Hats off!!

I happen to own a HUGE box of awesome random hats that my parents and their friends collected for me. I was SUPER excited to bring them all to story time and pass them along to my kids for this awesome Hat story time!!! They LOVED picking out a hat to wear and it was super amazing!!!

Opening Song: Shake My Sillies Out - Raffi

Book: Where's Mary's Hat? by Stephane Barroux

Song: On my head (we put the hat on your head, on your knee, on your foot, on your elbow)

Book: Which Hat is That? by Anna Grossnickle Hines

Song: If You're Happy and You Know It

Book: Whose Hat? by Margaret Miller


Craft: Paper Plate Crowns

Thanks for Thanksgiving

**yes, this is how behind I am...**

I found a couple really great Thanksgiving books this year!! I love finding new things I haven't seen before and I extra love sharing them with my kids!!

Opening Song: Shake My Sillies Out - Raffi

Book: Thanksgiving in the Barn by Nadine Bernard Westcott

Rhyme: 5 Little Turkeys (Taken from Preschool Education - Thanksgiving Songs) I turned it into a flannel board!!


Book: Run, Turkey, Run! by Diane Mayr

Song: I'm a Little Teapot

Book: Thanks for Thanksgiving by Julie Markes



Craft: Paper Plate Turkeys

Special Bedtime Stories

I had a special request from a school to do a parents night! I was so excited, and broke out some of my favorite bedtime stories!!

Opening Song: Shake My Sillies Out - Raffi

Book: Froggy Goes to Bed by Jonathan London


Song: Twinkle Twinkle

Book: The Caterpillow Fight by Sam McBratney

Song: Tooty-Ta by Dr Jean and Friends

Book: The Woods by Paule Hoppe


Craft: Paper plate Moon and Star (I can't remember where I got the Moon pattern - so sorry!!)

Major slacker

I have to apologize - I know it has been a really long time since I've updated, and especially since I posted a story time update. Things at work have been awesome and insane all at the same time. Couple this with the fact that I don't have internet at home right now it makes it really hard to update.

But, I have some story time posts in progress, I just need to add a few details to each. I am going to try to work on those this week and get them up soon!!!

Thank you to those of you who are still around and holding out for some new material. I promise it's coming. I miss blogging a lot, so I want to make this a priority.

And now, I'll leave you with two of my favorite clips...

The Evolution of Dance


The Muppets - Mahna Mahna

Dealing with the Dealers

It's that time of year again. The time of year when the Perky Little Crack Dealers run around all willy nilly trying to get unsuspecting innocent bystanders sucked into their evil world.

Again, you might remember this post...or this post...about the Perky Little Crack Dealers (aka Girl Scouts). Now that I've been at this library for over a year (!!!), I've actually gotten to know these particular PLCD's quite well...and they have also come to find out that Ms. Real...? Is a SUCKER for some Thin Mints and Samoas. It didn't take them much time to convince me to buy their delicious treats.

See, all they had to do was walk in the door. I was actually standing at the information desk, and saw them walk in - with their Girl Scout Cookie forms waving in the air. They didn't even have to say anything this time - not a word.

Now I'm just waiting on delivery... ***trying to ward off the withdrawal shakes***

How do I choose?

Story time is a completely different animal for everyone who does it. Some people like to stay within a theme and read books about one topic, and center their songs and crafts around the theme. Other people are more random in their book selection - choosing new books that come in that week, or choosing their favorites as they come across their desks.

I do a random story time every once in a while (in fact, I have a random story time post coming up soon!), but, as you may know, I usually center my story times around a certain theme, and all the books, songs and crafts usually follow.

I do a lot of animal themes, because animal books are easily found and available. I could probably do a cat theme for months and never repeat a book. I also do themes based on things that every kid has or does, for instance my Hair story time (which was FABULOUS, and the kids loved it!), and maybe Bath stories, or more Bath stories (and even more Bath stories) and even one about Manners. I also had a Tooth story time (post coming soon)!!

I do get some outside help finding books, however, and I need to give props to a couple of FABULOUS websites and blogs.

Storytime Source Page
Awesome Storytime
storytime katie
SurLaLune Storytime

I also get a lot of craft and song ideas online, too!! Here are some of my favorite sites!!

DLTK-Kids
All Kids Network
Kaboose
Kids Soup
Preschool Education
Perpetual Preschool

Anyway, I hope this helps to get you started!! I've been so fortunate to have found some good resources - there are some amazing children's librarians out there who are really up on their kid lit!!! If you know of any other good sites - feel free to share them in the comments section!!

Random Favorites

It was a weird week in story time! I had a performer call out sick just two hours before a very special Fairy Tales program, and then I had a group from a ballet school in town come to perform a program for my regular preschool story time - but I didn't even know they were coming!!! They only stayed for the first story time, though, and I didn't want to use my already planned story time (because it was super exciting, and wanted to use it for BOTH groups). So, I scrambled again and picked out a couple of my favorite story time books.

Opening Song: Shake My Sillies Out - Raffi

Book: Knuffle Bunny: A Cautionary Tale by Mo Willems


Rhyme: Hey Diddle, Diddle

Book: Dinosaur vs. The Library by Bob Shea (LOVE this series!!!)



Dance: The Freeze - Greg and Steve (from Greg and Steve We All Live Together Vol.2)

Book: Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? by Bill Martin Jr.

Craft: Since I still had lots of supplies, I decided to make the crowns again!! I LOVE paper plates!!!


It's another edition of FMRNS!!! The feature this week was The Crow, a drama from 1994 starring Brandon Lee and Rochelle Davis. I remember thinking this movie looked really weird when it came out, and didn't really have a desire to see it. But, I trust my friend A wholeheartedly when it comes to what is on The List, so we watched it. I was NOT disappointed!!