Puppy filled Monday

My toddlers are just too cute. My numbers have grown so much - it's great to see the community coming out and participating in story time!!! This week, I found some great books for the little ones about dogs!!


Opening Song: If You're Happy and You Know It from Favorite Children's Songs CD.


Book: My Dog Rosie by Isabelle Harper and Barry Moser


Song: 5 Little Puppies

Book: Maggie's Ball by Lindsay Barrett George


Song: I'm a Little Teapot

Book: My Friend Lucky by David Milgrim

Interactive Playtime

Barkin' through Wednesday

Happy Wednesday y'all!! Hope everyone had an awesome Memorial Day weekend. The weather here was perfect, and I spent a good amount of time at the pool. Ahhhhh!!!

This week, I decided to do stories about dogs. I actually had a crazy week last week, then with Monday off, I seemed to have accidentally forgotten to plan a story time. There is no shortage of good story time books about dogs, so it was easy to whip up a story time!!

Opening Song: Shake My Sillies Out - Raffi

Book: Pick a Pup by Marsha Wilson Chall


Song: Old McDonald had a Farm

Book: Puppies, Puppies, Puppies by Susan Meyers


Rhyme: Hey Diddle, Diddle

Book: I Love Dogs by Barney Saltzberg


Book: Bark, George by Jules Feiffer (This was a bonus - it's one of my favorites, and the kids were being really good!)


Craft: Envelope Dog puppets from Kids Soup



Welcome to FMRNS!!!! I'm really excited about tonight's feature. It seems like it's been a long time since our last movie night. Last week, we had movie night on Monday, so it has been a while. We are EXTRA excited that it's time for Shoobie - aka So You Think You Can Dance. I almost hate to admit it, but I think I might be more excited about Shoobie than I was about American Idol... Either way, I can't WAIT for tonight's episode!!!

Anyway, tonight's feature is Traitor, a drama from 2008 with Don Cheadle and Guy Pearce. I remember wanting to see this movie when it came out, but never got around to it. It should be fabulous, I'm sure!!!

A puppy story time!

Once again, it's Monday!! The Second Best Day of the Week!!!

Today was my second Toddler Story Time, and it's already growing!! I had some great books about dogs, so I just had to share them with the kids!!

I've decided that the opening song for Toddler Story Time is going to be If You're Happy and You Know It, a version from the Favorite Children's Songs CD. I like this version because it gets them up and moving around a little bit more (turn around, jump for joy) before we settle in for the stories.

The first book I read was Bark George by Jules Feiffer. Classic!!!


After we read the first story, we all did the Itsy Bitsy Spider song with, of course, the finger play actions. I had originally planned on singing BINGO, but three of my little ones were VERY little, and a mom requested Itsy Bitsy Spider. Since I'm flexible, we sang that instead.

The second book I read was Dog Wants to Play by Christine McDonnell.


Then, I got the kids back up again for a song called The Freeze on the We All Live Together 2 CD by Greg and Steve. Very fun, though it took the littlest ones some time to figure it all out!

Then, it was time for the interactive play time, where I brought out some fun toys. I love getting down on the floor with them and playing!!! The little ones just crowded around me and we had some great fun!!!

Toddler story time is a bit more of a challenge, though. The books I picked were age appropriate, but I had a couple really young ones who were over sitting still by the time we finished the second book - even though we had a song in the middle. I might rethink that, and do a major action song (like The Freeze) in between the books to get them moving around more in the middle... Hmm...

Does anyone have any thoughts or tips for Toddler Story Time? It's always a work in progress, and I'd LOVE to hear about your experiences!!

Story Time - Woof!!

Well, Summer Reading is officially over. We had the most amazing turnout!! A total of 860 kids signed up at our branch alone! Crazy! We had around 300 turn in their summer reading logs this past Saturday - the day of our Summer Reading Celebration. There were about 250 who came to our party, which featured The Mad Scientist. It was seriously the Best.Time.Ever.

And now it's back to, hopefully, normal...

So, it's Story Time Day!! Gotta LOVE Tuesdays!!! Today's theme is Dogs! I found a couple of my favorites and one that I have been looking forward to reading, and figured now was the perfect time! This week I chose to read:

Chewy Louie by Howie Schneider


Bark George by Jules Feiffer


Do Your Ears Hang Low by Caroline Jayne Church (illustrator)


And, as always, it's FMRNS!! Last week, even though I told you we were going to watch Frankenstein Unbound, we decided to go with How Green Was My Valley from 1941 with Walter Pidgeon and Maureen O'Hara. We put this movie on the list because TWO people (in the same day) recommended it. Now, ALL of the movies on the list have been ones that A has already seen. Even though he hadn't seen this movie, we decided it was too much of a coincidence for two separate people in the same day recommended it, and that it should go on the list. Never again. We got bored about 45 minutes into it (well, before that), and just had to stop it. Sorry to all those How Green Was My Valley lovers out there - but it was just not our style.

This week, we are probably going to do a Double Feature! WHOOOOOT!!!! We still have Frankenstein Unbound, a horror from 1990 with John Hurt and Raul Julia, and we'll probably save that for our second feature. You know, wait until dark for the horror film...yikes.

For our first feature, we'll probably watch Manon of the Spring, from 1986 with Yves Montand and Daniel Auteuil. This is part two of a series which started with Jean de Florette (which we watched last week.

We do have another choice for our first feature, which is The Bridge over the River Kwai, a drama/adventure from 1957 with William Holden and Jack Hawkins.

A puppy-filled story time!

It took me a few tries to pick today's theme. I started looking at books about trains, bath time, caterpillars/butterflies, and fish - only to find out that I didn't have all the books I wanted for each of these themes. So I put a bunch of books on hold - those themes will be coming in the next couple of weeks!!

For today, though, I finally found three fun books about Puppies!!! Here are the books I chose:




And, of course, it's FMRNS!!! WHOOOOOT!!!! We've decided that tonight will be one of two choices. The first option is Heavy Metal from 1981 with Don Francks and Caroline Semple. The second option is Airplane! from 1980 with Leslie Nielsen, Lloyd Bridges and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. No matter which one we pick, I am sure it's going to be a fun evening!!! Which one would you watch?