Story Time: Fall Sports

We've started fall story times, even though it isn't officially fall until Saturday. I thought it would be fun to start fall story times with a sports theme. And after looking through all of the options for sports related picture books, that are available at my library, I settled on baseball and soccer.

Opening: Good morning song (Good morning _____, repeat 2 more times, How are you today?) We had some children who were new to story time, so it was nice to learn everyone's name and welcome them at the same time.

We have a relatively young story time crowd, so I try to do the same opening set of songs each time. Also, each child picks an animal puppet that they hold on to until we sing Old MacDonald, I've noticed that if I hold on to the animals, a lot of the children get distracted. So the opening set consists of:

Head Shoulders Knees and Toes
Open Shut Them
Itsy Bitsy Spider
Twinkle Twinkle Little Star
Old MacDonald Has A Farm

Book 1: Take Me Out To the Ball Game by Maryann Kovalski. We sang this one, well, all of the adults sang, but it was nice to hear all the voices.

Next I introduced This is Big, a rhyme that is new to me. It was a big hit during this story time, so I'm going to include it more often.

A big story time favorite is If You're Happy and You Know It, I try to change up the actions. This time we did - wave your arms, and touch your nose, in addition to the traditional actions.

This was an antsy group so we continued to sing:

I'm a Little Tea Pot

Baa Baa Black Sheep

Where is Thumbkin?

The Wheels on the Bus

Do You Know the Muffin Man?

ABC Song

Book 2:  Froggy Plays Soccer by Jonathan London. This book was a little long, but I improvised as I went along. And the kids laughed each time I yelled for Froggy. 

Flannel Board:  I introduced a new flannel board rhyme: Down Around the Corner with baseball related items - a hat, mitt, bat, ball, and uniform. (This will be my Flannel Friday post later today.)

We sang a few more songs, including Five Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed and Two Little Blackbirds

Book 3: Bats at the Ballgame by Brian Lies - I attempted a third book, but everyone was still very antsy, so a few pages in I put the book down and we sang more songs:

Row Row Row Your Boat
10 Little Fingers
Ring Around the Rosie
Hokey Pokey
 
Closing: Zoom Zoom Zoom

Zoom Zoom Zoom
We're going to the moon!
Zoom Zoom Zoom
We're going to the moon!
If you want to take a trip
Climb aboard my rocket ship!
Zoom Zoom Zoom
We're going to the moon! 
Countdown!
10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 
5, 4, 3, 2, 1,
Blast off!
Source: taught to me by a co-worker

This story time turned into more of a musical story time than I anticipated. But, I've learned to keep a few extra songs at the ready just in case. I've started asking the adults and children for song requests too, towards the end. I've learned a couple of new songs this way. Sometimes I get asked to sing a song we've already sung, so we do an encore. 

I try to walk the line of being prepared for story time and being flexible and ready for the unexpected. This time around I wasn't quite prepared for the antsy-ness, but I hope that everyone ended up enjoying themselves.