Today I filled in for a Family Child Care Story Time at our central branch. This weekly story time is for home childcare providers with small groups of children. The children were mostly toddlers and preschoolers, not too dissimilar from my usual family story time crowd.
Welcome Song: Hello, Friends
Book 1: Bark, George!
Hand Rhymes
- I wake up my hands
- Roly poly
Book 2: The Seals on the Bus
Action Songs
- Zoom zoom
- London Bridge is Falling Down
- Head and shoulders
- If you’re happy and you know it
Book 3: Little Owl Lost
Cool-down songs:
- Grr-grr went the little brown bear one day (with puppet)
Goodbye Song: Goodbye, Friends!
I love testing things out on new audiences. 😉 I don’t typically fit three picture books into my story times, but this crowd seemed primed to sit and listen, so I decided to give it a whirl. It worked surprisingly well – I chose very silly stories that I could play up with facial expressions and different voices, and as usual I stuck to my favourite standbys for this one-off story time.
I also used “If you’re happy and you know it” as my transition song, finishing the song with:
“If you’re happy and you know it sit back down / If you’re happy and you know it sit back down / If you’re happy and you know it and you really want to show it / If you’re happy and you know it sit back down”
I wanted to finish with a puppet, but I didn’t really like any of the frog puppets I could find, so I decided to just sing “grr grr went the little black bear” with an adorable black bear puppet.One of the childcare minders had never heard that version before, and she liked it so much she came up to me afterwards for the words. I love being able to share new versions of old favourites with caregivers – like I always say, you don’t have to reinvent the wheel – if you already know a few tunes, work with what you have!
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