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).

New Favorite Bedtime Book - Sea of Bath

I always love to share when I find great children's books. This book, Sea of Bath, by Bob Logan, is my boy's new favorite bedtime book. He insists I read it at least three times before we go to bed every night! It's a fun, quick read with great illustrations. In the book, the Captain ponders the strange elements of his "sea" (a child's bathtub). Very cute book - great for bedtime (the Captain falls asleep at the end of the story).

Storytime - Visual Storytelling

This week's theme was visual storytelling/picture books. I was happy to "read" some David Wiesner picture books.  The first two were wordless.  The last one, Art and Max, has some words but the pictures are much more important to the story than the words.  I stumbled upon these books at the public library with my son one day and fell in love.  The pictures are AMAZING and the stories, told so clearly by the illustrations, are whimsical and thought-provoking.

I asked the kids to tell me what they saw in the pictures and we would sort of summarize the story as it went on.  The first book we read was Flotsam.  The story is about a young boy who finds and underwater camera at the beach, develops the film inside, and finds all kinds of amazing pictures of what goes on under the sea. They were very excited about the story and what they saw in the pictures. If you haven't read this book yet, get it!  It's really a treasure!

The second book we read, also by David Wiesner, was Tuesday.  This was definitely the favorite of the day and perhaps one of the best received of all the books I've read since I started storytime.  They thought this book was hysterical!  The adorable illustrations tell the tale of one late Tuesday night, when frogs are able to fly around town on their lily pads.  Mishaps and hilarity ensue.  Every page I turned the kids would explode with giggles and point out what they saw.  The kids loved it and I loved seeing their reaction to it.

As I've mentioned in other posts, I like to be fluid with my storytime, and its small enough to accommodate the kids' wishes, to an extent. One of the regular attendees asked me to read her favorite book, Bently & Egg by William Joyce, since its illustrations reminded her of the last book we would be reading (Art & Max). Honestly, this book was a little strange to me, there was a lot going on and some of the language choices were unusual, but the plot was cute (frog must save a bunny egg) and the kids listened intently to the relatively long story.

 The last book I read was Art & Max. The plot is a bit complicated to explain with words...but one lizard attempts to paint another grouchy lizard with initially disastrous results, but beauty reins by the end.  Its a fun story and the illustrations and use of color are just breath taking. The kids liked the story and got very excited over the pictures and the different colors in the book.

All the David Wiesner books are among my very favorite children's books and I really enjoyed sharing them with the kids.  He has authored a number of other picture books and I'm looking forward to incorporating them into another storytime.

Normally, I do a craft after reading, but this week I decided we should play charades, keeping with the theme of visual storytelling.  I was surprised - none of the kids had ever played before (even the older kids...up to age 6 1/2).  There was a bit of a learning curve, but they loved it and didn't want to stop playing. Initially, I was giving them ideas to act out (reading a book, sleeping, riding a bike, walking a dog) but once they got the hang of it, they started thinking up their own ideas to act out.  The kids would have been happy to play charades all day!  I am going to think of ways to incorporate the game into other storytime themes, since it went over so well. After sitting through a few books, the kids are definitely ready to get up and moving out of their seats.

Storytime - Springtime

This week I wanted to talk about Spring, although here in Maryland, it's felt like Spring for the past month! I asked the kids to tell me something special that happens in Spring when they introduce themselves. They said cute things, like baby birds are born, flowers grow, the Easter Bunny comes. Of course, my son said that the Grinch comes in Spring. Poor guy. Easter Bunny, the Grinch, its all the same :)

The first book I read this week was Spring is Here by Will Hillenbrand. This is from a series of stories about a big bear and his woodland friends (a mole is the other main character of this story). In this story, Mole tries different tactics to wake the bear out of his hibernation slumber until he finds bears sweet spot (and tires himself in the process). The kids thought this one was very funny and they all enjoyed it (in fact, my son and I reenacted the story later that day).
The second book I read was And Then It's Spring by Julie Folgiano and Erin Stead. Wow, the kids LOVED this book! Essentially, the book is about the long wait for plants to grow, and imagined perils to the plants in the meantime. The illustrations are gorgeous and the kids loved combing through the pictures to identify what was growing and all the silly things happening in the pictures. In fact, they spent the whole story huddled around me pointing to things in the book. It was adorable; I love to see the kids get excited over a book!

I had planned to read a third book (about the Easter bunny) but it didn't arrive in time and reading the second book took significantly longer than I expected due to the kids' enthusiasm, so it worked out for the best.

This week's craft I had bought on sale at Michael's a few months ago with this theme in mind. The kit came with everything needed to make 10 each of 2 different crafts (ladybug and daisy). The kids enjoyed making these (all they required more glue than I expected) and were happy to take them home.