Today began our Fall 2015 Session of Toddler Storytime! We read stories and sang songs about apples, a nice fall season fruit. Toddlers were invited to take an apple to hold if they wanted to and feed it to a bear puppet. Then at the end of storytime we brought all our apples up to the felt board:
We start every storytime with an opening song, “Clap Everybody and Say Hello,” and then we sing a fingerplay called “Open Shut Them”:
Open, shut them (flex and close fingers)
Open, shut them
Give a little clap, clap, clap
Open, shut them
Open, shut them
Place them on your lap, lap, lap
Creep them, crawl them (dance fingers slowly up to your chin)
Creep them, crawl them
Right up to your chin, chin, chin
Open up your little mouth, but….
DO NOT LET THEM IN! (hide fingers behind back)
We read Ten Red Apples by Virginia Miller:
We met a few animals who LOVE to eat apples, who were hiding in our I Spy box!
You might remember it from my storytime last winter:
It’s really just a cardboard box I cut a hole into, and then covered with felt to make it look more attractive 🙂 Little ones like the puzzle of seeing only part of the puppet and then the surprise of seeing the whole puppet. We met a horse and a rabbit, then the toddlers were invited to feed the animals some apples!
We sang a song to the tune of “Where Is Thumbkin?”:
Great big apple tree, great big apple tree (extend baby’s arms)
Standing tall, standing tall, (lift baby up)
Moving your branches, when the wind blows (sway baby’s arms)
Apples fall! Apples fall! (bring baby’s arms down)
Then we sang about Five Red Apples and counted down from five to zero:
Five red apples hanging from the tree
Big and round and so shiny
Along came a worm with a hungry tummy
And he ate one apple right off the tree!
Four red apples…
We sang a traditional fingerplay:
Where is Thumbkin? (hide hands behind back)
Where is Thumbkin?
Here I am! (bring out one hand with thumb up)
Here I am! (bring out other hand with thumb up)
How are you today, sir? (make thumbs wiggle and “talk” to each other)
Very well, and thank you!
Run away! (hide one hand again)
Run away! (hide the other)
Then we read the book Orange Pear Apple Bear by Emily Gravett. This book has a lot of repetition, using the same words over and over. But it stays surprising by always giving us a slight change in the order and a slight twist on the meaning:
We sang “Mister Sun”:
Oh Mister Sun, Sun,
Mister Golden Sun,
Won’t you please shine down on me?
Oh Mister Sun, Sun,
Mister Golden Sun,
Hiding behind a tree,
These little children are asking you
To please come out so we can play with you
So Mister Sun, Sun,
Mister Golden Sun,
Oh won’t you please shine down on me?
We watched a video called “Max’s Apple,” about bunny Max asking his big sister Ruby to pick him apples from their apple tree. It’s based on characters created by Rosemary Wells:
Then we sang some other traditional fingerplays using our Song Cube. I give toddlers a chance to throw the cube in the air and see where it lands!
And we ended with a goodbye song with sign language, to the tune of “Goodnight Ladies”:
Goodbye, friends
Goodbye, friends
Goodbye, friends
It’s time to say goodbye
As you can see, our Toddler Storytimes will have books, a video, counting, rhymes, fingerplays, and songs to dance to. Our hope is that you take the fun of these storytimes back home with you, and keep singing the songs and saying the rhymes so that your toddler will hear rich vocabulary and music, acquire great listening and pre-literacy skills, and be ready for preschool!