Totally Tots- Colors

This week both of my Totally Tots classes were very quiet and mellow, no one wanted to "Shake Their Sillies" or hop around like "Green Little Frogs." The one thing they loved was to play with our musical instruments.  We played to the tune of "Play the Music Band" by clapping our hands, shaking bells & shakers, and  tapping sticks.  We read


 by Leo Lionni                              by NancyTafuri                         By Tim Hopgood

I inter library loan a large copy of A Color of His Own and made little chameleons on different colors for the kids to place on the flannel board.  We played with our "Two Little Birds"  and learned to say "Thank You" by clapping, stamping, and bowing.

Totally Tots- Bunnies

I think this is the second week in a row that I forgot or never got around to post about our Totally Tots class.  This session I added a second day after finding out that my regular day/time conflicts with other park district programs for Toddlers and it is throwing my regular schedule a bit off.  So far it has been slow, which in a way has been a blessing because it has allowed the quiet/shy kids to feel relaxed.  I switched one of the books from our Babies/Crawlers class and we had different action rhymes-lots of hoping like bunnies.   These are the books I read:



by Jullie Stiegemeyer                    By Salina Yoon                           By Nicola Smee

I made very simple bunny flannels for the kids to put to bed as we read Seven Little Bunnies, it worked partially with some kids participating and some just holding on to their bunnies.  On Thursday, I used our Noodle bucket again since it is a smaller class and it was lots of fun to find the magnetic letters and same color noodles. 

Rose and the Lost Princess

Rose and the Lost Princess by Holly Webb, Sourcebooks Jabberwocky, April 2014.

A while back I posted about the first book on this new series Rose. And now the great folks at Sourcebooks Jabberwocky are excited to see book #2 out in our libraries and want to share copies of the book with our readers.  So what do you need to do to get a copy of the book? 

Read the first book and tell us who you will like to be?  A maid and future apprentice like Rose, an apprentice like Freddie, a shape shifting cat like Gus, spoiled Bella who loves to torment her maids,  or any of the other household characters.  And what magical power you would like to have?  Share your choices with everyone else, you have until May 5th to post your answers.

In the first book we meet Rose, our protagonist,  an orphan growing in a world where magic and magicians are everywhere. By the end of book Rose has discovered that she too can  perform magic, and Mr. Fountain, her new employer,  offers to take her on as an apprentice.  In book two,  Rose has to decide if she will accept Mr. Fountain's offer and became his new apprentice along side Freddie. She hesitates but at the end decides to accept his offer with one condition, She wants to remain working at his house as a maid .  This will create all sorts of tension and mistrust from the rest of the servants, which will lead to Rose's isolation from everyone.   Around the country magicians are been accused of performing dark magic to create a never ending winter. Things take a turn for the  worst when princess Jane is nearly abducted by someone performing dark magic.  Rose will find herself in a position to help earn the trust of those around her and to restore the faith of the country on magicians when the country's beloved princess actually vanishes. 

The twists and turns will keep you turning the pages to find if Rose and her friends can truly save the princess and their country from the evil magic that threatens to destroy them.

Baby Bloomers & Crawlers- Colors

I often say that I have the best job ever.  I get to read stories, sing songs, and play with little people almost every day.  So far this week has been no exception,  if anything the opposite with new families continuing to join our group. I actually managed to take some pictures of our busy babies & crawlers

This week I am doing stories with colors, shapes with colors, animals with colors, and how when you mix colors you get new colors. 



by Emma Dodd                  by Laura Vaccaro Seeger          by Ellen Stoll Walsh

I also made two cute little black birds for a finger play and we bounced, jump, blink, and blub like little green frogs.   We are sticking to our regular opening song and "Wiggle, Wiggle"  and mixing the theme rhymes with our favorites like "This is Big" and  "Touch Game". Our songs and dancing is around bubbles, which is like magic when I want to get the attention back.  Next week I am doing "Bugs, Bugs, Bugs".

The Ninja Librarians-The Accidental Keyhand is in stores Now!

The book is out on stores now! You can always read the first chapter here.

This last week we have to find a master or mentor we would like to learn from.  I thought it would be neat to find someone that could make time travel a possibility, someone that could envision a different future and yearn for adventure.  I decided that I would love to meet and learn from Ada Lovelace, who wrote a scientific paper in 1843 that anticipated the development of computer software, artificial intelligence and computer music. Daughter of the poet Lord Byron, Lady Ada Lovelace was known as the "enchantress of numbers" who collaborated with Charles Babbage, the inventor of the first mechanical thinking/calculating machine.




Who will you like to learn from? 

