Storytime - Empathy

Last month I decided to do a storytime with a theme that is very important to me - empathy. As a parent, I feel there is no better lesson I can teach my child than to treat others with caring and kindness. However, if any of you have parented a four year old boy before, you know this is easier said than done. I used these books to teach the lesson as best I could.

The first book I read was Boy + Bot by Ame Dyckman. I really love this book. It's a sweet story but funny, too and perfect for little boys. The story is about a boy who finds a robot in the woods but believes the robot and is sick and attempts to nurse him back to health. The robot later tries to do the same for the boy. Very cute story about caring for others, friendship and reciprocity.

Next I read The True Story of the Three Little Pigs by Jon Scieszka. In retrospect, this story is probably a bit grim for younger kids, although none of them seemed bothered by it. This is the story of the Three Little Pigs, as told by the misunderstood "Big Bad" Wolf, who is a victim of sensationalism by the media. This is actually more graphic than the original story, but it offers an interesting perspective for kids - there are 2 sides to every story.

The next book I read was One by Kathryn Otoshi. This book is about how to stop bullying and the importance of standing up for ourselves and our friends. With the added benefit of teaching colors and numbers, the book focuses on the power of ONE - what one person can do to help another. Great book, great lesson. One of the kindergartners at storytime told me they read it in his class at school.
The last book I read (after craft time) was Hurty Feelings by Helen Lester. This is a book about a hippo who may be considered a bit of a cry baby. The book is humorous, with a focus on understanding the hippo's feelings. The kids enjoyed it (especially the dramatic crying bits).



There were lots of ideas I kicked around for craft time, but I think one of the most important ways to create empathy is to listen and get to know other people. So I asked the kids to pair up with someone they didn't know well and "interview" the person. This required some help from parents for the younger kids, but the kids asked each other what colors the other liked, what their favorite things are, etc. The kids each then created a craft for each other based on that discussion. Ideally, this would work better with older kids, but its never too early to teach kids to listen and how to get to know each other better. Here's a couple pictures from craft time.

I'm hoping to explore this theme with another storytime in the near future.

Storytime - Sea Creatures

A couple weeks ago, I had my second storytime at Fenton Street Market. We changed locations and utilized a tent to try and minimize the heat and sun. At one point or another, we had about a dozen kids there, which was a good turnout. This storytime had a theme about some of my favorite things - sea creatures!

The first book I "read" was Flotsam by David Wiesner. I know, I know, I read this one all the time, but I LOVE IT! It's a great story, the pictures are gorgeous and fun, and it gets the kids engaged in the story and using their imaginations. It really is my favorite children's book.

The second book I read was I'm the Biggest Thing in the Ocean by Kevin Sherry. What a fun book! This one is about a giant squid who compares himself to various sea creatures, until he encounters one that is bigger than he is. Even the parents were laughing at this book, which is always a good sign. We all really enjoyed this one.

Before our last book, I had a fun activity for the kids. I had a small bucket filled with a layer of sand and a layer of blue plastic pony beads (to give the impression of water). In between the layers, I had hidden various (plastic) sea creatures. I had the kids close their eyes and reach in the bucket to find a sea creature (which they got to keep). They all enjoyed this (even the bigger kids).

The last book I read was Commotion in the Ocean by Giles Andreae. I hate to be negative on this blog...the purpose is certainly not to put down any authors or books. However, this is one of the few books I've read that I didn't like (certainly not for reading aloud). I got this book for storytime after reading positive things about it but it didn't work for me at all. The first issue was that it has a strange cadence to it...I could not pick up the appropriate cadence to get the book to rhyme. The other issue was that is used the word "dumb." I always change words like "stupid", "dumb" or "fat" when reading aloud, but its hard for me to understand why an author would include negative words in a children's book to begin with. This book does have cute pictures and the kids loved shouting out the names of the sea creatures on each page.

For arts and crafts time, I got a few different books of Dover stencils ,some blue construction paper, some paint and foam brushes and let the kids make their own underwater pictures. This was fairly messy, but we were using washable paint and I put newspaper down to minimize the mess. I love to see how creative some of the kids are...

