Scientific Analysis of Toddlers

I'm in the middle of performing a very scientific experiment on my story time kids. It's always seemed odd to me that story time at the library is all ages, or as it usually happens 6 months-4 years. That's just cray-cray. If I'm catering to the littlest ones, the big kids are bored and roll their eyes at me. If I'm reading longer stories for the more developmentally advanced, the babies aren't engaged and start crying. And now matter what I do, the 18-20 month olds run around and push all the buttons on the computers.

So my experiment: Babies come to both story times, they're always there. But I've noticed that older kids tend to come to the Thursday story time. I think it's because my home school families have settled on Thursday as their library day and those kids trend older. So without telling anyone, I've started structuring Tuesday story time like a baby bounce/lap sit and keeping Thursday as a more traditional older toddler and preschool story time.

Without (much) further ado, here are the outlines for this Tuesday's baby bounce, followed by Thursday's story time. As you can see, I'm also super getting into making new flannel board sets. If the grand experiment goes the way I think it will I'll be formally dividing my story times at the beginning of the new year.

TUESDAY BABY BOUNCE (I lost my script somewhere along the way, so this is my best recreation)

Song: Good Morning Dear Earth
Poem: Turtle
Book: Mice Squeak, We Speak by Tommie DePaola
Song: Old MacDonald
Flannel: 5 Green and Speckled Frogs
Flannel: Fall is Not Easy (from the book by Marty Kelley)
Song: Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes
Song: Grand Old Duke of York
Rhyme: Big, Big, Big
Flannel: 5 Little Ducks
Rhyme: Where are Baby's Fingers?
Poem: Turtle
Book: Jazz Baby by Lisa Wheeler
Song: Turn Around (from Getting to Know Myself)

And THURSDAY STORY TIME

Song: Good Morning Dear Earth
Rhyme: Big, Big, Big (2x)
Rhyme: Patty Cake, Patty Cake
Book: Eight Animals on the Town by Susan Middleton Elya
Flannel: Inch by Inch (from the book by Leo Lionni)
Flannel: 5 Little Ducks
Song: If You're Happy and You Know It
Book: Shout! Shout It Out! by Denise Fleming
Song: Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes
Song: You Are My Sunshine
Song: Wheels on the Bus
Poem: Turtle (2x)
Book: Jazz Baby by Lisa Wheeler
Song: Turn Around (from Getting to Know Myself)

Tuesday this week went really well. We had a record crowd (36!) and almost everyone paid attention the entire time. Thursday was not as awesome. I should have practiced Inch by Inch before I tried to do it, and as soon as I finished it Jeremy, a 2.5 year old, stood up in front of everyone and sang a song of his own invention- a mix between 5 Little Ducks and 5 Green and Speckled Frogs. This led to extended sharing time- Annie was sick last week, Caleb wants to read more books about Dinosaurs, Frannie thinks the flu is going around etc...

As much as I worry about loosing control of the room though, the moms and nannies never seem to notice. I get just as many compliments in the milling around time after what I consider a disastrous story time as I do after one that I think went smoothly. Thursday's story time highlight came when Sara's mom told me that she had noticed Sara humming the Turn Around Song. They found the song on youtube (bitchin' video by the way) and at the chorus Sara started spinning around. "I didn't know she could follow directions!"