Our summer session of Infant Storytime is underway.  Each week you’ll find a blog post that covers the books, rhymes, songs, tickle, bounces, flannel stories, fingerplays and puppets we shared.  I also throw in some information about the benefits of reading, singing and talking to your baby!

For our seventh storytime of the session we read about shoes and feet!  We even met an old lady who lived in a shoe!!!

Below you’ll find a record of everything we shared!

FACT:  The nursery rhyme There Was an Old Lady Who Lived in a Shoe has an interesting history.  As our ideas about good parenting have changed, so have the words to some of the most well-known English nursery rhymes.  The version we used is listed under the Nursery Rhymes section below.  If you’d like to read the original version click here:  There Was an Old Lady 

To be honest, it was a bit hard for me to read the original because it sounds so harsh, but it was a reflection of an earlier time.  The good news is that we are moving toward a more nurturing and supportive model of parenting and teaching.

BOOKS WE SHARED

 

In My New Shoes written by Leilani Sparrow and illustrated by Dan Taylor, we see a baby bear who wakes up to find that his feet are growing!  Time to buy some new shoes!!  He and his dad head out on the train to the shoe store. On the way they see feet EVERYWHERE!  Then the BIG decision – what type of shoes does baby bear need?  Galoshes?  Sandals?  Sneakers? Shoes that look like scary sharks???  Baby bear decides that he just wants shoes that fit!  This is the perfect story for infants about shoes.

One Foot, Two Feet by Peter Maloney and Felicia Zekauskas promises to be “an exceptional counting book” and it doesn’t disappoint.  I had to shorten it a bit to fit an infant’s attention span but there is so much counting that there is more than enough content within the first half of the book.  We start with one foot and turn the page to find two feet, we start with one mouse, then turn the page to find three mice, one goose turns into four and one snowman turns into five!!!  We ended there because I told everyone the snowmen melted in the summer heat. To make the book effective for babies, I created a rhythmic counting pattern with each new page which kept the infants engaged and reinforced the math concept.

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Two New Nursery Rhyme We Shared

One Two Buckle My Shoe

Nursery Rhymes We Shared

One Two Buckle My Shoe (See video clip above)

One, two, buckle my shoe (pat foot)
Three, four, shut the door (clap)
Five, six, pick up sticks (show fingers)
Seven, eight, lay them straight (pat floor)
Nine, ten, a big fat hen! (make wings and cluck) 

Alternate version
One, two, buckle my shoe (lay one forearm over the other and then switch)
Three, four, shut the door (open hands wide and clap)
Five, six, pick up sticks (act out as if picking up a stick in each hand)
Seven, eight, lay them straight (put “sticks” on the ground)
Nine, ten, a big fat hen! (curve arms out to side to show how big then hen is!)

Flannel/Puppet Story We Shared

There Was an Old Lady Who Lived in a Shoe

 

Version we used during storytime:
There was an old lady who lived in a shoe
She had so many children, she didn’t know what to do
She gave them some broth
She gave them some bread
She gave them a hug
And she put them to bed.

Alternate Version:
There was an old woman who lived in a shoe,
She had so many children she didn't know what to do;
She gave them some broth with plenty of bread,
She kissed them all fondly and sent them to bed.

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