Totally Tots- Rain

Totally by accident but I couldn't have planned today's theme better.  It was raining, cloudy, and windy a perfect day to hear stories about rain.  My Totally Tots class was again small on size but eager to help and get going with stories.  We started again with a review of good story time behavior and quickly moved to our opening song "The More We Get Together" and our "Let's Start Story Time" rhyme. I loved that they know the entire chant!

Our first story was


Rainy Day! by Patricia Lakin.  The kids really liked the part when our four friends get lost and encountered pirate ships, monsters, and whales- what could this place be? A mini- golf park! The ending is perfect when the friends followed a funny looking dog into the library.  It made a perfect transition to my "Colors in the Rain" flannel (cute colorful umbrellas).   We then did a clapping rhyme "Boom, Bang!" involving lots of different sounds (boom, rumpety, zoom, clappety...)all around a thunderstorm.  Since we still had a bit of jiggles  I decided to bring back "Shake Your Sillies Out". It was a hit and a good way to transition to our next book


The Rain Train by Elena De Rosa & Brian Lovelock.  I just found out this book and loved the calm tone and descriptive language. We were all quiet and engaged with the story and the sounds. For my next song/flannel I wanted to do something fun with an old classic "Itsy Bitsy Spider" and created my own little spider

I was a little concerned that the kids were going to be afraid, but instead they all loved it and wanted the spider to crawl up their arms and legs.  We listened to Hap Palmer's Early Childhood Classics version of the "Itsy Bitsy Spider" and then retold the story using a different flannel board.  One of the benefits of having a small group is that we all had chances to place the flannel pieces on the board. I have been wanting to use more songs with motions during our story times and "I Can, Can You?" from Pam Schiller's Start Smart Songs for 1's, 2's, & 3's worked really well.  Sadly, we run out of time and just moved to our closing song. My last book would have been



Rain! by Linda Ashman. This is a brand new book at our library about a grumpy old man complaining his way through a rainy morning, while a little boy is enjoying and spreading cheer in his frog-themed rainwear. It has a fun twist at the end. The language is perfect to describe the very different feelings and totally supported by the illustrations.  I am  not sure if my 2 & 3 years old would have enjoyed the story as much as I did.