Book Review: Small and Tall Tales of Extinct Animals by Hélène Rajcak, Damien Laverdunt

This book divides the world into the Americas, Eurasia, Africa and Oceania and discusses animals that have gone extinct in each locale. Some such as the Woolly Mammoth and the Irish Elk became extinct due to climate change and others such as the Dodo Bird and the Passenger Pigeon were hunted to extinction by humans. 

Each animal gets a comic strip that shares either a myth about them or something concerning their territory or the people that have studied/found them. Then an illustration in the style of the old fashioned images that naturalists made a hundred years ago with a couple of interesting facts. Many of the animals selected are very strange by today's standards and there are also many animals that are larger cousins of animals that are still somewhat common. There is also a small illustration in the upper right hand corner with a human next to it to illustrate the scale of the animal which I found very helpful. At the end there is frieze with a time line of the vanishing animals and a glossary.

I found this book really interesting and I thought that the comic strips were a great way to present all different kinds of information. I also found this book a little sad. More than half of the animals were made extinct due to human involvement. That being said I didn't feel like the authors were trying to beat you over the head with a point. This book is really about the animals which I found refreshing.

Story Time: Letter D

So once my coworker did a Letter C story time with a Cookie Monster craft I did a Letter D story time the following week with a D is for Dinosaur craft I saw on Story Time Katie's blog.  Story Time Katie is another one of my go to blogs for story time book suggestions and the occasional story time craft idea, particularly once I saw she had also done a series of alphabet crafts.

So I cut the letter D and 1 large rectangle, 4 small rectangles, an oval and 5 triangles out of construction paper and handed them out to the kids with crayons to draw dinosaur faces and personalize their dinosaurs if they wanted to.

There are so many great dinosaur books that I thought for sure I would have an easy time picking/getting books.  This ended up being both true and not true.  There are a lot of great dinosaur books; they are however, very popular and all checked out.  I had wanted one alphabet dinosaur book, one shape dinosaur book and two dinosaur stories.  Unfortunately I wasn't able to get the dinosaur shape book I wanted and my second choice was missing.  On the other hand I spent a lot of time on my dinosaur alphabet book identifying other items that also began with that pages letter, so three books was okay.  Next time I will request my books earlier though.

ABC T-Rex by Bernard Most

Dinosaur vs The Library by Bob Shea

How Do Dinosaurs Say I Love You? by Jane Yolen

Had I been able to find it I also would have done Shape by Shape by Suse MacDonald.  

As I mentioned earlier for each page of ABC T-Rex we tried to identify additional items on the page that began with that letter of the alphabet.  For Dinosaur vs The Library I had the kids roar with me and help me figure out all the other animal sounds.  How Do Dinosaurs Say I Love You? was a quieter book and at least one of the kids turned around after it was over to tell their Mama that they loved her which was beyond adorable.  For songs I changed If You're Happy and You Know It to If You're A Dinosaur and You Know It; we clapped our hands, swished our tails and roared.  

I wanted to end on the Hokey Pokey but one of my regulars adamantly refused.  One minute we were happy and we knew it and suddenly we were nearing meltdown territory.  I always feel this is dangerous when I have less than 6 children as it seems to spread quickly.  This has become even more worrisome now that I've noticed one of my other regulars will repeat the feelings and actions of the other kids.  If one of the kids says they had a good weekend, then she had a good weekend.  If a second kid says they had a bad weekend, then she says she had a bad weekend. It always makes me giggle a little bit since even when she repeats something negative she still seems fairly happy about it; I still feel like the tables could easily turn so I ditched the hokey pokey.  Instead we did the Skinamarinky Dinky Dink song.  

Story Time: Shapes

So when we restarted our Story Time program in January (we take a break for December) my coworker told me she had found a Letter C craft that she really wanted to do.  When she first told me this I thought she had the first story time of the new year, but it turned out she had the second story time of the year and I had the first story time so I scrambled around for something else to do.

