as a whole, has specific portions that correspond to specific events. But the book is still a whole. Whoa. The mind, she is blown.

Plus, the video is so dang cute. Awww, I just gotta go watch it again.

Play With Books

One thing some parents are surprised to learn is that children's librarians advocate playing with books. They're not meant to be held captive on the shelf, primly aloof until it's time for the mandated twenty minutes, and then put hastily away in favor of the toy bucket. So what if that board book is gummed to pieces, or that copy of Dr. Seuss starts to shed pages like a collie in springtime? Regardless of what your elementary school librarian may have taught you, books are not sacred objects to be preserved for future generations. They're meant to be shared and loved now.

Infants, toddlers, and even older kids learn by playing, and everything is a possible toy. (Any mom who's pried a spatula and a pot out of their noisy four-year-old's hands before Mommy's head explodes can attest to that.) Making books part of playtime is a way of making them familiar and beloved objects.

Chronicles of an Infant Bibliophile recently posted a great list of some of the ways to play with books, arranged by age order. Have a look, and maybe try it with your own budding bibliophile.

Picking Books for Your Babies

One of the newest inhabitants of my Google Reader is Chronicles of an Infant Bibliophile, written by the mother of a sixteen-month-old book lover. She relates the books she reads to her little one, and his reactions. It's the parent perspective that, as a librarian, I'm always looking for.

Anyway, in this post, she assembles some good suggestions for other parents trying to pick books for their munchkins. I wanted to pick my favorite to sample here, but they're all so good that I'll just send you straight on over.

I Want To Tattoo This Somewhere on My Body

Failing that, I'd like to hand it out to every new parent I see.

Much-beloved and very familiar, but always worth reading again, here they are: 13 Ways to Raise a Non-Reader. Recently, the authors also wrote (for teachers) "How to Raise Non-Writers and Non-Artists."

Thanks to Jen Robinson for reminding me of this old favorite.

Read Together 2009

Here's one for all you parents out there.

Jennifer over at the Snapshot blog challenges us to Read Together. Set yourself a goal for reading with your kids in the month of April and try to meet it throughout the month. She suggests expanding your reading time, trying new genres, or making an effort to read with older kids.

By the way, I'm posting this on my picture book/early literacy blog, but she also would like to see parents reading to their middle graders and even teenagers. I think many parents think these ages can read for themselves, so they wouldn't be willing to listen to Mom and Dad's voice. But just because they're older doesn't mean reading together isn't still a good time. You might have to talk them into it.

Credit for the find goes to Jen Robinson, of course.

Forget the Jellybeans

In addition to being Easter, tomorrow is Drop Everything and Read Day. How about tucking a book into your child's Easter basket? Or hiding a coupon good for one super-special-just-you-and-Mom/Dad trip to your child's favorite bookstore in one of those plastic eggs?

Just something to think about.

Now if you'll excuse me, I've got a chocolate rabbit to devour.

Read Indeed

My Google Reader unearthed this.

Nine-year-old Maria Keller started Read Indeed in 2007, hoping to get one million books into the hands of children by her eighteenth birthday (2018, in case you're counting). So far she's got just over ten thousand, passing them on to various charitable organizations. You can donate or suggest an organization by emailing her at readindeedforkids@yahoo.com.

In fact, this sounds like something for the Kidlitosphere--perhaps as part of the Third Annual Kidlitosphere Conference? Cogitate!

I love this idea, and while it undoubtedly gets cuteness/human interest points for being the idea of a nine-year-old, it also sends out the message that kids care as much about literacy as grown-ups do. Fabuloso.

Because a Book is the Best Thing You Can Have on a Plane

Oh, now this I loooooooooooove.

Reading is Fundamental has paired up with US Airways for the Read With Kids Challenge. If you log your time spent reading with the little ones, you can Win Stuff. Disneyworld (among others) was mentioned. How cool!

It just started on the 1st and goes through June 30th. This almost makes me consider forgiving US Airways for that one time they lost my baggage somewhere on the East Coast.

Share a Story, Shape a Future

So remember how Jen Robinson wanted to get a National Day of Reading Aloud going? This looks like a good start. It's a great blog tour, not with an author, but with an idea.

The "Share a Story, Shape a Future" blog tour starts March 9, with articles from teachers, parents, librarians, and other literacy fans on such topics as Raising Readers, Selecting Reading Material, and Reading Aloud. Check out this post at Book Dads for more information.

Read-Aloud news continues

Jen seems to have gotten something started with this Read-Aloud campaign of hers. Stop by her blog for a roundup of reactions, ideas, and links.