Welcome Back to Story Time!
Finally our fall session of Story Time has begun. We started this week with the theme of Bedtime. I read Goodnight Dog by Ed Heck, Goodnight Tiptoe by Polly Dunbar and  Put Me to Bed! by Nicola Smee with our Jr. Story time classes. We read What! cried Granny: an almost bedtime story by Kate Lum, What's Under the Bed? by Joe Fenton, Floop in the Dark by Carole Tremblay and Sleepy, oh so Sleepy by Denise Fleming  with our preschool classes.

 I showed them the Van Gogh painting Starry Night and we talked about how you know that it is time for bed.

We sang Rock-a-bye baby and rocked an animal puppet to sleep. Most of the kids know this song so they could sing along easily. We did the rhymes/songs No More Monkeys Jumping on the Bed, 5 Bears in the Bed, and Mother Hen and her Chicks. We also did the following finger play:
Here is the baby, (hold up one finger)
Here is her bed, (hold up the other hand palm up)
Here is her pillow, (wiggle thumb on "bed" hand)
So lay down her head, (lay finger across bed)
Pull the covers up nice and tight,  (fold fingers over baby)
Then rock her and kiss her (rock and kiss baby)
And tell her good night. (whisper) (if baby isn't asleep hold up finger and cry, then begin again)
Of course, the baby never goes to sleep the first time. So I ask the children what they think the baby could need to go to sleep. They give answers from a bottle or teddy bear to a diaper change or a lullaby. We do the rhyme again as many times as we can allowing for our schedule, making sure that the baby has what it needs each time. If they mention that she needs a bedtime story we always read her one of ours. And of course, she is asleep at the end.

We talked about bedtime routines and did an activity on the board about which bedtime activity should we do first. Get in pajamas then take a bath? Get in bed then turn off the lights? Get a drink then brush your teeth?

For our craft we had a die-cut paper doll that the children colored. I gave them each a picture of a pair of pajamas or a nightgown that they colored and glued on to get the paper doll ready for bed.

Our take home pages were a bed time routine chart and a pencil drawing of the Van Gogh painting to color on our own.

Next week: The Moon

Michele Schumann
Children's Librarian