Old Mother Goose visits Flannel Friday

Nursery Rhymes - books & flannel

 

 

Light years ago I sat on the floor in the Hartford Convention Center with a group of librarians singing and laughing and learning Mother Goose on the Loose with Betsy Diamont Cohen. Shorty thereafter I brought this program to our town libraries and the rest, they say, is history.  The foundation of rhyming, singing and playing with flannels combined with confidence-building-repetition create a magical mix.  Kids love to know what's going to happen and they figure this pattern out in a few weeks.  Everyone puts the instruments away as we chant "bells away, bells away, put your bells away today".  Everyone cuddles when we sing Twinkle Twinkle and everyone stops when the "drum says STOP"  Magic!  Because it sure as heck isn't my singing voice!  

I am a giant fan of this program and enjoy training new staff members.  Mother Goose on the Loose is jam-packed in our town.  Our families love it.  And Piper doesn't even attend!  She is always sure that she is the "Big Attraction" so we won't burst the Piper bubble!  

Here is my Humpty Dumpty - he's been on the floor more than the flannel board - but heck...that's what he was made for!  

 

The fact that he's sideways is totally bizarre and I can't fix him.

Neither can all the king's soldiers nor all the king's men.

This would normally drive me nuts but I am going to move on. Yep, I am...moving on.

Moving on - each child has the opportunity to come up to the flannel board and knock Humpty right off of his wall.  Oh My Goodness - they adore it.

Here are the Dickey Birds and this rhyme is almost creepy - they love it and follow along cult like!  The little ones, the non-talkers, move their pointer fingers around when they see me.  This is how they identify me - the lady with the two birds!  Oh the sacrifices I make!!

And now, there's Old Mother Goose.  I always thought I would remake her, flannel purest that I am, but no-sirree.  It never happened.  She's on the Flannel Board to welcome everyone as they come in. We all ready-our-wings and chant "Old Mother Goose when she wanted to wander would fly through the air on her very fine gander"  We do that 2x.  We do everything 2x!  And then we move right into Goosey Goosey Gander...

And here's how I store these precious gems that keep on giving - recycled Realia bags.  Love me a good free-cycle!

All of the bags go into storage tubs - waterproofing is big in old New England buildings.  My program room along with flannels, puppets, crafts, instruments and multiple copy books are all in the basement.  Here's one of the four tubs!

Thanks for visiting Piper Loves the Library.  She's snoozin' so we'll just keep this post to ourselves!  If you'd like to learn about this tremendously supportive and talented group - check out the blog!  Flannel Friday is here to inspire and help.  

Mother Goose goes Pink!

October is Breast Cancer Awareness month and I just could not let the month pass without making a statement of support.  PINK!  We showed our support with the color pink.  Last week I prepared an A-B-C mural for the Mother Goose on the Loose kids to color before our program this week.  And I encouraged parents and children to dress in PINK.

My plan is to display a group photo with the mural in the library.  And maybe our pink kids will end up on the Library FB page!?  The library families signed release forms - so I can place their beautiful children here. Before the kids arrived for story time I colored the background of the mural PINK.  I placed crayons all around and taped the mural to the floor.  Our alphabet is in the pink!

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Many of the littlest ones stayed with the Mother Goose pre-story time routine of books and blocks on the rug while older children in the group colored for almost 15 minutes.  A number of the moms colored too.  And I think you all know how much I adore that.  Read with your kids, craft with your kids, talk, sing, dance with your kids!

Here's a coloring couple!

Sometimes coloring is a very serious job!

And if you need a break from coloring - read a book!

We gathered together for the 30 minutes of our Mother Goose on the Loose program and although it was nearing  lunch or nap time for many - they stayed for the photo op!  yay!  Here's another piece of the mural...

...and here are some of the artists!

This was a fun morning - and before we ended I snapped a couple of great books for Bookface.  Today we are suggesting Denise Fleming's Mama Cat Has Three Kittens.  This is an absolutely adorable book.  Mama cat invites the reader in to point to her kittens, Fluffy, Skinny and Boris. 

And a perfect book for fall: Hibernation Station by Michelle Meadows

 

 

We also put together a couple of October is all about pink displays.  Here's one from the Children's Dept.

 

 

 

Thanks for visiting Piper Loves the Library.   Please let us know if you have a favorite book - and we will be happy to post it here.  We will be wearing PINK in my little library for Halloween - many thanks to one of the story time families for helping us with our group costume!  Piper will be a Princess, she is very excited.  What will you be?

Spring Spring Spring said the Robin!!

It's a gorgeous Spring day in Connecticut!   Piper and I are off to the Rocky Hill Library this afternoon for the Capitol Region Children's Round Table Flannel Fest!!!  We are bringing birds with us!  We have two little dickey birds from the Mother Goose Rhyme.  Many thanks to Betsey Diamont Cohen and Mother Goose on the Loose for making this popular all over again!  

Two little dickey birds sitting on a cloud

one named Soft, one named LOUD

fly away Soft

FLY AWAY LOUD

come back Soft

COME BACK LOUD

I have the children use their voices to indicate the soft and loud.  And we pretend that the birds are sitting on our pointer fingers.  We fly our pointer fingers behind our backs and bring them back again!  Such a simple rhyme and it works perfectly.  We do this at least twice.

We have a similar rhyme done in a very different and equally popular way.  Take a look at our blue birds!

One blue bird, made with pale blue tulle, tied to my pointer finger!  Think bird wings!  We have many of these already tied for little fingers to just slip on.  Birds for Mommies too.

Two little bluebirds sitting on a hill

one named Jack and one named Jill

fly away Jack

fly away Jill

come back Jack

come back Jill

(no shouting in this version)

Again, this is so simple!  Place a blue tulle bird, or blue yarn, or blue ribbon on each pointer finger and fly away little birdies!  

Vida Kova Lashgari showed me tulle birds last year, she may have done it with two little black birds...and black tulle is beautiful...or yellow birds?  Just think of all the ways you can do this!!

Two adorable books to suggest for Spring reading:

 

 

P.S. (Piper Script):  Read with your child today, or your dog!