All posts by Children's Staff
Books for preschoolers on Monday, October 26
Halloween is on Saturday this year. This was my last storytime before Halloween, so I read books about pumpkins, night time, and trick or treating.
We read about the sheep last week, when they were having trouble in their jeep. This time they caused no trouble at all. In fact they fooled some wolves with their scary costumes.
Dog and Bear is a series of books by Laura Vaccaro Seeger. This book has 3 very short chapters. I read all 3. Each chapter is a self contained story, and they all have surprise endings.
I chose The House in the Night to add a reassuring story about the night. There are wonderful black and white illustrations that have bright orange highlights of certain objects. The text is limited to only a few words on each page.
Our final book, What’s in the Witch’s Kitchen, has terrific lift-the-flap pages. I needed lots of help from the children on this book. Each flap can be opened in one of two ways. One way results in a desirable outcome. Lifting it in the opposite direction results in a yucky object. We had a lot of fun with this.
We will offer a special storytime this Saturday in celebration of Halloween. The storytime begins at 10:30 with rhymes and a short story. Then there will be a costume parade on the first floor of the library followed by a snack (no candy). This is especially designed for children ages 0-6 years old, but older siblings are certainly invited.
~Maureen
Toddler Storytime, Friday, October 23, 12-24 months
Halloween was in the air today as we read a story about a pumpkin, sang some songs about pumpkins and even passed out take home words to the “Five Little Pumpkins” song. If you did not get the words, they are below!
Five little pumpkins sitting on a gate.
The first one said, “Oh my it’s getting late.”
The second one said, “There are witches in the air.”
The third one said, “But we don’t care!”
The fourth one said, “Let’s run and run and run.”
The fifth one said, “Let’s go have some fun!”
Then OOOhh OOOhh went the wind
And out went the lights
And the five little pumpkins rolled out of sight.
Baby Storytime, Friday, October 23, 0-12 months
A spirited group gathered today for lots of singing and rhyming and reading. Many babies were crawling all around the circle, spending time with lots of different caregivers and everyone (old and young) had huge smiles on their faces!
Today we read:
Books for Preschoolers on Wednesday, October 21
Some of my favorite storytimes are the ones where we read about pairs of opposites, like the Quiet and Loud storytime last spring and the Lost and Found theme from a few weeks ago. Today we celebrated another great opposite pair: Stop and Go! As always, you can click on the book covers below to find each title in our catalog:
Sing With Your Child!
Link to the Early World of Learning website
from the Chelmsford Library website
on the Children’s Page.
This will allow you and your child to sing some nursery rhymes together.
You need a Chelmsford Library card to access this website.
Stories for 4-6 year olds on Tuesday, October 20
Today we had lots of froggy fun at storytime. A (stuffed) froggy friend listened to stories with us, and had an exciting time in our giant parachute! All the kids got a froggy kiss as they left. What’s your favorite frog story?
Books for preschoolers on Monday, October 19
Repetition is so important to young children listening to stories. Many of us get tired of certain books long before our children do, but children have favorites and they want to visit that world every day.
Perhaps one of your child’s favorite picture books is part of a series. You may get away with reading different books with the same characters. I try to do that at Storytime. Last week I read Tap the Magic Tree by Christie Matheson. This week I read Touch the Brightest Star by the same author. This week I read Sheep in a Jeep by Nancy Shaw, because I want to read Sheep Trick or Treat next week.
We had a very active storytime this morning with the following books:
Can YOU Make a Scary Face? asks children to pretend there is a small bug on their noses, down their shirts, and stuck to them. Lots of activities are needed to shoo the bug away.
Everyone got a chance to touch the stars.
We had a felt board for Sheep in a Jeep.
If You Plant a Seed is our latest Storywalk book. It works very well at the Community Gardens location. It will be up until early November.
Speaking of favorite series…. The Elephant and Piggie series is drawing to a close! The 2nd to last book is
It is the 23rd book in this series. Although grownups may be sorry the series will come to an end, children have lots of opportunities to spend time with Gerald and Piggie.
~Maureen
Book for Toddlers on Monday, October 19
We are just beginning our fall storytimes. I chose a book that has very simple pictures, not many words and the same refrain on each page to keep the children’s attention. I introduced the story by saying that at Halloween people can look very different. Let’s see if we can figure out what looks so different in this book.
We have large groups for our toddler storytimes – between 50-100 people in the room for each session. It is very difficult for children to see the pictures unless we use “big books”. Unfortunately, we only have a limited number of big books for this age group (approximately 20).
I’m always looking for new titles, so please let me know about sources for these kinds of books.
Thank you.
~Maureen
Storytime for Family Day Cares – October
The Chelmsford Public Library offers a traveling storytime for Family Day Care providers and the children they care for each day. The idea of the program is to be able to provide a storytime setting in the home of the day care since it is often difficult to bring an entire day care to the library. Storytimes offer both the provider and the children the opportunity to participate in a storytime, along with exposing the children and adults to various ways to support literacy in the home program.
Though each Family Day Care is unique and the children in their care vary in age, the traveling program works to meet the needs of all the participants through books, songs, fingerplays and games. Look below to see some of the titles that are being read this month. (You can also click on the book cover to see if the book is available at the library.) This month the children have also been helping to describe pumpkins by singing “1 little, 2 little, 3 little pumpkins, 4 little, 5 little, 6 little pumpkins, 7 little, 8 little, 9 little pumpkins, 10 little pumpkins all is a row” while being able to touch and hold paper pumpkins. We then sing a few more verses describing the pumpkins as orange and then round. The storytimes always begin with “The More We Get Together” and end with “If You’re Happy and You Know It” and we have lots of fun in between!