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.  

brown girl dreaming ~ deserves all of her medals

Color Your World

(this is what happened while I was trying to find the words for a diversity post)

Children's Book Awards and a Grant Opportunity

Working on a grant proposal, thinking outcomes, facing deadlines, finding all the right words for all the right places, (thank you Meghan Trainor), is both challenging and time consuming. I'm looking at the serious subject of race, discovering the value of home and family, looking for ways to encourage young girls to find their voice and learning what defines them. Yet the more I research and uncover the more unsure I am of my skill to lead a group of tweens in this weighty discussion. The spectrum of racist behavior is more than my heart can handle.  I'm looking at the Civil Rights Movement in the United States for historical background for Jacqueline Woodson's amazing fictionalized memoir ~ Brown Girl Dreaming. I have a miracle of a book for book discussion, a good program idea to partner it with but maybe this is going to hurt too much.  I attended school in the 50's, 60's and 70's.  Black and white kids were bused into my school.  Maybe this proposal is too personal. I just don't know.  

(Now let's step away from that.  Here's the post I planned on writing!)

For the past two months I've been mentally writing a blog post regarding the positive steps made by publishers with regard to more diversity in children's picture books. I truly believed that the stories were being written, being submitted, but publishers needed to hear our cry.  Publish them! We, the people, we-the libraries, we-the schools and we-the parents on FB on Twitter, on Youtube needed to shout - #WeNeedDiverseBooks.  And alleluia, the publishers heard us!  

Here's an interesting article from the UW - Madison's CCBC

Diversity remains an important topic for all of us working with children in a variety of settings. Selecting diverse songs, books, flannels and props is my part, "our part" as storytellers, programmers and librarians for children. 
  

When I first found my beautiful dark skinned little girl puppet, Tanika, I practiced her voice again and again before she debuted in story time. I had to be comfortable with her. Comfort, respect and creating a genuine little girl was important.  She was shipped from Colorado, so her back story is that I adopted her from Colorado.  

I drew on the childhood of my niece Vivian, she is biracial, to find Tanika's voice and personality.  The story time kids loved Tanika even before she arrived.  I had informed our families that Piper and I were adopting a little girl, Tanika, from Colorado. And we all waited and waited.  I wanted everyone to love Tanika as much as I do.  She's been with me for a number of years but she is forever three.  She loves hearts, her hair with bows and barrettes, and purple is her favorite color.  My intention was to create casual diversity.  Tanika's skin color is not the issue.  She is part of my family, our library family, and a great pal to all the kids in story time. 

This is what I see as doing our part.  I can not wave a wand over the library and create a perfectly diverse staff, ( I don't even know what that would be), but I can make my story time room diverse each day to meet the needs of the diverse families attending.  This is "our part"

When selecting books for the branch I take the time to be sure that casual diversity leads the way in picture books.  It is here - in the picture books and the board books where I can make a huge difference for my community.  Children want to see themselves in the library books.  We now have well written books, meaningful stories, beautifully illustrated with children of color.  I would like to say that "children of color" is not the important part of the book but it is exactly the important part of the book.  The characters are of color and their race is not part of the story.  This is casual diversity done well. And it's about darn time, publishers.  Oh, and thank you.

And now here - I want to hug the publishers.  We do not have enough kids of color on the covers of juvenile non-ficiton.  Thank you for this series.  And just so you know - they are popular and always circulating.  I believe that parents and teachers are breathing a giant sigh of relief.  Casual diversity on the covers of non-fiction.  Finally.  ('Cuz it's not only white kids who do magic, and craft and enjoy science projects)

And there will always be beautiful books where diversity is intentional.  This is how we learn and experience other cultures.  These are a couple of new ones in my branch.

It's "our part" right?  To find the casual and the intentional diversity that matches our library's needs?  

I have written before about the tremendously diverse neighborhood my little branch serves.  The many cultures I encounter each day may indeed make me more aware and sensitive to what has been lacking in children's publishing.  The tide is changing.  I am so grateful.

(btw Green is a Chile Pepper won a Pura Belpre illustrator award)

Now what do I do with the tweens and Brown Girl Dreaming? 

I think I need some more time with this idea.  

Did you see that cover art on the book?  

Seems almost magical to have a cover with all that open space for medals - Coretta Scott King author award, National Book Award, Newbery Honor and Sibert Honor - wow!    

P.S.(Piper Script)

Just in case you are new to Piper Loves the Library  - here's a few more places where we visited diversity:

http://piperlovesthelibrary.blogspot.com/2014/08/flannel-friday-are-you-feelin-it.html

http://piperlovesthelibrary.blogspot.com/2014/07/reading-beatrices-goat-together.html

http://piperlovesthelibrary.blogspot.com/2012/05/on-our-way-to-cla.html

Planning with Pigeon

So this happened today!

The Pigeon!  Need I say more?  Mo Willem's character, The Pigeon, and I have been collaborating on plans for Take Your Child to the Library Day on February 7th.  

We have some great fun planned for our community.  But with all the snow here in New England and all the work we have to do... the Pigeon has been perching, squatting, hanging at my house.  