On the All Kids Network I saw this great Polar Bear Shape craft.  I didn't have time to get felt so I used construction paper instead.  I was also a little over winter and it's crazy weather so I decided to do it as a brown bear craft.  I handed out crayons so the kids could draw in a background and bear face along with the shapes cut out of construction paper and glue sticks.

For story time I read 4 books and we sang the Happy Birthday song (b/c I was misinformed that it was someone's birthday) and the Hokey Pokey Song.  I did two imagination books and 2 books that were more directly shape related.  The books were:

Round is a Pancake by Joan Sullivan Baranski

It Looked Like Spilt Milk by Charles Green Shaw

Shape Capers by Cathryn Fallwell

Not a Box by Antoinette Portis

Round is a Pancake was very pretty but not as much of a hit as the other books because it was less interactive.  The kids did like the end part where we looked around the picture book area for other round things.  It Looked Like Spilt Milk, Not a Box and Shape Capers were all super interactive.  I had the kids identifying shapes or what things were on every page and they had a lot of fun (although I fully admit even the parents and I had some trouble figuring out a couple of the items on It Looked Like Spilt Milk).  All in all I think this was one of my more fun and successful story times.  

Saturday Story Time: Robots

Saturday Story Times tend to have a slightly more complicated craft because they include children up to second grade.  For my first Saturday Story Time I went with a robot theme.  Originally I had intended to have the kids make their own robots out of paper towel tubes, paint and tin foil down in our large meeting room.  However, due to Super Storm Sandy FEMA camped out in our meeting room since November 1st and was still there at the beginning of January so I moved my program upstairs to our picture book area.  I was a little uncomfortable painting in our picture book area so I decided to work up something new.

I decided to make robot costumes.  I had my coworkers and parents bring in their brown bags from the grocery store.  I cut a slit up the back, arm holes a head hole and then very carefully turned the bags inside out so that all the logos were on the inside.  I gave the kids tinfoil, crayons, foam shapes, sequins, jewels and feathers.  They all created amazing costumes.  (Note that this is the costume I made and it is my very skinny adult sister modeling it, the costumes will fit the kids better.)

For the story time portion I had only three books planned since I wanted to give the kids plenty of time to decorate their costumes.

Boy + Bot by Amy Dyckman

Robot Zombie Frankenstein! by Annette Simon

Hello Robots by Bob Staake

I had two squirmy boys show up on time for my story time. After reading Boy + Bot I felt like they were just not feeling stories. I asked them if they wanted to try a robot song to get the wiggles out or if they wanted to start working on their costumes. The boys really wanted to get started on costumes. When my late arrivals showed up 10 minutes later, they were disappointed to have missed the stories so I did send them home with some of my robot books. As much as I was sorry to skip some of the stories a lot of the kids did spend more than 45 minutes on their costumes. Everyone's costumes came out colorful and fun.

Story Time: Letter B

My coworkers loved my A is for Alligator story time and suggested that I find a Letter B craft and keep going through the alphabet.  After spending a few days google image searching I came across a B is for Bear craft on the blog Get 'Er Done, Momma!  The craft included a template but it wasn't the ideal size for me and one of the arms was reversed so I spent some time finicking around with it.  I was pretty happy with the end result.  I pre cut the letter B and the bears limbs out of regular paper and handed out glue sticks and crayons so that the kids could draw bear faces after glueing everything down.

For story time I read 4 books and stuck with the Alphabet Song and the Hokey Pokey.  I decided that the best way to handle letter of the alphabet story times was to do two alphabet books to reinforce the alphabet as a whole and to alternate the alphabet books with two stories about objects or animals that start with B one of which would hopefully be related to the whatever the craft was going to be; a bear in this case.  The books were:

Alphabet Under Construction by Denise Fleming

Bears on Chairs by Shirley Parenteau

Augie to Zebra by Kate Endle

Small Bunny's Blue Blanket by Tatyana Feeney

Small Bunny's Blue Blanket, while an amazing story just didn't go over well. I almost felt like the story was too slow and subdued for my group. They loved Alphabet Under Construction with it's huge letters. The kids often called out the letters and then I repeated it and read the caption. Augie to Zebra was less popular because the letters were so much smaller. Bears on Chairs, while not as popular as Alphabet Under Construction was great because we managed to get a lot of interaction out of the story.

