week 3: take it, dee dee

Thursday afternoon started kinda bumpy (in a general sense), but a quick chat with Miss Amy before my Head Start storytime helped me get my head into the game. Forty five or fifty kids were expecting to sing "The Hello Song" with a turtle named Gareth, and I had to make that happen. No time for dilly-dallying. Only one choice:

So I'll discuss Thursdays in terms of (a) Class 1 and 2's storytime, and (b) Class 3 and 4's storytime. This is seems like a useful approach, because (kinda duh) every group will be different and (also duh) every storytime group has its own dynamic, and likes, spikes, and feels meh about different things.

Class 1 and 2

As I mentioned in an earlier entry, this group seems the slightly older of the two. Not old enough to enjoy boring books about little chickens, but a little older nonetheless and possessed of oh-so-slightly longer attention spans. Thursday was a great storytime, and attention spans weren't really an issue. Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus went over like gangbusters; some kids knew it really well, though probably a lot of kids weren't familiar. I like to make sure and ask on every page, or frame, or just wherever appropriate, can the pigeon drive the bus?, just to keep the everyone engaged and yelling No! That's the point, right?

When the bus driver came back, somebody (ugh, still getting names down) shouted out, "let him drive the red truck!" and I just about fell through the floor with happiness. We had a blast with "A Sailor Went to Sea" and I just approached it Ramones-style: stand up, have fun, finish, sit down and move on to the next thing. No undue futzing around between activities, just let the momentum carry us and the more distracted kids will catch up. Guess what? They did, and it was great.

Next I read Go Away, Big Green Monster! Hoo boy. Have I mentioned this is my all-time favorite Head Start/outreach storytime book? It is a solid gold smash hit in a way that makes me so happy I can't even begin to explain. Class 1 and 2 were super into it! Jayden (who sits right up front every week) kept a running commentary that probably tracked what many of the kids were thinking:

Jayden (as more of the monster's features appeared): "I don't think I like this story!"
Jayden (as the monster's features start to disappear): "I like this story... a lot!"

Per popular demand, we read Go Away, Big Green Monster! twice (which is why I like to read it second, so I have plenty of time for re-reading), and I am so happy I bought my own copy (as well as the accompanying puppet, all made possible by the kindness of the super-great Eva Volin and folks at the Alameda Free Library Children's Room). I plan on reading it at least a couple more times over the next several weeks, as well as using the puppet.

My experiment with singing "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star" as quietly as possible fell a little flat, but went OK. They seemed really into the Hot Chocolate fingerplay, and that makes me really happy. I think I'll do another week of it English-only, then introduce the alternating Spanish verse.

Everybody seemed to enjoy How Do Dinosaurs Say Goodnight?, to the point of someone saying (loudly) "goodnight, dinosaur!" to the dinosaur on the last page. Awesome! We took off our magic storytime hats at the end and everybody lined up to say goodbye to Gareth, pretty much all giving him (and me) a hug on their way out.

Class 3 and 4

Like I said, Thursday was a great storytime. Working with Class 3 and 4 presents some challenges (there are a few kids who have a tough time settling into a group dynamic) but really nothing at all out of the ordinary. I focused on keeping things moving; not that I don't always, but it's nice to remember what works well.

Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus was a hit, though (again) I felt most of the audience was not really familiar with it. So I worked hard to ensure everyone felt included, and definitely hammed it up for Pigeon's "LET ME DRIVE THE BUS!!!" meltdown. It's a good thing to laugh when you read funny books, right?

Of course I have already talked lots of Go Away, Big Green Monster! Well, it wasn't done with me yet. This group didn't offer any commentary as erudite as Jayden's, but by the second half of the book I had 25 or so preschoolers screaming their heads off every time I would flip the page to make part of the monster's face go away. Like, the Beatles at Shea Stadium 1965-style screaming. It was fantastic! I'm sure I could have suggested we read it again, but since I want to re-read it in the coming weeks I thought better to just move on to the rest of storytime.

Class 3 and 4 did particularly well with singing "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star" as quietly as possible; this was right in their wheelhouse. They also seem to love making hot chocolate, so much so that I think it could work as a fingerplay on its own without the bilingual component. Not that I don't want to use it as a bilingual fingerplay, it has just been much more popular than expected.

I cut How Do Dinosaurs Say Goodnight? down to about 3/5 of its standard length for this storytime, and that was about right. Attention spans are still short, even if dinosaurs are awesome. Class 3 and 4 has a few of kids who aren't particularly engaged at this point (and one or two who occasionally act out and disrupt things) but there is a solid majority of kids who are totally into storytime. That's all you can ask for, really.