So I told him today that he needed to make the bed before we went out.

Yo, Pigeon, we need to clean up a bit and make our beds today.

Yes, I'm talking to you.

It's time to make the bed...please....!

What's that?

You don't know how to make the bed?  

Come on...just give it a try.

What now?

You thought and thought and thought about it

and you still don't know how to make the bed?

Okay, I'll help

Please just stay right there and then we'll head out to the grocery store.  

More snow is coming tonight.

Pigeon...Pigeon...hey dude...where are you?  It's time to go...

PIGEON?  NOOOooooo......

P.S.(Piper Script): All's well now. They're watching the Super Bowl...Jane's picked the Pats and Pigeon is cheering for the SeaHawks, of course!  Birds of a feather...and all that! 

Flannel Friday Missing Duck - Yikes!!

Little Duck, Little Duck....
               where are you Little Duck??

Whew!  Here he is.  And he's ready to play.  That's my guy!  And I have something he loves today...TRUCKS!  Yep!  Big beautiful trucks.  So cool.  Honestly, what little guy doesn't love trucks?  And these are the trucks from Tip Tip Dig Dig by Emma Garcia, one of our favorite books.

Little Duck, please go check out the trucks.  We brought them here for you.  Yellow, green, orange, purple and blue.  

This new "take" on Little Mouse, Little Mouse comes from Erin, who posted about a fox in a box last week and made mention of ducks in trucks. Please visit Erin's creative blog post.  And thank you Erin because I actually had all the pieces to do this...already made.  I owe ya, girl! 

Adhering to Piper's rules of full disclosure...because we all know that almost 3 yr olds will always blab tell the truth:  the little duck is truly a gosling.  He's part of my set of Oliver Dunrea's characters, Gossie and Friends. 

Hey, wait a minute...where's Little Duck?  Ut-oh!  Where did he go??  Do you know?

Little Duck, Little Duck,

Are you in the blue truck?

Not there

Little Duck, Little Duck,

Are you in the purple truck?

nope!

Little Duck, Little Duck,

Are you in the Orange Truck?

Little Duck...are you in that orange truck??

We think you are....

Yes!  We found you in the orange truck.  Yay!

This game has been a hit for as long as I can remember.  It is often the flannel I suggest as a first flannel when someone wants to take a ride on the flannel story telling street.   A simple rhyme with mouse/house, cat/hat, fox/box, duck/truck ... and the kids do indeed love the anticipation of finding the missing character.  Everyone wins with this flannel.  Go ahead...take a spin!  

P.S. (Piper Script): I still love the pirate house and mouse best!!

Flannel Friday is an outstanding resource for everyone working in children's services.  Please visit the Flannel Friday blog and you will discover the FB page, the Twitter #, the amazing and addicting Pinterest pages.  Join Flannel Friday!  

Take Your Child to the Library Day meets Pigeon!

Pigeon Party! 

This is a follow-up to our post Take Your Child to the Library Day.  

The event is February 7th, 2015 and we have Mo Willem's Pigeon taking it to the next level.  At the request of said Pigeon we will even have a theme song.  Do you know Go Fish, Party Like a Preschooler?  The Crazy Dance song on that CD will from-here-on be known as The PIGEON DANCE!  What can I say? He's a pushy pigeon!

As our plans develop I am loving this day more and more.  Yesterday I worked on creating the 5 Little Pigeons Jumping on the Bed.  I will need to make them a very cool bed as well.  Here are some photos of my flannel process:

Pigeon Shadows

(Which makes me think - Why a Groundhog on Feb 2nd when Pigeon is way cooler?) 

Two little pigeons jumping on the bed!

Crafting this flannel set has been a blast.  They make me so happy and I am finding my inner pigeon voice. It's very sassy!  Of course! 

The program will include "Feed the Pigeon"  He's looking for cookies.  Check him out!

It's a bean bag toss!  

There is one thing I need from Pigeon before we can get-our-party going, but he's not cooperating.  Hmmm.

 Honestly...what's a librarian to do?  Advice?  Anyone?  

As always, we are grateful to the creative crew at Flannel Friday.  Their inspiration is awesome.  And many thanks again to ~K~ who inspired my flannel pigeons with her blog post.

P.S. (Piper Script) :  I'm ready to Party Like a Pigeon!!!! If you would like to join this international event please click here for info and registration. 

Take your Child to the Library Day

Take your Child to the Library Day!

from the tiny state of Connecticut comes 

A Very Large Initiative!

Art created by CT author/illustrator Nancy Elizabeth Wallace

Join the movement, BIG or small, make that step - there's still time!

Please take a look at the award winning program - click here

There's also a Face Book page - just click

This year Piper and I have enlisted the help of Pigeon...you know...The Pigeon...mo willems' infamous character!  Yes, I wrote infamous!  We're inviting you to join us for Take Your Child to the Library Day but you should be warned...it will be all about the Pigeon.  And by that I mean ALL. ABOUT. The PIGEON.!!!