Story Time: Letter A

So my very first story times were designed by my coworkers.  When the September rolled around and Fall Story Time started I was finally given the opportunity to design my own story time crafts.  I decided to go with an alphabet craft based on a parent's passing comment.

The letter A seemed like the most obvious place to start.  I did a google image search and came across lots of A crafts, but my favorite by far was the craft that turned the capital letter A into an alligator.  I found a full page print out of the Letter A cut it out and used it as a stencil to to cut out green letter A's, then cut small white and green triangles for eyes and teeth.   I also handed out crayons so that each of the kids could draw eyes into the green triangles and write their name on their alligator.

I read 4 books and did 2 songs.  For this story time I picked three alphabet books and one story book that focused on something that began with the letter A.  I also do the alphabet song and the hokey pokey because it helps get the wiggles out.

For the letter A story time I read: Max's ABC by Rosemary Wells
                                                    Alligator Alphabet by Stella Blackstone
                                                    Chicka Chicka Boom Boom by Martin Bill Jr.
Apple Farmer Annie by Monica Wellington

The Max and Ruby book was by far the most popular of the four books, and Chicka Chicka Boom Boom would have been more successful if I had gotten more of the kids to say the words along with me.  The other books were fairly well received.  All in all it was a good story time for my first time handling the whole thing.

Story Time: Monsters

This was my second story time and I felt so much more prepared than I was the first time.  Again one of my coworkers had preset up a craft for me.  She printed some monster clip art, cut the middle out of a paper plate and had the children glue their monster pictures to the paper plates.  We then punched holes in the top of the paper plates and thread yarn through so that the kids could hang them as mobiles or wreaths.

Again I selected books that went with the preselected craft. I chose:

My Monster Mama Loves Me So by Laura Leuck

If You're A Monster and You Know It by Ed Emberley (I had the kids pretend to be monsters and treated it like the song, they really seemed to enjoy it.)

The Monster at the End of This Book by Jon Stone 

Leonardo the Terrible Monster by Mo Willems

In addition to the Hokey Pokey I changed the Five Little Monkeys song to Five Little Monsters with some fabulous monster finger puppets made by my friend Anne from mymonsterhat.  When I described what I wanted to do she shipped out for me specifically for this story time.  The kids loved them!

This felt much more successful than my first story time.  I also had a lot more fun than I did for my first story time, which I can only hope means the kids were having fun too.  

My First Story Time Ever

For my first story time ever my coworkers already had a very simple craft for selected for me.  My coworkers printed out pictures of pirates and princesses from microsoft clip art, had a page cut them out and handed out construction paper and glue sticks.  The kids made collages by glueing down the pictures.

From the get go my story time was something of a disaster.  The story part lasted only 10 minutes long.  Due to a large number of children arriving substantially late for many of the children there was technically no story time.  I also forgot the words to Mary Had A Little Lamb about half way through the song (when all the late arrivals showed up) and cut the rest of my planned songs in sheer panic.  I went back and forth about what books to read and how many.  I chose to read books that fit the craft theme:

Bubble Bath Pirates by Jarrett J. Krosoczka

Not All Princesses Dress in Pink by Jane Yolen & Heidi E. Stemple

Do Pirates Take Baths? by Kathy Tucker

In retrospect I should have had a fourth book ready just in case. In the future I would add The Paper Bag Princess by Robert N. Muncsh if I did a Pirate/Princess story time again.

I also realized after the story time that I have very specific feelings about princesses and how they should behave.  I also since then have made it a point to learn to let things like lateness fluster me less  and I have practiced all my children's songs.  The other librarians all told me stories about their first story times which were apparently also a disaster.  So if your first story time is a disaster, know that it will get better and that apparently almost every librarian's is!