Happy Tuesday! It's a cool, crisp, Autumn Storytime!

Happy Tuesday! It was a perfect Autumn day today. Cool, crisp air, I got an apple cider from Sozo's coffee and of course, my favorite people came to see me! We had a huge crowd today and we almost overfilled the library. I got to see some face I hadn't seen since springtime and of course, seeing my regular peanuts is just the best feeling. Today we talked about the changes in the season, weather, and trees. We read, sang, and played all about fall.

Books:
Fall Mixed Up by: Bob Razcka
Mouse's First Fall by: Lauren Thompson
There Was an Old Lady who Swallowed Some Leaves by: Lucille Colandro

What We Did:
Greeting Song:
1.) Greeting Song- The storytime train is coming (She'll be coming round the mountain)
Oh the storytime train is coming! How are you? (everyone yells CHOO CHOO!)
Yes, the storytime train is coming! How are you? (CHOO CHOO!)
Now the storytime train is coming! Oh the storytime train is coming! Yes the storytime train is coming! How are you? (CHOO CHOO!)

Let's say hello to _____. How are you? (CHOO CHOO!)
Repeat for all kids in attendance

2.) Get our bodies ready to read song: This is the way

This is the way I clap my hands, clap my hands, clap my hands.
This is the way I clap my hands when I'm at storytime.
Repeat with other motions, i.e. stomp feet, jump up and down, tap my head, wiggle my nose. Always end with 
This is the way I sit in my spot, sit in my spot, sit in my spot. This is the way I sit in my spot when I'm at storytime.

3.) More Koo Koo Kangaroo dancing! 
Today I re-used the Song Awesome Rainbows to get the kiddos moving. Then we tried a second one called What's that You say? where kids are able to move like a robot, airplane, slow runner, disco dancer, and then freeze in place. Ruby the Chicken joined us in these and we all had a great time.

4.) Leaf Color/Shape sorting- I pretended that I was going to tell the kids a story with just a bunch of paper leaves. Oops! I tripped and they went everywhere! I made sure that each child had at least one leaf. I then had Ruby talk to the kids about putting all the leaves in order. Since she is a two handed puppet, she allows enough movement to pick up, uncap, and write with a marker on the white board. Ruby would write a color (red,yellow, orange, or brown) and the kids who had that color would paste them on the board. We didn't have time to extend this into shapes, but you could also have them sort by the different leaf shapes as well. This kind of thing is great when you have a wide age group. We had everywhere from 15 months to 4 years. The big kids can do it themselves, and the little kids learn SO MUCH while watching!

5.) Playtime- Again, I had three stations set up. This week we had:

a.) Pla-Doh play! We get those fine motor skills all tuned up! We love pla-doh. It feels good in the hand, it smells good (don't eat it), and it works those little muscles while developing artistic creativity.

b.) Leaf rubs- I picked up leaves from the yard around the library and peeled some crayons for the kids to make rub impressions of them. Again, great pre-writing skills and these projects are all about HOW you make it, not how it turns out in the end.

c.) Be the wind! We used straws to blow maple leaves across a table! This is a great activity to experience some pretend play while learning a little bit about physics and science.