Manners Storytime

Happy Almost Thanksgiving! Turkey day is my all time favorite holiday. Food, family, togetherness, and no gifts, love it. Plus it isn't necessarily tied to religious traditions and can be more easily celebrated by a wide swath of the population. (Okay I married into an Alaskan Native family and I know many Native American groups do not advocate it - my mother-in-law calls it the feast of the oppressors, but I think she's joking.)

However I don't love most kids Thanksgiving books. They either present the rosy version of what is actually a fairly troubling history or I just don't like them. There are a few exceptions, but I didn't want to do only Thanksgiving stories. Instead I chose to do a manners storytime to help prep kids for the big meals. Several parents thanked me for it; it was one of my more popular themes.

I did this as a toddler (18 months to 36 months) storytime, but I'm giving you suggestions for going a little older with the books.

Intro and sign:
I talked about thanksgiving was a good time to practice manners because it was an extra special meal with people we maybe didn't get to see very often, but we should use good manners all the time. Our signs (American Sign Language) for the week were please, thank you, and you're welcome.

Books I used:
Please Say Please: A Penguin's Guide to Manners by Margery Cuyler and Will Hillenbrand, a cute story about penguin's animal friends coming over and showing good and bad manners. Easy to encourage audience participation since every situation ends with "Is that right?" followed by "No, that's wrong." This is the longest book I used and I skipped a few animals because my group was getting restless. Sadly out of print.

How Do Dinosaurs Eat Their Food? by Jane Yolen and Mark Teague, honestly the entire "how do dinosaurs" line is a great one for kids and very well known. But it is always a crowd pleaser, it rhymes, and has nice big clear pictures that work well in groups.

The Nice Book by David Ezra Stein, this is as much a behavior as a manners book, though it has some manners in there. But it is quite short with clear simplistic pictures. It is a great third book for a toddler group because of it's brevity and eye catching illustrations. It is also my choice this week for (the only book I'll read in) baby storytime.

Other Book Options:
Thank You Thanksgiving by David Milgrim, I would have used this if I had reserved it in time. Short, simple, all about saying thank you and about Thanksgiving. Perfect. My favorite kids Thanksgiving book.
Suppose You Meet a Dinosaur: A First Book of Manners by Judy Sierra, Tim Bowers. Good book, but I already had one on dinosaurs and it was a bit too long. (It would be fine as a first book for toddler storytime, but not as a second.) Plus it focused on general out and about manners not mealtime manners.
Emily's Out and About Book by Cindy Post Senning. Good book, written by the heir to the Emily Post/Miss Manners empire. However it is again a more general manners book and I was focusing on mealtime manners.

Songs:
I don't know specific manners songs, but I added verses to favorite songs.

If you're happy and you know it...
(After the three traditional verses)
If you're polite and you know it, say please & thank you...
If you're polite and you know it, and you really want to show it, if you're polite and you know it...

The Wheels on the Bus
(Do however many traditional verses you want)
The children on the bus say please and thank you, please and thank you, please and thank you...
The driver on the bus says you are welcome, you are welcome, you are welcome...
(Here we use the signs for those words)

By the by I always end "The Wheels on the Bus" with: "The librarians on the bus say READ A BOOK" and use a motion like opening a book (the American Sign Language sign for book).

Flannel Board:
I cheated here and used the Very Hungry Caterpillar flannel board. Hey, it's about eating!

Craft/coloring page:
We don't do crafts, just coloring pages. So we did a turkey coloring page. A very simple craft is to let kids decorate placemats. Either just coloring placemat sized sheets of paper or even gluing on shapes that represent where the fork, knife, plate, etc go. They can be "flash laminated" with contact paper. I have done this in the past and it was widely popular.

Hand Stamp:
A turkey for thanksgiving, or a star because stars use good manners. Or a Thank You one from the card making section of the craft store.

There you go - this is a widely popular storytime (at least for the parents). And it probably reaffirms the role of librarians in socializing to a specific set of class norms, but I can live with that.

