Baby Story Time Board Books

A big component of our under 2 story times in my library system is the sharing of a board book.  We pass them out to everyone in the group and do a group read along.  Personally, I love this component because the parents and children are sharing the book.  It shows the kids that reading is fun for everyone, which motivates them to want to read in the future.

Last fall, a couple of us were looking for new titles to use and had a big Twitter conversation.  I always love to see what others are using as every story time presenter seems to have their own style as to what will work for them.  I will be honest-some of our current collection doesn't work for me, but it works for others.  Since I am newer to this location, I have been adding new titles that fit my style as I can.  I am more of a singer so I like books that flow or rhyme.

At my location, all of our board book sets are stored in a closet right in the story time room.  This makes it convenient.  Plus, once you see the inside of the closet, you will realize that board books are about all it can hold.

As you can see, the shelves are not very deep, but they are perfect for board books.  All of our sets are cataloged with a special spine label and a blue professional reference sticker.  This helps us find the titles easily when they accidentally get interfiled with the regular board book collection.

So I can easily find stuff, all sets are together.  They are also in alphabetical order by author's last name.  There is a label on the inside of the door as to what should be on each shelf.  Our full collection can be seen here. 

If you would like to see how another location stores their copies, one of our branches also collects board book sets.  This is nice because we can trade as needed.  Their copies are also cataloged and labeled.  They have open shelves in the staff workroom for their copies.

What do you do with your story time board books and what titles do you have?  I am always looking for new ideas.

Z is for Moose

This morning in our 2 year old story time, our theme was M is for Moose.  This was the perfect time to pull out Z is for Moose by Kelly Bingham and Paul Zelinsky.  If you haven't read it before and work with young children, you definitely need to pick it up.  It will work with themes on mooses, abc's, or funny stories.

With 2 year olds, they really want to be "in" on the joke.  Most of them like to laugh, even if it is for no reason.  This book has lots of silly things going on.  To get them ready, we practice our abc's before we read the story.  Then, we look at the title and sound out the word "moose".  We talk about what letter moose might start with.  Could it start with "m" like mouse or mom?  What else is on the cover?  Then, we sound out "zebra".  What letter could zebra start with?

This book works well because the kids can help tell the story if you want them to.  I start off with "a is for" and let them fill in the blank.  With a large apple illustration, you will get a lot of "apple" answers.  The illustrations are familiar enough that they should be able to get most of them, but I did have to help them with fox and glove.  By the time you get to "m", the kids will be laughing.  When you keep going and the zebra is "protecting" the illustrations, they will almost be rolling on the floor with laughter.

For those of us who use early literacy messages in our story times, this is a good book to use for your example.  In addition to reading the story, you can talk about the illustrations or what might happen next.  The kids are practicing their reading skills when you let them read along.  Even if they don't know the actual words, they know the shapes (like they know a picture of an apple is an apple).  The more of these connections that they put together, the better they will get at it, and the more prepared they will be to actually read when the time comes.

Great Shelf Challenge-Day 4

The middle of the picture book F section has some great authors.  In our library, these books are always out because they are either classics or new popular books.  You've got Jules Feiffer, Marjorie Flack, Candace Fleming, Denise Fleming, Brian Floca, Greg Foley, Mem Fox, Marla Frazee, and Don Freeman.  These are authors that we, as children's librarians, are all familiar with because we are constantly using their books in our story times and on our booklists.  Really, I don't need to say much about them-they sell themselves.

The three that I would like to highlight from the middle F's are both by Valorie Fisher. Two of them pair up really well. 

and

Both of these books work really well for young children in story times about families.  They are easy to read and the photographs are real.  The kids really identify with them.

If you missed Everything I Need to Know Before I'm Five, you will definitely want to check it out.  It takes all of those concept books that we stock and puts them all together in a visually appealing format.  I don't think that we have any other book in the library that has labels on the side for ABC's, 123's, colors, and shapes (we label our concept books by concepts).

