Today’s infant storytime was about the jungle. We made our shapes into animal faces:

jungle animals

We read the book Tiny Little Fly by Michael Rosen and illustrated by Kevin Waldron. One of Rosen’s talents is writing books that have the right balance of lyric and repetition to make them fun to do in a group. And the illustrations are large which also makes it a great choice.

Tiny Little Fly

We learned a tickle about leopard spots:

Spots, spots, spots, spots, spots, spots, spots, spots
A leopard has lots of spots. What a lot of spots he’s got!
A tiger’s stripes are always nice, but –
A leopard has lots of spots, spots, spots, spots, spots, spots, spots, spots . . .(repeat)
(watch the video by King County Library System: http://wiki.kcls.org/index.php/Spots,_Spots,_Spots

We told a story about Three Talking Toucans:

three talking toucans

Three talking toucans sitting in a tree
The first one turned and squawked at me!
Three little toucans sitting like kings
The second one said, “Watch me flap my wings!”
Three little toucans sitting side by side
The third one said, “I can open my beak wide!”
Then a chameleon the toucans spied
But he changed color so he could hide!
(flip the chameleon around to the dark green side)

(adapted from the song found at http://www.childcarelounge.com/general-themes/jungle-rain-forest.php)

We read a book called Rainbow Chameleon by Yusuke Yonezu. This is a fun board book with tabs to pull and dials to turn!

Rainbow Chameleon

(Just so you know, I link all the books I talk about in case anybody would like to check them out or request them from our catalog!)

We learned a bounce:

Down in the jungle, if you look in the trees,
There’s a cheeky little monkey washing his knees,
With a rub-a-dub here, and a rub-a-dub there,
That’s the way he washes his knees!
Diddly-ah, oh, a boogie, a woogie,
Diddly-ah, oh, a boogie, a woogie,
Diddly-ah, oh, a boogie, a woogie,
A boogie-woogie jungle monkey washing his knees!
Down in the jungle where nobody goes,
There’s a big huge elephant washing his toes,
With a rub-a-dub here, and a rub-a-dub there,
That’s the way he washes his toes!
Diddly-ah, oh, a boogie, a woogie,
Diddly-ah, oh, a boogie, a woogie,
Diddly-ah, oh, a boogie, a woogie,
A boogie-woogie elephant washing his toes!

(adapted from http://www.letsplaykidsmusic.com/down-in-the-jungle-bath-time-songs/)

and a tickle:

Tickly toddle, a panda likes to waddle
she’ll wobble and waddle all over the world

Chorus: So tickly tickly tickly pin
I like to be tickled up under my chin
Tickly tickly tickly bee
I like to be tickled in back of my knee

Tickly jiggle, a monkey likes to wiggle
He’ll squiggle and wiggle all over the world

(adapted from the song by Martha and Hap Palmer: http://www.amazon.com/Tickly-Toddle-Songs-Young-Children/dp/B00379C1SA)

We did a counting story about ten little monkeys who are hungry for bananas:

one banana two banana

One banana, two bananas, three bananas, four;
All the little monkeys look around for more.
Five bananas, six bananas, seven bananas, eight;
The monkeys are so hungry, they can hardly wait!
Nine bananas, ten bananas, one for every tummy.
What do all the monkeys say? “Yummy, yummy, yummy!”

(adapted from song on King County Library System website: http://wiki.kcls.org/index.php/One_Banana,_Two_Banana; flannel template borrowed from http://melissa.depperfamily.net/blog/?p=4175)

I regret not having my song cube ready for you guys this morning! So we wrapped up storytime with a few songs we know (Itsy Bitsy Spider and Twinkle Twinkle.) Thanks for coming! There’s a fun event on Thursday at 3 pm at Lamanda Park which might interest you guys: it’s an animal magic show! Feel free to visit the Lamanda Park branch for that and I’ll see you all next Tuesday!