Piggyback songs - baby specific customization

Let's keep talking about piggyback songs. Once again these are songs that take a familiar tune and change a few or all of the words. They can be customized for themes, your location, or your family.

It's a great early literacy trick because it helps kids hear the rhymes/phonemes in words even more clearly when contrasted with what they are familiar with. Also parents/caregivers can catch on to the new song much easier than tackling new words and a new tune at the same time.

Last time we talked about Alaskan piggyback songs, this time let's talk about baby storytime piggy backs.

There isn't a storytime that goes by without me doing a piggyback song, but they are my favorite for baby storytime. Here we call baby storytime, Mother Goose time, and I took it over when I came back as youth services coordinator in December. I structure it as 90% songs with one flannel/puppet activity and one story  followed by open playtime. but that's another post.

This piggyback to Frere Jacques is one of our Mother Goose staples. We sing it every week.

I Love Baby
(tune: Frere Jacques)
I love baby, I love baby
Yes I do, Yes I do
And my baby love me
Yes, my baby loves me
Very much, Very much

This is a great framework to modify for any situation. You can insert any caregiver (I love mommy, I love daddy, etc.) I've got a version I sing to my new blender when I'm making smoothies at home.

For Mother Goose time, after we sing it once through with "baby" I ask the caregivers to sing their baby's names. (I just sort of hum a noise or sing my child's name.) The first time I did it, about half the caregivers turned the baby around from facing me and sang directly to their child. Perfect response! While I don't know that anyone is doing that at home, I can hope! And I'm showing parents on the spot how to modify a song quickly.

And just for giggles, here's the other version I sing a lot, but mostly to myself at the reference desk the hour before lunchtime:

A song to sing when doing the 12-1 shift on the reference desk:
I am hungry, I'm so hungry
When is lunch? Is it lunch?
Cause I've got yummy thai food
Leftovers from last night's thai food
Yummy noodles, Nom nom noodles

Start practising creating piggy back songs on the fly (perfect shower singing) and you'll be making lots of them in no time. And hopefully if you get caught singing something like this, no one commits you. They've not stuck me in the insane asylum.

A song to sing while making a green smoothie:
Let's start blending, brand new blender
Juice that fruit, grind that flax!
I'm so glad I got the nutribullet
Even if my husband laughs at me
Add more juice
And more spinach

Alaskan Piggyback Songs

I absolutely adore piggyback songs. For those of you who don't know, piggyback songs are songs that "piggyback" on an existing well known children's tune with slightly (or greatly) modified lyrics. They're great in storytimes because caregivers and children already are familiar with the tune and rhyme/rhythm structure and so pick up the changes easily.

Eventually I will write up a post about how I use piggyback songs. Some I sing alone and some I sing as a "second verse" to their well known cousin.

I am starting a series on piggyback songs because I use them constantly. This week (Monday) was Seward's Day where we celebrate the purchase of Alaska from the Russians. Apparently the Russians are petitioning to get Alaska back. However since that seems an extremely unlikely outcome, for now we will celebrate as I share some of my favorite Alaskan piggyback songs. It helps that I live in Alaska, but perhaps you too want to do an Alaskan storytime for the Iditarod? Or just because Alaska is ridiculously cool? A few of these will work for general Northern or animal storytimes.

Maybe someday I'll get all fancy like the good folks at jbrary and make videos of myself singing these songs.

Twinkle Twinkle Northern Lights
(tune: Twinkle Twinkle Little Star)
Twinkle twinkle northern lights
Sparkle in the Arctic night
Up above the world so high
Blue-green ribbon in the sky
Twinkle twinkle northern lights
Shimmer in my dreams tonight

(Motions: sparkly/wiggly fingers for twinkling lights, draw a ribbon in the sky, tuck your heads under your hands in the "sleep" position on dreams, or just improvise)

BALTO!
(tune: BINGO)
There was a musher had a dog and Balto was his name-o
B A L T O
B A L T O
B A L T O
And Balto was his name-o

(Continue as you would for Bingo with clapping and replacing letters with clapping. This is a great one to use during Iditarod time and to use with felt letters. You can pull off the letters one by one or cover them up with felt stars as each letter becomes a clap.)