We'll be offering a library open house with refreshments from 10am til noon on February 7th.  Our teen volunteers will assist with fun-for-the-family games: 

     Follow the footprints and find the Pigeon

     Feed the Pigeon, (bean bag aka hotdog toss!)

     5 Little Pigeons jumping on the flannel board bed

     a make and take Pigeon puppet.

If you follow our blog you know that we make lots of art in our little branch. Feb 7th is the day to bring both your little artist and your inner artist to our library.  We will have a community art project to decorate the library, we love these.  

So, now you know.  It's time to celebrate the library.  Plan some fun at your library or visit a library.  The Take Your Child to the Library blog has a list of participating libraries, click here.   

And feel free to run with the Pigeon...I mean fly with the Pigeon idea.  There are coloring pages and mazes available on line with Hyperion  Thanks for visiting Piper Loves the Library.  We both love Pigeon and his amazing creator...Mo Willems.  

P.S. (Piper Script) We'd love to know what you're doing for Take Your Child to the Library Day.  Leave a comment.

Many thanks to Flannel Friday ...best group ever!  Oh and please go

check out the Storytime ABC blog for the Pigeons Jumping on the Bed!  Hopefully mine will look as good!  

Disney's Frozen in the Library

Disney's Frozen - The Sing-Along Edition

on a Starry Night!

Our Library kids made stars and even more stars over the past couple of weeks.  We put many of them together on a glass wall in the shape of pine tree.  A rather fat pine tree!

Trees have been our "thing" this season. 

 Monday December 15th, was a magical night at the library.  We hosted the sing-along edition of Disney's Frozen and the first to arrive were some of our very own neighborhood stars dressed as Elsa and Anna.  Take a look!

I think we had 6 Elsas, 3 Annas, 2 Svens and one Olaf!  Check out my apron!  It was the easiest thing I could do and the photos with the kids were cute.  The funny thing about our Family Film night - the children were ALL GIRLS!  We had some dads, (God bless 'em) and plenty of moms, (bravo) but no boys.  What?  Boys don't sing?  Kristof's not the star of the show?  What?  

The night was full of singing and dancing with twirly ribbons.  The bouncing snowflake on the screen helped all of the adults with the songs.  The girls knew them by heart.  They knew most of the dialogue as well.  Too funny.

Our program room was set up with all of our Frozen books and lots of winter themed books.  We offered white powdered sugar donuts as families arrived and we took a very short intermission for ice cream sandwiches! You know - frozen sandwiches! 

We had 64 people sign up to attend Frozen but just 38 attended. The weeks before Christmas are very busy.  May need to re-think a December family film.  Our Main Library is showing Frozen during the Holiday Break in the daytime - probably a better idea.  We'll see.  

This stunning Elsa and her little sister were the last to leave.  I snapped the photo, got a hug and they skated away!  (you know...like in the movie...they skated away!)

P.S. (Piper Script): We've got a Saturday craft ready to roll - more trees!  Birch trees in the snow..with tissue paper snowflakes!  We're working on "ours" right now...where's the tissue paper?  

Stay warm, leave a comment!

Christmas Gifts on Flannel Friday

Christmas Presents for Little Mouse and Me

You do know how it goes on Christmas Eve, "...all through the house, not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse"  But here at Piper loves the Library, the mouse is stirring!  I spy, with my little eye, a brown mouse!  Do you see him?  He's very excited about the glittery gifts!  I think we should tiptoe closer and sneak a peak.  Shhhh...very quiet everyone, shhhhh

Four Christmas presents underneath the tree

Four Christmas presents for little mouse and me

Oh my goodness, what can they be?

Shhhhhh, let's open one to see.

Three Christmas presents underneath the tree.....

Two Christmas presents ....

One Christmas present underneath the tree

One Christmas present for little mouse and me

Oh my goodness, What can it be?

Shhhhh...let's open it to see.

Cupcakes!  Shhhhh! A box of holiday cupcakes?  

Christmas is for sharing.  Let's eat!

Keep Calm

&

cupcake on

(That's ^ not part of the rhyme!) 

Opening presents is so much fun!  The drama here is almost as good as "little mouse and the house".  No doubt the holiday season adds to the excitement for the kids.  And you know me - I have to make them guess...what do you think is in the box?  Shhh, quietly, remember - everyone is sleeping!  Who likes cheese....shhh...whisper!!  Kids love to shush.  I've heard that librarians do as well.

Construction: I wrapped medium card stock with Christmas paper.  I did the box tops separately in order to open and close the boxes. And I made simple little felt pom poms on top to be festive.  All pieces are backed with flannel.  The cupcakes, monkeys and frogs are pre-made from Michaels.  I made the mouse  (used an old Mouse Paint/mouse pattern from one of my favorite librarian friends, Heather Baker) and I crafted the cheese free hand! 

We wish you Happy Holidays and lots of cupcakes!

P.S. (Piper Script): Jane loves cupcakes!  I love the library!  Just sayin'

Bridget is hosting Flannel Friday this week.  If you'd like to learn more about Flannel Friday just click.  Thanks for reading.  We love libraries, books, kids, cupcakes and comments!