Baby & Me Storytime

Presented at Bellevue Public Library on Wednesday, October 3, 2012.

Book:

How Many? by Judy Nayer

(Sorry, no book cover photo available)


Songs:

You Are My Sunshine

You are my sunshine, my only sunshine,
You make me happy when skies are gray.
You'll never know, dear, how much I love you.
Please don't take my sunshine away.



Activities:

A Flea on My Toe

On my toe there is a flea.
Now it's climbing past my knee,
Past my tummy,
Past my nose,
On my head where my hair grows.

On my head there is a flea.
Now it's climbing down on me,
Past my tummy,
Past my knee,
On my toe,
Take that, you flea!

Our parents and grandparents seem to especially enjoy this one during storytime!  You can creep your fingers up and down your child's body, stopping at each mentioned part.  On the last line, you can tickle or kiss your child's toes, or help them gently shake their leg!

Pizza, Pizza, Pumpernickel

Pizza, Pizza Pumpernickel,
(gently pat child's legs in rhythm on the underlined syllables)
My little baby shall have a tickle.
(gently pat child's leg in rhythm on the underlined syllables)
One on the nose,
(gently tickle child's nose)
And one on the toes,
(tickle toes)
And one on the tummy
(gently pat child's leg in rhythm on the underlined syllables)
where the pizz-a goes!
(gently pat child's tummy in rhythm on the underlined syllables)


Peek-a-Boo is a great game to play with your infant.  At Storytime we sometimes use our hands to cover our eyes.  Other times we might use a baby blanket, 2 beanbags, or a puppet!  It's fun to be creative!

One Little Baby Rocking in a Tree

One little baby rocking in a tree. (adult gently rocks child)
Two little babies splashing in the sea. (adult/child make "splashing" motion)
Three little babies crawling on the floor. (move hands in "walking" motion in front of child)
Four little babies knocking at the door. (make a fist and "knock" in the air)
Five little babies playing hide and seek. (cover eyes with hands)
Don't look!  Don't look!
Until I say...PEEK! (uncover eyes)



Our Hands Say Goodbye

Our hands say goodbye with a clap, clap, clap.
Our feet say goodbye with a tap, tap, tap.
Clap, clap, clap,
Tap, tap, tap.
We roll our hands around and say... "Let's do it again!"

Our hands say goodbye with a clap, clap, clap.
Our feet say goodbye with a tap, tap, tap.
Clap, clap, clap,
Tap, tap, tap.
We roll our hands around and say... "Goodbye!"

Today I introduced the practice of "picture walking" with the adults and babies.  We used "How Many?" by Judy Nayer (ours is in Big Book form) as our example today.  The Every Child Ready to Read curriculum encourages picture walking as a way to experience a book before actually reading it with your child.  Picture walking involves such things as pointing out the title, author and illustrator of a book, looking at the pictures and talking about what is happening,  introducing new words, and expanding language by using descriptive words.  This monologue will become a dialogue as your child's verbal skills develop.  As I turned the pages, I pointed out some (but not all) of the pictures, making observations such as, "Look at those gray and white kittens.  This one has his mouth open.  What do you think he is saying?  Meow-meow.  This picture has some little yellow fish.  Do you have fish at your house?  Have you seen fish at the zoo?  Maybe after Storytime you can see the library's fish!" 
At this stage our babies are listening, and before long they will start joining in the conversation!