Toddler Story Time: Cats

At my house, we love our cats! This is a picture of my Tom and Luna, who came to live with us 3 years ago! They are brother and sister, and are adorable!
We had so much fun reading about, singing about, and acting like CATS! We started by learning a finger rhyme called "Kittens" from the book Hand Rhymes by Marc Brown. Then we read Cat Tales by Mitchell Hall about cats who get their words all mixed up!  They're so silly! Then we sang "When cats get up in the morning" with Miss Nina and we were able to make all sorts of fun animal sounds. We all read Have you seen my cat? by Eric Carle together to try to figure out where the little boy's cat had gone.  Then we watched a video of Eric Litwin performing the book Pete the Cat: I love my white shoes. What a groovy, cool dude that Pete the Cat is! We had so much fun singing and helping tell the story with Mr. Eric! Our last story we read was Cat Secrets by Jeff Czekaj which told about all the things that cats love to do.  We ended with our good-bye song and a few meows to top it all off!
We had some special guests from the school district come to visit us during our story time, too. They filmed our time together, and asked a few parents and children to share why story time at Meadow Wood is a part of their week.  It was so nice to hear that everyone is enjoying the time we spend together.  It truly is the highlight of my week! I love seeing moms, dads, and other caregivers bringing their little ones to instill a love of reading in them at such a young age.  (I will update with a link to our video segment once they publish it very soon!)

Children's Book Week

Celebrate great children's books all week long!

Have you read a Magic Tree House book lately, or Where the Wild Things Are, or how about a classic like Peter Pan? Start collecting great reads to enjoy together all the way through Summer!

Here are some events at Blue Willow to help you celebrate new Children's Book Authors, too!
Wednesday, 5/15/2013 5:00 pm

Christopher Healy will discuss and sign his novel for kids, THE HERO’S GUIDE TO STORMING THE CASTLE.
Thursday, May 16, 5:00 p.m.
Eoin Colfer will discuss and sign his novel for kids W.A.R.P.: THE RELUCTANT ASSASSIN.

Toddler Story Time: Mommies

HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY! We celebrated our mommies at story time today. We started with the finger play "Five little babies," which also tied in our other theme of animal mommies and counting. Our first book was "Mommy's best kisses" by Margaret Anastas. My little friends were able to identify giraffes, polar bears, and camels as we read about all the places mommies love to kiss and love on their children. Then we sang with Miss Nina about a mommy who was not happy with her children in "Five Little Monkeys" who we're jumping on the bed! Next I shared a wonderful website created by the Pearson Foundation called We Give Books. You sign up for a free account and you can read all sorts of books online for free! And for every book that is read, points are earned that are turned into books being given to deserving organizations. We read the DK book " Mommy loves me" about all the ways our moms love us. Then we read Eric Carles' book "Does a kangaroo have a mother, too?" together. Then we listened to Harry Monster from Sesame Street sing "Furry blue mommy of mine", which makes me want to bop and dance around. We finished by reading "What mommies do best" by Laura Numeroff.

Toddler Story Time: Dogs

Today's story time has gone to the dogs! While we waited for friends to come, we watched several old segments about dogs on Sesame Street. (I love that Sesame Street has an official channel on YouTube!) We also played with a book called Can you spot the spotted dog? by John Rowe. On each page we had to find the spotted dog and his friends, and some of those pages were pretty tricky, and yet we found them all! Our first story was Bear and Dog: Two friends, three stories by Laura Vaccaro Seeger. And since dog had a friend bear, we sang Miss Nina's song "Me and my teddy bear" while rocking the stuffed animal friends in the library. (We had lots of fun WAKING UP Miss Nina so she could finish her song!) Then we read Dog Tales by Janet McLean that helped us know all the things a dog does during the day. We even acted out a few, like dancing, barking, howling, begging, and stretching. Then all the kids helped me tell the story of A ball for Daisy by Chris Raschka. It is a wordless book about a dog who loves playing with her ball! After singing good-bye many of the kids told me about a dog they loved.  Some had their own dog, some had dogs at another family member's home, and others loved their stuffed dogs!

To answer, "What are some good books for my child to read?"

This Essential Books for Kids and Teens of books for children of all ages, compiled by Common Sense media, is so good I just had to share it with all of our wonderful MWE parents! Keep those kiddos reading and enjoyng the use of their imagination through encouraging them to read any of these titles!

Toddler Story Time: Mo Willems

I am so excited to share with you one of my most favorite children's authors... MO WILLEMS (otherwise known as the guy who writes the Pigeon books)!!

Today's story time we had lots of fun reading Mo Willem's books. Mrs. Simmons, a fabulous lady I share an office with, started us off with her son's favorite Mo Willems book, Cat the Cat, Who is That?, which she read with fabulously fun voices. The great thing about the Cat the Cat books are that pre-school age children can "read" them by themselves because of the simplicity and predictability of the story. (Watch Mrs. Simmons' son Thomas read one here.) Then we sang along with Miss Nina to "If you're happy and you know it", which helped us get up and moving! Next we watched an interview with Cat the Cat and Mo Willems. We could not leave out the Pigeon, so then we read The Pigeon wants a Puppy!, which was one of my son's favorite books when he was younger. (If you don't know Pigeon, be sure to check out Don't let the Pigeon drive the bus!) Next we watched an animated version of There's a bird on your head which introduced us to Mo's Elephant and Pig characters.We finished story time with Edwina: the dinosaur who didn't know she was extinct. I shared a fun website with lots of Mo Willems characters, stories, and activities called "Pigeon Presents" which is celebrating Pigeon's 10th birthday this year! And if that wasn't enough Mo Willems fun for you, be sure to join us at MWE on Tuesday, April 23rd at 5:00PM when Blue Willow Book Shop brings Mo Willems to our cafeteria to share his newest book That is Not a Good Idea!

Toddler Story Time: Brothers and Sisters

Happy National Sibling Day!! Today we celebrated the wonderful relationship we have with our brothers and sisters. We started by reading Big Brother, Little Brother by Marci Curtis. Brothers have so many fun adventures together! Have you had a pillow fight or played in mud puddles lately? Next we watched Miss Nina's newest video "Shoo fly" because sometimes we want our brothers and sisters to just go away! Then we read Another Brother by Matthew Cordell where one sheep has brothers who copy everything he does, and then one day they stop! He didn't realize he liked the attention from his brothers until he didn't have it anymore. "Between the Lions" brought us "How to be" different animals which taught us how to be a good person (and brother or sister) in the end. Our last book was Sisters by David McPhail which told about how two sisters were alike and different. One thing all brothers and sister have in common is how much they LOVE EACH OTHER! So, take time to hug a brother or a sister today and enjoy this "Family Songs" playlist together.