Rhythm Storytime (flannel friday)

This week I did a rhythm lapsit storytime inspired by a book I found on the new book cart last week. It was so much fun and so easy. Almost any song or fingerplay works with this theme!

(Lapsit storytime = 18 to 36 months with caregivers in the room) Here's a general outline, though of course I'm talking about our "core" songs that we use every week, feel free to substitute in your own.

Intro: After our standard opening song, I asked the kids if they knew what rhythm was. Then we all clapped together. Than faster. Then in a very simple rhythm. (Four beats, clap clap rest clap)

Wiggle game (follow the monkey)

Book: Cha-Cha Chimps by Julia Durango

This is one of my all time favorite books. I will read it for any possible theme: monkeys, dancing, jungle friends, counting, rhythms, etc. I love the repeated chorus "ee-oo-ah ah ah 9 little chimps do the cha cha cha". I get the whole group to say it with me. And it rhymes and has a great beat to read it to.

Songs and movement: Here we did our normal, every week songs (I'm a little teapot, head shoulders knees & toes, etc). As well we did the Grand Old Duke of York, repeated that faster and slower.
Grand Old Duke of York is a great faster, slower rhythm, but it also happens to be one of my favorites.

Wiggle Rhyme

Book: I Got The Rhythm by Connie Schofield-Morrison and Frank Morrison

This was the new book that inspired me. Very fun, happy, colorful story of a girl who walks around her neighborhood hearing and finding the rhythm. Quite short text on each page, one sentence plus a rhythm you can do (stomp stomp or clap clap). Great for toddlers with short attention spans and great for audience participation. Definitely going into my storytime rotation. Bonus points because it is a diverse book.

Songs We sang a piggyback version of "If you're happy and you know it" with "If you've got the rhythm and you know it". The only other words I changed in that song was "and you want the world to know it" became "and you want the world to hear it". You could add in other rhythms besides clapping and stomping like snapping and ding-dong-hip-shakes.

Wiggle Rhyme

Flannel
This flannel board is in our library's collection and pre-dates me. I'm not sure who made it, but it was printed on pellon with a standard printer and then colored in. I don't believe it was purchased as a commercial set. Of course it is the illustrations from the amazing Peanut Butter and Jelly by Nadine Bernard Westcott. Printing on pellon (or another non fusible interfacing) is a great way to expand your flannel board set without having to have incredible artistic abilities. I will do a post on it someday.

I love this rhyme as a story, but as a flannel it works really great too. We put up each piece as we sing that verse of the rhyme and do the hand motion and in between each verse, we clap with the chorus.

Early Literacy Moment:
At the end we have all the illustrations up and I did a quick talk about how when we make a PB&J sandwich we do this THEN this THEN this and how great it is to learn about steps and orders things happen in (what Every Child Ready to Read v1 called narrative skills). I told parents that learning about sequences of events and being able to tell things in sequence was an important part of building reading comprehension and would help them all the way up to their SAT tests. I encouraged them to talk through the steps of making lunch that afternoon together.

More Songs & ABCs & Counting
Instead of just counting, we did this rhyme (to the tune of 10 little Indians):
1 little, 2 little, 3 little fingers
4 little, 5 little, 6 little fingers
7 little, 8 little, 9 little fingers
10 little fingers on my hand!
10 little fingers dancing in the air,
10 little fingers dancing on the ground
10 little fingers dancing in the air,
10 fingers dance everywhere!

Book: Tanka Tanka Skunk! by Steve Webb

This is another one of my favorites. Tanka and Skunka love to play the drums. You say their names and the names of other animals and play the drums so you can hear the beat of each name. For example caterpillar's name has four beats. I've passed out rhythm sticks to kids so they can beat along with me, but this time we just played our leg drums. Bright cheerful pictures, so much fun for audience participation, and amazing early literacy phonological awareness! (also easy to skip pages if you have a rowdy group like I did.)

Close it up:
Insert your favorite closing songs and rhymes here.

That was this week's rhythm lapsit storytime. We had tons of fun - hope you can do it too!