Those Silly Babies

Last month we started visiting a local Head Start program.  I went and did a story time for 2 of the classes there.  Generally I would use a theme that I was already doing for story times, but since story time is on a break I decided to use the theme 'Silly Babies.'

The first book that we read was Mustache baby by Bridget Heos.  This book has been a favorite at my house (so much so that we bought our own copy).  Even my husband likes it and he is NOT into picture (or any other books). This is the story of baby Billy who was born with a mustache.  His parents are told that they have to wait and see if it will be a 'good-guy' or 'bad-guy' mustache.  This is a very cute and funny story.

Our second book was Simon Puttock's The baby that roared.  In this story Mr. and Mrs. Deer are unable to have a baby of thier own, but as luck would have it they find one!  However, the poor little baby will not stop roaring.  The Deer send for help but oddly their friends keep disappearing when they are left alone with the baby.  This silly story has a bit of a surprise ending, adults will see it coming, but kids may not.

The third story that we read was The cow that laid an egg by Andy Cutbill.  Poor Marjorie the cow is sad that she cannot do any special tricks like the other cows.  But, when she lays an egg she gets all sorts of special attention.  The other cows are suspicious that the chickens have something to do with this odd event, but they all just have to wait for the egg to hatch to find out what the baby will be.

Since I do my 'on the road' story time much like my in-house story time I took along my ipod.  Sadly the dock quit working (despite the fact it had been fine a few days earlier).  But, as luck would have it, each of the classes that I visited had a dock, which was great as the alternative was using my phone and that speaker is not very loud, or having me sing sans music.  So, there was music and dancing...

We started with the song Shake a Friend's Hand by Carole Peterson.  This is a good group song as it has the kids shaking hands, bumping hips, and scratching the backs of their neighbor.

I had them counting with Mr. Eric and the Learning Groove's 1,2,3, Whee!  This song is very fun as the kids love to throw their hands up into the air and yell 'whee!'  They also get to jump and shake.

I took the library shaker eggs and we sang Shake your boom boom by Angela Russ.  While your 'boom boom' can be anything, we use the shakers and move the shaker a directed in the song, such as up and down, in and out, back and front.

We ended with the 'Banana Chant' or B-Bananas by Carole Peterson that I used all story time session. I enjoy this fun chant and the kids always seem to enjoy it.  It is nice that this version repeats so that the kids can do it once to get the hang of it and then they get to do it again.