Like this picture on the left, where the little girl added bubbles into her picture of seahorses. Love it!
And here's a shot of my boy shopping at the market. He got this foam sword - he LOVES it!

Storytime - Father's Day

I wanted to do a special storytime for Father's Day and I decided to do it on Father's Day so moms could get the kids out of the house and entertained while dad relaxed. I had a smaller turnout than I expected (Sundays can be tricky) but we still had a good time.

The first book I read was The Daddy Book by Todd Parr. I've mentioned before that I love Todd Parr books...they are all about celebrating diversity and acceptance, with silly pictures added. My son loves them, too.

The next book I read was Just Me and My Dad by Mercer Mayer. This is one of the "Little Critter" books, which my husband and I both remember from when we were children. The language is very simple, but my son loves all of these books and this one was about special dad/son time, so its a cute story.
The next book I read was I Love My Daddy by Sebastian Braun. Again, this was a very simple book, but the illustrations were gorgeous - dreamy, ethereal pictures of an adorable bear and his Daddy. The kids enjoyed the pictures in this one a lot.
For crafts, I had the kids decorate picture frames for their dads. I had paint and some "dad" stickers - sports stickers, monster trucks, etc. They came out cute.

This is my son's minimalist frame for his Daddy.

The kids asked me to read another story after their crafts, and I can't refuse requests to read! I read When Dads Don't Grow Up by Marjorie Blain Parker. This is a very cute book - all about the ways in which dads are fun and relate to kids. The kids could relate to some of the dad-behavior in the book, so they enjoyed it.

I'm sure all the dads enjoyed their Father's Day gifts!

One of Our Favorites...

As you can imagine, my son has accumulated a decent size library of books. Every night, I let him choose what he wants me to read at bedtime. He generally picks a different book (or two...or three...or four) every night. Tonight, his pick was The Crown on Your Head by Nancy Tillman. This is one of my very favorite books. The author also wrote On the Night You Were Born and both books have a beautiful theme - celebrating each child as a unique gift. The Crown on Your Head also recognizes the special qualities that every child has (all have their own "crowns"). The illustrations are amazingly beautiful - ethereal pictures of children living in a fantasy world with exotic animals as playmates. I just love it! For Christmas last year, I gave some of my son's special friends a copy of the book along with a crown of their own. I loved giving gifts that said "you are special and you are loved".

Storytime - Eric Carle Stories

This week was my first storytime in Novel Places new location (upstairs from where it was previously). It was great - there's a dedicated room for the kids books and a table already set up for crafts. Plus, the kids loved looking out the windows from the second floor!

The first book I read was a new one that Marino and I found at Fenton Street Market called Slowly, Slowly, Slowly Said the Sloth. I hadn't heard of it before but we both love it. The story is about an adorable sloth and his slow ways. The sloth gets some insults from other jungle creatures but he explains that he is just being himself. Its a quick read and a cute story.

Next, I read The Very Hungry Caterpillar. We had recently read this one (during our "Bugs" storytime), but its a classic! The kids actually read it to me this time, which was very cute. I love to see children excited about reading!

I gave the kids some choices of what to read next and they wanted to hear Baby Bear, Baby Bear, What Do You See?. All the "What Do You See" books are so fun - the kids love seeing the animals and guessing what's next (and remembering the names at the end of the book).

I let the kids pick the next book and the wanted to hear The Grouchy Ladybug. This is another one we read during our "bugs" storytime, but the kids LOVE this one and are always very animated about the more threatening animals. Plus, I love how the ladybug is knocked into shape at the end (literally and figuratively).

For craft time, I let the kids pick out a picture from The World of Eric Carle Coloring Book to decorate. The book has great pictures from various Eric Carle books and gorgeous stickers, too. I had lots of crayons, colored pencils, pom poms and feathers to let the kids be creative in decorating their animals and bugs. It's always fun to see them express themselves in a creative way - everyone's pictures turn out so different.

Storytime - Moms

I had a great time last weekend doing my first storytime at Fenton Street Market. Since Saturday was the day before Mother's Day, and the market is a great place to pick out gifts, the theme was Moms. There were some older girls (age 7 or 8) there and it was fun to have them participate - they were all very sweet and articulate.

