Today began our the first week of storytime for our summer session. As you can see from my notes below, I’m offering a traditional toddler storytime for ages 2 – 3 1/2 and a parachute storytime for the same age group. I decided to focus on the 5 early literacy themes from Every Child Ready to Read and then will also be including a week about language with a story in sign language and a book with some Spanish words sprinkled throughout. This is the first time I’m also trying to incorporate a wordless picture book (Where’s Walrus?) into my storytime and the kids did very well helping me read the pictures. I chose this wordless picture book because it’s fairly easy to create the story about the walrus who goes missing from the zoo and the zookeeper who looks for him all over town. Today’s storytime was little more of chaos than control due to the fact that we had our parachute storytime on the library floor, besides the toys and behind the summer reading desk. We forgot to reserve a room and our normal storytime room has risers, making it perfect for traditional storytime, but leaves very little floor space for anything else. So the chaos factor was definitely reigning, but most of the kids participated and I hope that next week we’ll have a room that will work much better. Check back next week for our storytime theme – singing. Opening Traditional: Put Your Hands Up In the Air & Open Shut Them Parachute: “Rockin’ the Chute” (Shakin’ the Chute: Fitness with a Parachute – Michael Plunkett) & My Wiggles Puppet: Meet Willy (monkey) and give high fives! Early Literacy Tip/Story Stretcher: Children learn language by listening to talking. Encourage conversation with your children and if English isn’t your first language, speak to your child in the language you know best. ASL Sign: Talk (wiggle four fingers in front of mouth) Book 1: I’m the Biggest Thing in the Ocean by, Kevin Sherry Transition Traditional (fine motor): 5 Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed Parachute (popcorn):”Sandy River Belle” (Putumayo Kids Presents: European Playground) Book 2: There Is a Bird on Your Head by, Mo Willems Transition (changes weekly) Traditional (gross motor): “Fast and Slow” (The Best of The Laurie Berkner Band – Laurie Berkner) with Shaker Eggs & Scarves Parachute: “Fast and Slow” (The Best of The Laurie Berkner Band – Laurie Berkner) Moving parachute quickly and slowly Book 3: Where’s Walrus? by, Stephen Savage Closing Traditional: Shake Your Sillies Out Puppet Show Parachute: “Mbube” (Putumayo Kids Presents: African Playground)