Getting Ready to Read by Playing

Playing and pretending are great ways to get ready to read! Puppets and stuffed animals are a simple way to act out and pretend to be part of a story.

After reading a story, encourage your child to use toys or puppets to act out the story. Puppets can be anywhere from the really fancy store-bought puppets to something as simple as a paper bag with a face drawn on it. And they don't even have to match the story.

Ask your child to tell you about what he's playing. When he tells you the story, he's developing important Narrative skills. You can also add to the story and expand on their answers. For example, "Why did the frog jump in the water when he met the crocodile?" You may even be able to add some new words to his vocabulary.

Not sure what book to read? Come on in to the library! I'm sure we can help you find something both you and your child will love!

Toddler Time

The toddlers enjoyed these stories last week:

Trashy town by Andrea Zimmerman and David Clemesha

Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus by Mo Willems

Walking through the jungle by Debbie Harter

Babies on the Bus by Karen Katz

Children love to say "No!" without the risk of getting in trouble, so the Pigeon book is always popular. For that same reason, they also enjoyed "No!" by They Might Be Giants.

Using popular books, such as Mo Willems, makes children want to read, which is Print Motivation, which is so important when it's time for children to learn to read. Trashy Town introduces new vocabulary, as well as lending itself for children to act out the "Dump it in, smash it down, drive around the Trashy Town!" refrain.

At craft time, the children created a garbage truck of their own using simple shapes. Recognizing the shapes helps to build letter knowledge. And the coloring and gluing develops fine motor skills, which helps in writing as the children get older.

April Showers...

As I'm sitting here on this gray, rainy day, I'm sure hoping that these April showers do bring some May flowers! Of course, there's always something bright and colorful happening at the library!

 It's been another busy month and we're not even half way through!

We celebrated the 10th Anniversary of Mo Willems' Pigeon books this month! Mo Willems' books are wonderful for young readers and pre-readers. The artwork is so expressive and gives children an opportunity to talk about emotions, which develops vocabulary. The books have lots of rhyming and repetitive phrases, which work on phonological and narrative skills. And they're just so fun that children love them! Don't most kids love the opportunity to tell someone "No!" without getting into trouble? (Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus!)

In Preschool Story Hour for our 4 and 5 year olds, we did a storytime about Spring. We read Possum and the Peeper, which then led to the children requested several other frog books I had available including a huge favorite, The Wide Mouthed Frog.

I think we've also found a new favorite song - "Swing Your Partner" from the Jim Gill Sings Moving Rhymes for Modern Times cd. It's a square dance type of song that we've done in a circle and I've heard, "Let's do it again!" several times!

For a craft, we made and decorated those colorful windsocks that you see over to the left. A relatively simple craft, but gluing the streamers and feeding the yarn through the small punched holes works on fine motor skills, which children need to learn to write.

And we can't forget our monthly Lego program! We had several new children attend last week, so the fun just keeps growing!



So, what's coming up?
Saturday, April 13 from 10am to noon: Trash to Treasures Craft Program for all ages.

Tuesday, April 16 at 10:30am and 1:00pm, Preschool Story Hour for 4 and 5 year olds and 3 years old who are ready to come in independently.

Please register for our programs so that we can plan for all our children: 

Children's Programs at the Cedar Lake Branch Library

Wishing for Spring

So far this month, we've seen lots of spring-like themes for our programs.

Last week, Preschool Story Hour had stories about all the colors of the rainbow. We would have liked to have seen a rainbow. Instead, that night we got our biggest snow of the winter! The children especially enjoyed these books, though:

The Mixed-Up Chameleon by Eric Carle
Monsters Love Colors by Mike Austin
Dog's Colorful Day by Emma Dodd



We also did a rainbow version of Hap Palmer's "Rock and Roll Freeze Dance," using our brightly colored scarves, watched Harold and His Purple Crayon, and made rainbow-maned lions.

For Toddler Time today, Miss Linda did stories about kites and wind, as well as talking about St. Patrick's Day.

The children enjoyed the story of "The Three Little Pigs."

And The Wind Blew by Pat Hutchins is a fun, cumulative story that the children can retell later.


For a craft today, the children colored and decorated paper kites. And if the wind is just right, they can fly!

Still to come this week:

Friday, March 15 and 10:30 or 11:30am, Mother Goose on the Loose for infants to 35 month olds and their caregiver.

Catching up with the Babies

February and March have made our program schedule for the 3 and under crowd a little unusual. Since both months started on a Friday, we've had Toddler Time and Mother Goose on the Loose in the same week.

The February 28th Toddler Time focused on Winter. Miss Linda shared two stories with the children.

Bear snores on by Karma Wilson

The mitten : a Ukrainian folktale by Jan Brett

Both books offer wonderful opportunities to learn new words and are good for having the children retell the stories.

The children also played with parachute and created a snowstorm in the children's programming room! They finished by creating their own mitten, complete with animals to practice retelling the story.

Join us this week for these programs:

Thursday, March 14 at 10:30am: Toddler Time for 2-3 year olds and their caregiver

Friday, March 15 at 10:30 OR 11:30am: Mother Goose on the Loose for infants to 35 months and their caregiver.

Preschool Valentine's Day

On February 5, we did Valentine's Day with the 4 & 5 year olds. This is always a fun program!

Our most popular stories were:
Guess how much I love you by Sam McBratney

  The day it rained hearts by Felicia Bond

We also did a couple of Valentine "Skip to My Lou" songs and danced to Hap Palmer's "Rock and Roll Freeze Dance":

The children also made hearts showing something that they love:

 

This is such an easy project to do at home!
Start with a heart shape drawn on the paper. Have your child draw a picture of someone or something that she loves. Then help her write "I love ..." If she can form letters, let her write it herself. Otherwise, be sure to point out what you are writing and use her words. Finish up by coloring and cutting out the heart. If your child is old enough to cut safely without hurting herself, let her. It's valuable practice and helps to develop those crucial fine motor skills! It won't be smooth at first, but that adds to the charm of a child's art project. The project also works on writing skills and talking (or narrative) skills as you talk about what is being drawn.

We also used the DVD of "The Pigs' Wedding" for our video of the day.

The programs keep going this week:

Thursday, February 14 at 10:30am: Toddler Time for children ages 2-3 and a caregiver. Celebrate Valentine's Day at the library!

Friday, February 15 at 10:30 or 11:30am: Mother Goose on the Loose for children from birth to 35 months and a caregiver.

Shopping at the Library

At our last Preschool Story Hour, the children enjoyed shopping books. We took a shopping trip, choosing from a board of food and then the children had the chance to fill their own shopping carts, but choosing items from the sales papers. It was fun to see what caught their eyes and to hear their reasons for their "purchases"! Most of them chose toys, but a few made sure to include treats for their pets and some food.

This shopping craft would be easy (and fun!) to do at home together, too. This time of year, our mailboxes overflow with sales papers and catalogs. Let your child "shop" the papers and talk about their choices. Another twist could be to have your child find items on your shopping list. This one simple activity can work on so many levels. Cutting out the pictures works on fine motor development, which helps in writing. Seeing a shopping list connected to the pictures works on Print Awareness. Talking about the purchases helps to develop narrative skills. And the fact that they're playing a game reinforces the fact that learning can be fun!

Check out these books that we shared during storytime:

Llama Llama mad at mama by Anna Dewdney

To market, to market by Anne Miranda