Stepping Out of the Comfort Zone

It was probably five years ago I resolved to add more music to my storytimes.  I'd done the "add more puppets" and the "add more creative dramatics" but I wanted to add music.  And I didn't just want to give the boom box more to do.  I had purchased for the library some rhythm sticks, enough to handle 30 kids, each with two hands.  Yep, that's a lotta rhythm sticks.  I acquired research material (Musical Story Hours: Using Music With Storytelling and Puppetry by William M. Painter) and presumably read it.

Last year, around January, I apologetically announced to my brilliant fingerstyle guitarist husband, Husbob, that I had ordered a ukulele.*  It was my plan to learn to play it a bit and use it in programming.  So far I've learned "Lola" by the Kinks and a bucketload of Beatles' tunes.**  I like to think my storytimes are slightly subversive, but I can't see a "Lola" singalong.

But today I launched the first in a month-long string of storytimes where I will put weapons and noisemakers in the hands of small children.  It wasn't half bad.

 

There was a bit of the Kodo drummers playing on the boom box as a processional.  I started with the "If you're happy and you know it" song, because I always do and this year I am finishing with the "MackChicken Dance" by Greg and Steve - because I like to have something familiar to open and close.  I chose three books, and augmented one with items for the flannelboard (for my pre-school walk-ins who like to put things on and take things off the flannelboard): Bring on that beat by Rachel Isadora, The cha-cha chimps by Julia Durango, and Max found two sticks by Brian Pinkney.  I printed off some little chimp faces from clip art and then one larger one I stuck a bow and some lips on for the momma chimp.

After the Brian Pinkney book, I got out the basket of rhythm sticks and began with the warning that We Do Not Hit Other People with them.  We did "This is the way we tap our sticks," "She'll be tappin' round the mountain," and "The sticks on the bus go tap-tap-tap."  Then I put the Kodo drummers back on for some freestylin'.  No one hit anyone else and they were all happy to put the sticks back in the basket.  I sent them away with 2 popsicle sticks each (a quieter version) and their teachers said that they would decorate them when they got back to their class.

I was thrilled to hear that.  I hand out stuff to other groups that come to storytime and they just send it home with the rest of the stuff they've accumulated during the day.  They are definitely going to get better than hand-out sheets if I'm doing something more elaborate with the walk-ins.

I had time constraints, but we got out early enough for my co-worker to set up for her baby storytime and they looked like they were having fun.  Next week I'm going to add some jinglers and shakers and we'll make jinglers with jingle bells and chenille stems and shakers with cups, rice (maybe), duct tape, and stickers.  And the moms will hate me.  Yaaay!

Here is a link to Richard G's Uke website which has a great selection of ukulele songs, including some Jefferson Airplane. Woot!  "Teddy bear's picnic" and the like can be found on Dr. Uke's site.  The ukulele came from Music for Little People, which has terrific kid cds and occasional deals on instruments for kids but I'm currently annoyed with them and the company that does their fulfillment. 

 *Oh, look!  That's him on the left in the video bar!
**Okay, and also "Inch by inch: the garden song" and "Teddy bear's picnic."  And I can do the opening chords to "Smoke on the water" - which people my age recognize and find hilarious.

You're Perfect For Your Job

Yaaaay! Puppets!

Those days come when you don't think you can stand one more kid with an excuse why he should have more than a half an hour on the computer ("I'm just waitin' for the program at 6." "It's ten of, kid - go find a good seat.").  You look down the road and see two one-man puppet shows coming at you like a semi full of rubber chickens and you're the 'possum with her paw caught on some gum in the middle of the road.  Your idea of a whole month of storytimes centered around music and dance suddenly looms larger and more teeter-y than a pile of all the discarded encyclopedia sets in the country.  And your simile circuits have jumped the shark.

The idea of a Dr. Seuss storytime using the huge compilation book (instead of the individual stories, which are checked out, of course) that cost so much that it was made a non-circulating tome doesn't seem as clever as it did before you picked it up and held it all the way through The Cat In the Hat and Green Eggs and Ham (2 times) and you're doing it again tomorrow.  The flannelboard of One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish got out of control and storytime seemed to have fallen short of the 30 minute mark. 

Later, just when you wonder how much longer you can do this job, a mom says, "I want a job like you have.  I've watched you for years and this job was just made for you.  I want a job that's perfect for me like that."

That's when you remember that this job is perfect for you.  Your liberal arts education (five foreign languages, only two of them dead, none fluent but at least the Spanish comes in handy now), years spent doing theatre, love of puppets and toys, arts and crafts background, not to mention years of watching Warner Brothers cartoons, have all prepared you to know a little bit about a lot of stuff, to love stories, and enjoy thinking up things to entertain kids.  If this isn't the most perfect job for me, I don't know what is.  I've done lots of other things: factory work, secretarial, paralegal, data entry - blah-blah, and while most of that has paid better, this has been the best fit.  It only remains for me to turn the concept around.

