Baby story time 1/22/16

We resumed baby story time today after the holiday/ALA Midwinter hiatus! Philly is expecting a snowmaggedon, but we still had small yet engaged group of older babies pop by for story time. Our pig puppet kissed each baby to welcome them while I introduced the parents to how our baby story time works and what to expect. My baby story times are very low key. We have lots of toys and manipulatives on the floor, so I explained that babies were  welcome to enjoy the story time in their caregiver’s lap or crawl around and/or engage with the toys! Being babies, they have very short attention spans, so I don’t want the parents to get worried if their kid wasn’t playing attention to the book, they are still absorbing the language skills we put out there. I also provide handout (here’s the template) for practice at home, but it’s also a good way to plug some early literacy and media mentoring tips!

We start with the same song and book for every baby story time:

Welcome song: Clap and say hello

Book 1: A-hunting we will go by John Langstaff (we sing this one!)

Scarf song: Popcorn kernels! (They especially loved this song, thanks Anna!)

Bounce: This is the way the ladies ride

Diaper changing rhymes: Charlie Chaplin went to France & There was a little man (I love you, Jbrary!)

Book 2: Ten tiny tickles by Karen Katz (the babies weren’t so crazy about this one)

Scarf song: London Bridges

Bounce: Did you ever see a baby

 

Goodbye song: Open shut them (from the Storytime Secrets blog, one of my favorite resources)

I used to drive myself crazy trying to come up with themes for baby story time and then one day I realized that neither the babies nor the parents seemed care about themes. Do you use themes in baby story time? Why or why not?

Enjoy the snowpocolypse, fellow East Coasters!