Build a Better ME

Outcome: Participants will focus on the self and be introduced to self-calming concepts and methods.

See also:

All About Me themes in Infant, Toddler, Preschooler chapters Chapter 1, The Hero Inside Me, Every Hero Has a Story 2015 Early Literacy Manual

Try it again: In January or early in a story time program cycle.

Read:

All of Me by Molly Bang

I Like Me by Nancy Carlson

If You Were a Dog by Jamie A. Swenson

If You’re Happy and You Know It by David A. Carter (Pop up book)

The Pigeon Needs a Bath by Mo Willems

Ten Little Fingers and Ten Little Toes by Mem Fox

Waiting by Kevin Henkes

You are a Lion! And Other Fun Yoga Poses by Tae-Eun Yoo

Sing, Talk, Play, Write:

Sing:

I’m a Little Popcorn (Sung to I’m a Little Tea Pot)

I’m a little popcorn in a pot.

Heat me up and watch me pop.

When I get all fat and white, I’m done

Popping corn is lots of Fun! (Everyone gets down very low for the first part of the song. At the end jump way up high together on the word FUN)

Created by Shawn Brommer, 11/16, South Central Library System, page 1

Art Activity: Fill your plate (page 105, 2017 Build a Better World Early Literacy Manual)

Distribute paper plates and crayons and encourage children to draw their favorite foods. Alternatively, provide catalogs, magazines, paper in a variety of colors and scissors or glue so that children and caregivers can cut out food items and glue them to the plate. Encourage caregivers to talk with children about what their plates contain.

Go to: www.choosemyplate.gov/health-and-nutrition-information for:

Links to food charts Information for parents Growth charts Healthy recipes

Art Activity: Gingerbread boy & girl activity (Potential Teen volunteer activity)

Ask teens to trace gingerbread boy & girl cookie cutters with crayons on light-colored-paper. Pass out a traced drawing to each child and:

Re-tell All of Me or If You’re Happy and You Know It and ask children to color the body parts mentioned in the books.

Ask children to decorate the drawing with crayons – make the drawing look like you, a family member, a friend, someone you would like to meet.

Ask children to practice making lines, shapes or even letters on their drawing

Display the shapes on a bulletin board, hang up in the library, use for display borders, etc.

Dress up: Provide dress up clothes after the story time ends; provide clothes that offer children opportunities to button, wrap, zip, etc. Invite children to play dress up and make clean-up part of the experience. Sort by color, size, fabric, etc.

Take photos and post to your library’s social media pages and describe the early literacy or math elements that children experience in your post.

Message for parents: Children who feel comfortable in their world and proud of their accomplishments have the primary tools for learning. Being aware of and comfortable with one’s self is a first step in learning about the external world.

Created by Shawn Brommer, 11/16, South Central Library System, page 2

Building Blocks

Outcome: To help children recognize concepts, practice early math skills, and begin to identify that large items are constructed of smaller, distinct parts.

See also:

Build a Better World and Construction Zone chapters, 2017 Early Literacy SLP Manual Playing With Blocks handout on page 21. 2014 Early Literacy SLP Manual, Fizz, Boom, Read

Try it again: When you need to put on a last-minute program or at the beginning of a storytime series.

Read:

Block City by Robert Lewis StevensonBusy Building Book by Sue TarskyCool City by Sean KenneyGoodnight, Goodnight Construction Site by Sherri Duskey RinkerJack the Builder, by Stuart MurphyJob Site by Nathan ClementSing, Talk, Play, Write:

Set out blocks of all sizes and encourage children to create structures.

Teen volunteer activity: Have teens cut tangrams out of paper, felt, fabric, sandpaper, magnet sheets, etc. Hand out tangrams to children and storytime and encourage them to create their own forms.

Teen volunteer activity: Bring in pre-cut slices of small wooden branches with bark still attached. Teens sand and smooth the surfaces and sides to create natural round blocks. Hand the natural blocks out at storytime and encourage children to build their own structures.

Created by Shawn Brommer, 11/16, South Central Library System, page 3

Message for parents: When children build with blocks and play with shapes they are building early math and geometry skills. Block play is important work!

Bright, Beautiful World

Outcome: Participants will be introduced to concepts of color and light, with an emphasis on the sense of sight.