It's not just that this job is perfect for me, but I am perfect for this job.  There is no one else like me.  Others might be just as good at storytimes or crafts activities or redirecting children instead of just yelling at them (note to self: work on that one) - but when it comes to the whole package, with the shelving and 18 years experience of Dewey Decimal, ease with Webtimewaster 2.0, small office machine repair and maintenance ("Marf! Show me again how the laminate goes in the machine!") - No one can beat me.  I pwn this job. I am in your non-fiction section reading your shelves.  Don't mess with me.  I am perfect for this job.

Gosh, now I need a nap.  Only ten more years to retirement.  Sigh.

Don't Try This At Home

Raccoon puppet as planned

For Valentine's Day I used The kissing hand by Audrey Penn and looked for a take-home craft to go with it.  "Oh, cutting out a few pieces for some kids - how hard can that be?" I thought to myself.  I love cutting things out.  Gah!  Monday's group canceled which meant I only had my Tuesday group (not realizing that it was the larger one) and Wednesday's individual walk-ins.  I traced and cut out over 500 pieces (although my husband helped with some while waiting for his car to be serviced).  I sent 26 off on Tuesday and hoped I had enough for Wednesday.  I did - phew!  But Monday (and part of Tuesday) was a frantic cutting session, even tripling up the paper, collating all the pieces, putting them in baggies, and inserting them in the paper bags. 

But, you know, it was worth it to see the cute little raccoon puppets come out - eyes crossed, hearts put any-old-where!  The walk-ins had the option to take them home or use the glue sticks I'd put out.  One little boy wanted to take his home, but his mom said they didn't have any glue at home.  As an inveterate and unrepentant craftie, I can't imagine a house without glue!  We might be out of epoxy, E-3000, crazy glue, fabric-tac, white glue, glue stick, gorilla glue, wood glue, glue pen, etc. - but no glue?  No glue at all?  How do they fix things? 

Anyway, here are some pattern pieces, but plan ahead (unlike me) and have your volunteers cut them out.

Pattern pieces for the Kissing Hand/Raccoon puppet.

Backwards Day

Always check your books.  You may have read this book to children a hundred times, but there's bound to be something thrown in your path to make you stumble.
Milo's Hat Trick by Jon Agee was a favorite of mine for my storytimes about hats and when I looked it up to see if it was in, our branch's copy was no longer.  We had gone through a weeding jihad over the holidays and I guess that book had gotten a bit tatty.  I wish I'd known - I'd have asked to have it discarded to me to use in storytime.
Luckily, another branch had a copy and I put it on hold.  It arrived in time and I assembled all my materials: hats, flannelboard pieces, hand-out poem.

The first storytime was on January 31st, a day we were supposed to wear something backwards because it was National Backwards Day or something.  I put my name tag on backwards - something I might maintain as a habit.  The children filed in and sat on the dragon rug

Dragon rug apparently no longer available from Highsmith.

and I was scurrying around because I'd forgotten the cd with the Chicken Dance on it.  I toyed with the idea of starting with it (I usually finish with it) because it was Backwards Day after all, but decided to stick to the routine.  There's a reason I don't get them all worked up and then expect them to sit back down again and listen to a story.
After the opening song (If You're Happy And You Know It), I picked up Milo's Hat Trick and did my "The Author Writes the Book" song and opened the book.  Oh, look!  There's a dedication to Audrey!  I don't think that's the one that works here, ha ha ha.  And I tell them that if they write or illustrate a book they can put a dedication in the front to thank their mom or dad or teacher ... or that nice lady at the library who read them stories.  Then I had to turn out the neck of my shirt to show my name tag because I had it on backwards.
I turn the page and start reading.  At the fifth page I can see that it has skipped to the end!  I panic!  Has someone torn out all the pages?  I check and there don't seem to be any cut edges, but I can see more pages than there should be after the fifth page.
The pages were bound out of order!  I had to flip back and forth to keep the correct sequence.  Then I told them it was perfect for Backwards Day!
Today I sat down and stuck tiny post-it notes with numbers on them so I can tell the story in order today without getting lost and looking like a total idiot.
A word to the terminally lazy, like me: Always read the book before storytime, no matter how many times you've used it.

Leverage

I've been agonizing over the homeschooler programs for 2012 this past week.  January and February fell into place on their own, but March and April are a struggle.  My first idea was the robotic hand made from corrugated cardboard, rubber bands, straws, string, and several rolls of tape.  The age range makes these programs difficult.  Whole families show up and I have to have something or things that will provide interest to K through 12.  Gah!

My next project idea was from a book on levers, because, well, robotic hands are levers, right?  The project is absolutely charming.  A bird flies away as a cat jumps out at it.  It took hours to color the scenery, not to mention work out the mechanics.  The instructions only pertained to assembly of the scenery, which is complicated enough.  The instructions for the mechanical innards amounted to, "You read the book - figure it out yourself."  Now, I only have these kids for an hour, even if I cut all the levers out and hole-punch them for them, coloring and assembly would take too long.

But it so cute! ...

Birdie sits on the ground until ...

... cat leaps out of the bush.