Baby Bloomers- Bunnies

On this rainy morning we had four little "bunnies" that hoped their way to the library.  It was a small group of babies but they were the happiest, giggly, smiling babies ever.  I used some of our stuffed animals and bunnies for us to play and we found that putting things in and out of buckets is the best.  We read
 
By Nicola Smee                      By Sarah Weeks

Bunny  Fun is a perfect book for this age group with big pictures and lots of color, the text has a beautiful rhyming feeling that makes you almost sing when you are reading it.  I wanted to do something interactive to involve the child and parent and thought getting enough copies of Pat the Bunny would have been fun, but I couldn't find enough copies, so I decided to make my own.


We used scarves to play peek-a-boo, foil paper for pretend mirrors, and  new books for parents to read. 

Here is link to the PDF.  Our Nursery Rhyme was "Hey Diddle, Diddle" and we listened to different versions of Open Shut Them and practice clapping our hands.  Looking forward to next week's Color Day.

Totally Tots- Ducks

I am almost a week behind with this post but last week was a blurb of activity with four new programs and weekend duty. Our Totally Tots were back on full swing and brought some new friends. We had a lot of fun reading Eric Carle Ten Little Rubber Ducks, on my library's copy the final duck "squeaks" for you when you press it. The kids love doing that.  We also read


We used some of the props from our Crawlers class ( hand glove with 5 little ducks) and we danced to new songs with lots of movement.   And our bubble machine made an appearance too!

This session I am doing two rounds of Totally Tots, one on Wednesdays and one on Thursdays, because I found my original Wednesday time conflicts with a park district program and some of my families weren't able to come to the Library.  I only had a few kids on Thrusday but it turned out to be a great experience. 

Ninja Librarians- Week 4

This week's mission involves choosing an animal we will love to take with us on an adventure, I like that we get to choose our animal and not just get stuck with any odd or wild animal like Dorrie and Marcus with Moe the mongoose. If I could choose I would take a wolf, like the one in Spirit Animals Wild Born especially if I can connect with him and share his abilities. 











Narnia's Lion could be pretty awesome too.



     

Or little Despereaux, because he would be easy to transport.



What animal would you take?





 Images from Google Images

Crawlers- Ducks

Today was day two of Spring Story Time with my Crawlers group. This is a new group I started last winter when our Baby Bloomers group got to large and varied in ages. This group is perfect on size and their skills are just in between the little babies who need all the support and the independent toddlers.  They are curious and love to engage while at the same time lose focus within a few seconds or find something else in the room more interesting.

Like yesterday, see Baby Bloomers post,  I created a master handout with the rhymes and songs we will use over the entire session. Our Nursery Rhyme went much better with each kid placing little ducks on the felt board.  We read two new books


By Nancy Tafuri                           By Frances Barry

The second book is perfect for this age group with short sentences, lots of colors, and a very interesting design.

 

We also tried some new songs and our bubble machine.  All in all it was a great start to spring Story Time

Baby Bloomers- Ducks

Today was our first day of Spring Story Time and all my babies returned with new friends!  I love this group, their curiosity is contagious and so are their smiles.  It melts my heart to see a smiling baby that recognizes me and is excited when we start singing or reading a story.  I choose "Ducks" as my theme today because spring is in the air and soon we will be seeing little ducklings around our parks.  I had a combination of large books and small picture books with great tactile options.  I read


by Penny Ives                               by Tad Hills                            by Beth Harwood. 


Because it is fun to count down and then have our ducks return I used our mitten with five little ducks. 



I switched up our handouts a bit by creating a master handout with all the rhymes/songs/fingerplays we will use for the entire session. I mark on my copy which ones we are using any particular day and then let parents know, today we used our Opening Song, Wiggle Wiggle,  Open Shut Them, The Touch Game, and our Closing Song.  Our nursery rhyme was "Goosey, Goosey, Gander".  In addition, I have new songs that we will be trying during this session as well. 

Ninja Librarians Week 3- If you could live a scene from a book, what would it be?

This week’s recon mission is to think of 10 scenes you would like to experience from a book, after thinking about I realize that there is a theme to my desires- time travel, magic powers, & love. Here are my top ten….

-         To travel in time and visit other libraries like the lybrarians

-          To be Hermione Granger and figure how to perform magic & spells

-          To be Rosie in the moment they meet each other at the top of their apartment building and realize they have found a soul mate from Herman & Rosie  

-          To be Samantha Sutton and explore the Peruvian temple caves of Chavin de Huantar from Samantha Sutton and the Labyrinth of Lies

-          to be Andi and experience the thrill of uncovering a lost relative and figure what happened to her from Andi Unexpected

-          to be Alina and summon light to defeat the Shadow Fold from Shadow & Bone

-          to be Lulu and lose myself in the street of Paris with Willem De Ruiter from Just One Day

-          to be found by Willem De Ruiter a year later from Just One Year

-          to be a part of a clan that can transform into wolves like Brid from Hold Me Closer, Necromancer

-          to have the ability to change memories and dreams like Cassel from White Cat

What would be yours?