Toddler/Preschool Dance Party 2016

We are slowly but surely getting started with summer reading at my library and during our current storytime break I thought another dance party for toddlers and preschoolers would make a great evening program. It is fun, easy to plan and the active nature of it fits the "On your mark, Get set, Read!" theme.

For those who have not tried doing this kind of program yet, I highly recommend it. If you need a playlist to get you started, here are the songs I used this time. For more ideas you can also see my previous dance party post or Pinterest board.

• Body Talk on Kids in Motion by Greg and Steve: One of the few songs I reused from my previous dance party. It is just such a good warm up song. As a bonus it introduces many great vocabulary words for body parts.
• Body Rock on Kids in Motion by Greg and Steve: This is another favorite song with a variety of directed motions. It is also a little faster tempo so it seems to get the kids excited.
  
• I Really Love to Dance on Buzz, Buzz by Laurie Berkner: My other repeat song from my previous dance party. It is a fun song that fits into a dance party perfectly.
• Let's Go Swimming on Top of the Tots by the Wiggles: I liked the idea of including a few summer related songs to get into the spirit of the season. 
• Wipe Out by the Surfaris: Another summer themed addition. I had the kids pretend to surf then yelled "Wipe Out" throughout the song so they could pretend to fall down.
• Rockin Robin on Songs for Wiggleworms: We pretended to be birds and flew around the room to this classic. 
• Twist and Shout on Songs for Wiggleworms: This song was chosen as one of my designated shaker songs. I also included it because I wanted another song the parents would recognize.
• I know a chicken on Whaddya Think of That? by Laurie Berkner: Another terrific shaker song. My kids are familiar with it from storytime, so that was another definite plus.
• Wimoweh (the Lion Sleeps Tonight) on Whaddya Think of That by Laurie Berkner: As an ending song this worked wonderfully. We sat on the floor and pretended to sleep when the lion did. When it got to the chorus of "Wimoweh" we waved scarves around.

Logistics:

• Once again I made a playlist on my iPhone and connected it to my CD player with an auxiliary cable. I would definitely recommend this as a method if your group is small enough. Mine was about 30 people and it worked well.

What I learned:

• Getting parents to participate can be hard. I made several requests for grownups to get up and dance at the beginning of the program but still didn't get the participation I hoped.
• Participation may look different for toddlers vs. preschoolers. This is totally normal developmentally. Both are benefiting from participating and having fun.
• Digital music collections such as Freegal are a good resource to recommend to parents at a dance party. They often contain some great kids music. 

I hope these ideas have help if you are planning a dance party, or just provide some good song suggestions for the kids in your life. If you have any questions you can always comment here or email me at marrak at libcoop.net. Thanks for reading!

Baby/Toddler Sensory Time

I'm always on the look out for fun and different activities to do with babies and toddlers, so when I read about the great sensory activities that Brooke, Laura, Mallory and others have done with babies I knew I had to try some of them myself.

One major reason I knew I wanted to try a program like this is that I wanted the chance to impress upon parents that sensory activities provide great benefits to babies and toddlers. Sensory experiences are how babies and toddlers learn about the world. They also provide a great opportunity to introduce new vocabulary and early scientific concepts. The other big reason I wanted to do this program is that getting messy with babies sounded like my idea of a fun time.

As I started out planning this event, the biggest obstacle I ran into was scheduling. I've been doing my best to include more evening and weekend programming for the sake of working parents. This seems to be particularly tricky to do for babies and toddlers. Afternoon and evening programs seemed like they would be difficult to do with this age because of bedtime and naps, so I decided to do the program on a Saturday morning. This seemed to work well. We had 10 babies and toddlers in attendance, which is a pretty good number for our small library.

Cost:  

The majority of supplies used for this program were ones we already owned. I spent about $10 on hair gel, pudding and other miscellaneous stuff at the grocery store. My big ticket expense was the $14 I spent on bubble wrap at Staples.  

 

What we did:

I started out the program with a short storytime in our Storytime Room. We read "Five for a Little One" by Chris Raschka and did a few simple songs and games related to our senses. These songs and games included "Five Fat Sausages", "Peekaboo", "Popcorn" and the "Touch Game". Words and sources for all these songs are available on my Storytime Page. This ended up being a great way to start the program because it gave people extra time to arrive before the fun and mess began.

Our stations:

 

Finger painting:

At a messy program like this, fingerpainting seemed a given. My main addition to the sensory experience was some scrunched up paper I took for a recent book delivery we received. A major bonus of this station is it gives the families something tangible to take home with them.

Water table: 

This station was something I used at a previous science storytime I did. Water play is always a hit, and creates minimal mess so it was definitely a great sensory experience to include.

Pool of scarves:

The idea of filling a pool with a sensory element came from Brooke. Instead of using balls I used our storytime scarves and extra scrunchy paper from the finger painting station. We've always used this pool for bubbles at our end of summer party, so I was very happy to get more use out of it.

Stained glass windows:

To create a "stained glass window" all you need to do is attach tissue paper to contact paper. I originally got this idea from Laura. I had extra contact paper leftover from covering numbers on our Children's Room ramp, so I was all set for this station as well. It ended up being a great one to keep older siblings who were tagging along occupied.

 Baby "car wash":

This "car wash" was another one of Brooke's ideas I used. Definitely fun for the babies to crawl under or just chill out.

Play area:

I put out our parachute and the toys I use for playtime after our Baby Storytime. I also put our our rhythm sticks, shaky eggs and bells. I especially loved seeing the babies use the toys and instruments as they explored other areas of the program.

Sensory bags:

The idea of taping baggies of full of sensory materials down and letting babies write on them is one I've seen on several of my favorite blogs. For my baggies I used chocolate pudding, paint, and the cheapest hair gel I could find. I also added magnetic marbles to each bag for an extra sensory element.

Bubble wrap walkway:

Last but not least, the hit of this program, my bubble wrap walkway. This was something I read about from both Laura and Brooke, and I am so glad I tried it. The babies loved it! It was the most expensive part of this program but totally worth it.

Here it is in use!

All this was an easy and fun program to do with my babies and toddlers. I'd give it a "thumbs up" for sure!

If you have any questions about this program I'd love to hear them! You can comment here or reach me on Twitter (@MsKellyTweets).