See also:

Build a Better World themes in Infant, Toddler, Preschooler chapters Chapter 1- Color/Light, Fizz, Boom, 2014 Read Early Literacy Manual

Try it again: In early winter, as the days shorten and the sun sets earlier and rises later in the day

Read:

A Child’s Good Morning Book by Margaret Wise Brown

Color Dance by Ann Jonas

Color Zoo by Lois Ehlert

Good Night, World by Willa Perlman

Kitten’s First Full Moon by Kevin Henkes

Night Light by Nicholas Blechman

Planting a Rainbow by Lois Ehlert

Sing, Talk, Play, Write:

Re-tell Planting a Rainbow as a flannel board storyCut basic flower and plant shapes out of colored felt. After you read the book, go back to the pages that introduce the colors and plants and re-tell this part. Ask child volunteers to help you put plant shapes on the flannel board.

The Earth goes around the Sun - Montessori birthday recognition song(Sung to the tune of The Farmer in the Dell)

The Earth goes around the sun, the Earth goes around the sun, round and round and round and round, the earth goes round the sun.

Created by Shawn Brommer, 11/16, South Central Library System, page 4

Place a yellow paper sun in the middle of the floor. (Or a yellow scarf, ball, candle, anything bright and sunny.)

Give each participant a blue circle cut out of paper to represent the earth. (Or a blue scarf, blue marble, blue yarn, etc. to represent the earth.)

As you sing the song, children form a circle and move around the sun. Sing the song 4 – 5 times. Have children sit down near the sun when the number of times the song is sung

represents their ages. (i.e., two-year-olds sit down after the song is sang twice, three-year-olds, three times.)

Recorded music to play:

I’m Being Followed by a Moon Shadow (Cat Stevens) Lovely Day (Bill Withers or Elizabeth Mitchell) May There always be Sunshine (traditional, Jim Gill) Rocky Road (Peter, Paul and Mary or Elizabeth Mitchell & Dan Zanes) Sunny Day (Sesame Street theme song) You are my Sunshine (traditional)

Art and other activities

Matching game: Make a color matching game. Use construction paper, card stock, paint samples, scrap book paper, etc., glued to larger pieces of white paper. (Teen volunteers – make the game pieces.)

Light activity:Shine a flashlight through clear and translucent items to demonstrate transparency. Then shine a light through solid items to demonstrate opaqueness.

Mindfulness breathing activity:At the end of storytime dim the lights in the room (if possible) and ask children to sit or lie quietly on the floor. Practice taking 3 deep breaths together. Include visualization recommendations such as, “breathe in through your nose when I say the word “Sun” and breathe out of your mouth when I say the word “Shine.”

Message for parents: When we point out the differences between light and dark we introduce basic science skills to our children. Being aware of our breathing helps children settle down and feel calm.

Created by Shawn Brommer, 11/16, South Central Library System, page 5

Build a Better World

Outcome: To help children begin to understand that they are a part of the larger world and that their choices, behavior, and words affect others around them.

See also:

Build a Better World themes in Infant, Toddler, Preschooler chapters

Try it again: In November or during other times in the year in which you are discussing gratitude and thankfulness.

Read:

All of Me!: A Book of Thanks by Molly BangCan You Say Peace? by Karen KatzThe Earth Book by Todd ParrFive for a Little One by Chris RaschkaHands by Lois EhlertIf You Plant a Seed by Kadir NelsonLola Plants a Garden by Anna McQuinnYo! Yes? by Chris Raschka

Sing, Talk, Play, Write:

Hand Stamp Postcards (from pg. 31 in the 2017 Early Literacy SLP manual)

Pre-cut card stock paper to post card size. Using washable, child-safe, jumbo stamp pads, place children’s hand or feet on the stamp pads and then on the postcard. (Have plenty of wet wipes or damp paper towels on hand). Alternatively, trace child’s hand or feet onto the postcard. Provide stamps and encourage parents to write or draw a note to send to grandparents or friends who live out of town.

Examples here: https://klmpeace.wordpress.com/2013/05/18/baby-storytime-art/or search online for “Read Sing Play Storytime Postcard”

Created by Shawn Brommer, 11/16, South Central Library System, page 6

Sing: Make New Friends

Make new friends,But Keep the old, One is silverAnd the other’s gold.

Circle’s round,it has no end,that’s how longI want to be your friend.

Pass out crayons and paper. Repeat the song a few times asking kids to draw big circles on the paper. Challenge kids to reverse the direction that they draw their circles.

Whole body artTrace children’s entire bodies on a roll of large paper and cut out. (Ask teen volunteers to help with the tracing and cutting.) Provide crayons, paper, stickers, etc. and ask children to decorate their traced bodies. If you have the space, display a few of the drawings in the library.

Thumb print, hand print and foot print artProvide large sheets of construction paper and tempera paint to make prints. Send the construction paper home as wrapping paper, or use the prints in your library’s bulletin boards, displays or borders.