With four days left in the month, I will be back to finish up the F section next week.  There's at least one big author left!

Great Shelf Challenge-Day 3

I am still working my way through E F for the Great Shelf Challenge.  Today I am on E Fearnley and E Fearrington.

E Fearnley encompasses four books by Jan Fearnley.  Mr. Wolf's Pancakes and Mr. Wolf and the Three Bears would work well as a story time book using popular fairy tales or paired with Keiko Kasza's The Wolf's Chicken Stew.  Both books have Mr. Wolf as the main character and we all know how often the Big Bad Wolf appears in children's literature!  The kids, preschoolers especially, will love these titles as they will "get" the humor.  Her other two titles, Milo Armadillo and Martha in the Middle, are both about little girls who solve a problem.  I really liked Martha in the Middle and can definitely see myself recommending it to other middle children.

E Fearrrington has one book called Who Sees the Lighthouse? by Ann Fearrington.  While it is in the picture book room and has a counting label on the side, it's real niche is going to be with teachers.  The rhyme works for young kids, but the lighthouses in the illustrations are all real lighthouses.  In addition, the endpapers list all of the lighthouses by state.  It is really interesting.  In Michigan the elementary kids have to do lighthouse reports since we have a lot of lighthouses along our coastline.  Their teachers are the ones that need to use this book because it would pair really well with the lighthouse assignment.  Plus, I like fiction and nonfiction pairings now that Michigan is adopting the Common Core Standards.

Next week I will continue through the F's.

Great Shelf Challenge-Day 2

Are you participating in the Great Shelf Challenge?  I am on day 2 of posting what I have found.  (See here for day 1.)  Lucky for me, someone came through last night and checked out a whole bunch of Olivia books.  This means that I am done with E Falconer now and can move on!

Hidden Gems 
Polo and the Magic Flute by Regis Faller-I totally missed this one when it came out, but it would work well on a wordless picture book list.  The illustrations also resemble those of a graphic novel, even though it looks like a hardcover picture book.

Polo: The Runaway Book-see above.

Word Wizard by Cathryn Falwell-This is a good pick for early elementary students who are just learning how words are put together.  In a magical way, Falwell flips letters to show how different words can be made up of the same letters (for example-shore and horse).

Good for Story Time
Mystery Vine by Cathryn Falwell-This would fit well with a gardening or a Halloween story time (or Dig into Reading).  The rhymes are good and the text isn't too long so this would work well for 2-6 year olds.

Shape Capers by Cathryn Falwell-I have been trying for ages to figure out how to flannelize this story for story time.  While the characters in the story look really young (almost babyish) in their hooded outfits, this is a fun introduction to shapes.  At the end of the story, they even build things out of the shapes (like a rocket ship).

For more information on the Great Shelf Challenge, visit here.

Great Shelf Challenge

Many of us have joined up with the Great Shelf Challenge 2013.  The goal of this challenge is to get us to explore our collection in a manageable way.  My goal is to read my way through our E F section (or all of the picture books whose author's last name start with F). 

About this section
I work at a busy branch location with a high focus on children's materials.  That being said, the section that I have chosen has 180 books when they are all checked in.  Hmm, maybe I should have chosen X.

Starting at the beginning
Our first author in the F's is Ian Falconer, author of the popular Olivia series.  Titles today include Olivia Forms a Band, Olivia Saves the Circus, Olivia Builds a Snowlady, Olivia Cooks Up a Surprise, Olivia Meets Olivia, Olivia and the School Carnival, and Olivia and the Best Teacher Ever.  So customers can easily find all of the Olivia books together, we shelve the ones based on the tv series with the original ones written by Ian Falconer.  The originals by Falconer are, by far, better written and illustrated.  They can also be easily read in one sitting.  The ones based on the tv show have a LOT of words and tell you everything that is happening.  They are still mischievous, but they don't leave much to the imagination.  These books are still popular and fill a niche.

Tomorrow I will continue through the world of Olivia.