Itsy Bitsy Grizzly Bear
(tune: Itsy Bitsy Spider)
The itsy bitsy grizzly bear climbed up the honey tree
Down came the angry bees and stung him on the knee
Out came the mama bear and kissed away the pain
And the itsy bitsy grizzly bear climbed up the tree again

(Motions: make grizzly bear claws climb up; pointer fingers are bees that circle and poke your knee, mama bear comes out in big arm motions and kisses, and grizzly bear claws climb up again.)

Moosie-Moo
(tune: Here we go Loopy Loo or Here we go Looby Loo, depending where you grew up)
Here we go Moosie-moo
Here we go Moosie might
Here we go Moosie-moo
All on an arctic night

Here we go Moosie-left
Here we go Moosie-right
Here we go Moosie-left
All on an arctic night

Here we go Moosie-up
Here we go Moosie-down
Here we go Moosie-up
Now the moose goes all around

Here we go Moosie-front
Here we go Moosie-back
Here we go Moosie-front
Here we go Moose ATTACK!

(Add verses as you need. Motions: make moose antlers with your hands on head and dance around with the lyrics. Charge and giggle on the last line.)

Moose Pokey
(tune: Hokey Pokey)
You put your antlers in,
You put your antlers out,
You put your antlers in and you shake them all about
You do the Moose Pokey and you turn yourself about
That's what it's all about!

You put your right hoof in...
You put your left hoof in...
You put the whole moose in...

(Seriously you can figure out the motions to this one on your own. I have faith in you. Also can be Moosey Pokey if you need to keep the beat structure closer to the original)

I've got more, but they are mostly animals I'll save them for a future Alaskan/northern animals storytime post.

Happy singing!

Mods for Storytime When Pregnant

I'm currently 6 months pregnant, visibly showing, and starting to have some difficulty getting around. Mostly I'll go to lean against a counter and it's much closer than I think it is. Or I try to squish between cars in a parking lot and my stomach doesn't suck in and I don't squish anymore. So far I can still touch my toes (I've been told that will go away).

As I was lamenting to my husband that every week "head, shoulders, knees, and toes" gets a teeny bit harder and I'm not sure I will make it to the end of the storytime session, he suggested I skip that song. Let's all pause to note in his naive, pre-fatherhood days, that he thinks you can just skip head, shoulders, knees, and toes without a full on toddler riot. I've been brainstorming solutions and before last week I had: just wave in the general direction of my feet and hope everyone knows what I mean.

Last weekend though I was at the Alaska Library Association annual conference and joking about this with another librarian who had a great solution. (Apologies because it was an off the cuff conversation between sessions and I can't remember who suggested this.)

Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes becomes Head, Shoulders, Knees and Hips!

Of course you need to change nose (in "eyes and ears and mouth and nose") to lips to maintain the rhyme structure. (DUH, rhyme structure is very important to toddlers, helps build phonetic awareness, and soothes the feelings of OCD librarians who need the rhyme too). However you don't want to say "mouth and lips" because that has you pointing to your mouth twice in a row. Boring! Thus "eyes and ears and nose and lips" works perfectly.

If you're a children's librarian, you're nodding along with me (and humming under your breath). If you're not a children's librarian, you've probably stopped reading. Or are totally confused that I just put that much time into this.

I haven't had to do any other mods for storytime yet for pregnancy. The next thing to go might be the little bitty storytime chair because we have a rhyme that has you jump out of your seat. It's harder when you're large, pregnant, and sitting on a small stool about 8 inches off the ground.

This morning in toddler storytime (here called Lapsit) we did Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes and followed it with Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Hips. The moms laughed at the explanation why and some of them who are further along than me looked grateful. The kids are always just happy to sing and dance. And we felt very jaunty ending our song with our hands on our hips.