I started out asking the kids who had the best mom in the world (all of them, even the adults, raised their hands). Then I asked the kids to tell me something they love about their mom. The responses were all sweet, ranging from "I like the way she gives me hugs and kisses" to "She lets me have dessert for dinner." I don't think there's anything more pure in the world than the love between a mother and her children.

The first book I read was The Mommy Book by Todd Parr. I love Todd Parr books - he has a great way of explaining things to kids (The Peace Book is one of our favorites) and the rudimentary illustrations are fun. The kids enjoyed this one, and definitely recognized bits of their own mommies in the book.

Next I read If Mom Had 3 Arms by Karen Kaufman Orloff. My son loves this one; this is one of our favorite bedtime stories. The kids likes this one, too, although they said the multi-armed mom was a little strange looking. The story fantasizes what if the old "I only have two arms!" mom-ism weren't the case.

The last book I read was Owl Babies by Martin Waddell. This is one of my favorites, mainly because the baby owls are so adorable! The story is about 3 baby owls who wake to find their mother missing and they worry about whether she will return. Of course, she soon arrives - moms always come back! It's a sweet book and the kids related to the emotions of the owls.

After stories, we worked on special crafts for mom. Since this was my first time at Fenton Street Market and I wasn't sure what to expect in terms of ages, surfaces, etc, I wanted to keep it simple. I had foam hearts, foam flowers, foam letters and foam paint for the kids to decorate hearts for their moms. It went over well but, note to self: foam paint is messy!

Cathy Burt is a used children's book vendor at Fenton Street Market. She is very passionate about children's literacy and books in general. Marino and I got some perfect condition hardcover used books from her for a great price!

My friend Megan, Fenton Street Market's Manager, took a few pictures of me reading to the kids.

Look at all those sweet faces!

That afternoon, Olivia Mancini played at the market. My boy just loved her and told me "I just want to stay here and listen."

I'm looking forward to going back to Fenton Street Market to do another storytime next month (and visiting the market to shop!).

Storytime - Bugs

My most recent storytime theme was bugs. There's soooo many fun stories, songs and crafts centering around bugs; I actually had a hard time narrowing down what to use.

I started out by asking the kids to share their names and their favorite bugs. Next we sang "The Itsy Bitsy Spider", which even the older kids seemed to like (the hand movements make it interactive and fun).

The first book we read was Bugs, Bugs, Bugs by Bob Barner. This was my first time reading this book, but it was perfect - it covered characteristics of various bugs, it rhymed and had cute pictures.

The next book I read was one of my son's favorites, The Grouchy Ladybug. This is an Eric Carle book and very similar to The Very Hungry Caterpillar (but a bit edgier). I was surprised that my son was the only child there who knew the story, but they all really enjoyed it. The premise of the book is that a very crabby ladybug approaches various threatening animals and asks them if they want to fight, but when they agree, she dismisses them with "you're too small" reply. That is until a humpback whale puts her in her place (literally and figuratively). Its a fun book, with great illustrations.
Next, we played the "Mystery Box" game, which is inspired by my librarian friend's blog. This is always a big hit with the kids; even if the "guessing" part is easy, they love to see what's inside the box. The week's mystery box was filled with Melissa and Doug Sunny Patch Bugs (which are also a lot of fun to bury in the sandbox and have my son find them). This game was a bit of a challenge, though. I'm not sure how much younger kids know about the characteristics of different bugs, so there were a lot of wrong guesses before we got the right ones, but ideally that means the kids learned something (I can hope, right?).

The last book I read was The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle. Even the parents enjoyed hearing this story, that many remember from their own childhood. All the kids knew the story but still got excited at the end when the beautiful butterfly appeared.

This week's craft involved making these fun little bugs. I gave the kids the option to use finger paint and use their finger prints as the bug's bodies or to use dot markers for the bodies. Most of them used both. The "bugs" below are the ones I made as examples. The kids seemed to really enjoy making the bugs (and making a mess).