Mindfulness gratitude activityAs children and parents enter the room thank them for coming to storytime – try to connect with as many individual children as possible. Thank them for coming to the library, to the storytime, and tell them that you are glad to know them. At the end of storytime hand out paper hearts and repeat that you are happy that they are here. Ask them to hold onto and look at the paper hearts and think of people that make them happy. Let them think about this for a while and then provide markers, crayons, stickers, etc., for them to decorate their heart to give to their special person.

Message for parents: Young children learn to care for others by watching the adults in their lives. When you are polite to them you are teaching them that they are worthy of respect and modeling ways to be respectful to others.

Created by Shawn Brommer, 11/16, South Central Library System, page 7

We Can Build It!

Outcome: To introduce increasingly complex vocabulary words to young children and to help them feel confident in their skills, strengths, and capabilities.

See also:

Construction Zone sections in Infant, Toddler, Preschooler chapters of the 2017 Early Literacy SLP Manual

Early Literacy Manuals from the 2013 and 2014 CSLP.

Try it again: In the spring and early summer when road and building construction begins in earnest.

Read:

Digger Dog by William BeeDinosaur Dig by Penny DaleDreaming Up: A Celebration of Building by Christy HaleGoodnight, Goodnight, Construction Site by Sherri Duskey RinkerJack’s House by Karen Magnuson BeilThe Little Dump Truck by Margery CuylerThe Night Worker by Kate BanksWhose tools are These? by Sharon Katz Cooper

Sing, Talk, Play, Write:

Sing: The Construction Worker Song (to the tune of Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush)(from page 67, 2017 Build a Better World Early Literacy Manual)

This is the way we hammer the nailsHammer the nails, hammer the nailsThis is the way we hammer the nailsSo early in the morning.

Repeat with other actions, such as:Saw the wood Stack the bricksTurn the screw Drive the truck

Created by Shawn Brommer, 11/16, South Central Library System, page 8

Action rhyme:Tall Building in Our Town (From: I Dig Up, Down, All Around, pg. 116, Chapter 7, 2013 SLP Early Literacy Manual)

Act out this rhyme with preschoolers:

Tall Building in our town

Elevators running down

Doors revolving round about

People walking in and out.

The manual writers suggest saying the rhyme backwards line by line and clapping or using percussion instruments to sound out the rhythm of the rhyme.

Color Houses Flannelboard story

Need: Felt pieces: 6 different colors; brown feltCut the six different felt pieces into houses about 4-6 inches. Cut the brown felt into a simple mouse shape – 3 – 5 inches. Before storytime, hide the mouse under a house and when your program begins ask children to guess which color under which the mouse is hiding. Ask children to count the number of houses and identify the colors. This is a great storytime opening activity and Shawn learned it from Linda Colby, Mount Horeb.

Mindfulness activity: At the end of storytime hand out balls of handmade play dough to children and parents and ask them to squeeze and mold it. How does it feel to squeeze it hard? How does it feel to squeeze it lightly? How does it feel to pet it like a kitten or puppy?:

Gluten free Play dough recipe: www.parents.com/fun/activities/indoor/gluten-free-play-dough-recipe

Add food coloring or a few drops of scented oil to provide sensory engagement.

Teen volunteer activity: Teens can make the play dough and experience the sensory benefits of working with it, too!

Message for parents: Knowing the names for basic concepts helps children feel comfortable in the world around them. Introducing new words to kids helps them feel confident when they begin learning to read.

Created by Shawn Brommer, 11/16, South Central Library System, page 9

Selected Apps to share

Share these apps with parents and caregivers. Alternatively, download these apps to a library device for in-building use and experimentation. See the Preschooler chapter of the 2017 Early Literacy SLP manual for more app recommendations.

These apps are available for Android devices from Google Play and for Apple devices from the Apple App Store.

Breathe, Think, Do with Sesame Street: Laugh and learn as you help a Sesame Street monster friend calm down and solve everyday challenges. Bilingual. Android | Apple

Geoboard: An open-ended tool for exploring a variety of mathematical concepts through pegboards and rubberbands. Android | Apple

Inventioneers: Create new inventions with the assistance of tiny helpers called Inventioneers. Android | Apple

Shape Gurus ($1.99): Designed for 2-5 year olds, this educational game teaches preschoolers to match shapes and colors and introduces key educational skills for preschoolers. Android | Apple

Plum’s Creaturizer: Families build all kinds of creatures with this PBS Kids app. Android | Apple

And, SCLS member libraries, remember to publicize:1000 Books Before Kindergarten appLINKcat library catalog app

See app reviews: Little eLit: littleelit.comLittle eLit is a crowd-sourced, grass-roots professional learning network that develops promising practices for the incorporation of new media into library collections, services and programs for families with young children.

Created by Shawn Brommer, 11/16, South Central Library System, page 10