I went back to the book and found the wooden example of the pecking chickens that provided the pattern for the innards and decided that would be simple enough.  So this will be the project:

Pecking chickens

This one was made with enlarged clip art glued to card stock and cut pieces of card stock with those great brass fasteners.  As you can see, there was a bit of trial and error involved.  Some scrap corrugated cardboard will be involved in the actual project, pre-cut.  More fiddly work of coloring, cutting out the chickens, gluing them to card stock should fill up the hour.

Very Colorful!

<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4555477-the-color-of-earth" style="float: left; padding-right: 20px"><img alt="The Color of Earth (Color Trilogy, #1)" border="0" src="http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1312054129m/4555477.jpg" /></a><a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4555477-the-color-of-earth">The Color of Earth</a> by <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/1224011.Kim_Dong_Hwa">Kim Dong Hwa</a><br/>
My rating: <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/202384322">3 of 5 stars</a><br /><br />
This is a charming coming-of-age story set in Korea.  I am now really annoyed that the next two books in the trilogy are checked out! Grr!  <br/>Ehwa is a young girl filled with curiosity, which her mother, a widowed tavern keeper, gently teases her about.  This first book covers Ehwa's discovery of the many facets of love and sex - from the point of view of a child and then one verging into womanhood.  She interacts with children her own age and overhears adult conversations, which she doesn't understand.  Her adventures are funny and touching in their realism.  <br/>Korean customs and expressions are explained in footnotes.  I never knew shoes were so expressive!
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 The html code doesn't seem to be working here anymore, so I guess I'll stop duplicating my reviews to this blog.

There's No Place Like ...

Okay, I won't go there.  I'm sure it's been done to death.

<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/11277216-the-iliad" style="float: left; padding-right: 20px"><img alt="The Iliad" border="0" src="http://www.goodreads.com/images/nocover-111x148.jpg" /></a><a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/11277216-the-iliad">The Iliad</a> by <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/7778.Richmond_Lattimore">Richmond Lattimore</a><br/>
My rating: <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/198841342">5 of 5 stars</a><br /><br />
No matter how many times I read this, I still find something new. This time I marveled at the similes.  Many of the similes in the battle scenes dealt predictably with lions and wolves, but there were others that evoked daily life (the widow measuring her wool) or inanimate forces of nature (rocks falling like snow).  The most striking thing about them is that they aren't all that brief (like my examples), but can go on for a while, longer than you would expect in a narrative. They'd be full-blown metaphors if they'd not been prefaced with "as" or the like. <br/>I discussed this online with a group and found that very satisfying. <br/>This translation just happened to be one I have, but I see that it's recommended by many (including Dr. Vandiver who does the Homeric Great Courses lectures) for being translated line by line (so you can make comparisons to the Greek) and for preserving the archaic flavor and the poetic "formulas."  Dang, I just thought it was a great story!<br/>Amusing note: on the back of my copy, Robert Fitzgerald is quoted as saying no one need ever produce another verse translation of the Iliad ... but I guess he changed his mind 25 years later. Heh!
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Crouching Reader, Hidden Head-Desk

Crouching Vampire, Hidden Fang by Katie MacAlister

My rating: 2 of 5 stars


I was ensnared into reading this by the amusing title. The plot is about as complicated as the film whose title it parodies, except there are fewer entanglements.  There are some attempts to be amusing, but mostly this is your alleged standard women's wish fulfillment romance with a plump, needy heroine who just happens to be able to summon deadly amounts of light.
These supermythophagilisticexpialidocious stories are starting to get on my nerves.  You have to absorb too much cant to follow the plot.  What the hell's a zorya?  A llargi?  A lich?  I don't even know how to pronounce this stuff, much less keep track of the spelling.  Half the time I suspect they make this stuff up.  Oh, wait, of course they do.  Sorry. 

Pia (uffda, that name!) continues her saga of being torn between her "job" as some kind of light spirit helping some mysterious Brotherhood and her new supernatural linking to the vampire-cum-Fabio-impersonator, Kristoff - the Italian guy with the German name (I've been to Northern Italy - I know it happens).  In a previous book they "hooked up" as the kids say and now he doesn't call.  Is she too fat?  Was it something she said?  She got his soul back (some way - I dunno - it was in the previous book) and now he's supposed to be permanently linked to her.  What's wrong?  She spends the whole book not believing his answers even after they become linked telepathically.  Oh, man!  I mean, oh, WOMAN!  You've got cool supernormal powers!  Either he puts out and adores you or you roast him, right?  Half of this book is spent with him being diminutive-for-a-housecat-whipped into admissions of adulation.  [I'd never do that, right, Bob?  BOB?!]

And then the plot comes to a complete halt for the over-the-top sex.  I have to admit I skipped over those bits because after reading the first ones I decided that they are less arousing than head-desking.  Once you've superlatived someone to the point of explosion, what is left to life?  More plot, please.  Let me amend that: more comprehensible plot, please.
But it was okay.  As mindless, harmless (I hope - this doesn't cause dissatisfaction with life because it sets up unattainable scenarios ... does it?) entertainment, it does the job. 



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