Toddler Story Time - We've Got Rhythm!

I have been away from the Library Village for the last month but I am super excited to be back!  Big giant thank yous to all of my co-workers who have fearlessly jumped into Toddler Story Time to cover my weeks away!  I heard nothing but good things about their story time adventures.  It was so good to start back up with story time and see how much some of the little ones have grown (yes two year olds grow in only one month's time!) and see several new faces!

This week we got right down to business and had some seriously musical fun!  After we sang our usual Welcome to Storytime song and our sillies were shaken, I borrowed the action song, If You Want to Read a Story...  from Miss Sue!  We sang this song before each of our three books.  This time we stomped our feet if we wanted to hear the story Dancing Feet by Lindsey Craig.  Great book, but perhaps a few too many animals..  I had to stop midway through the book to rescue my poster off the bulletin board so that may have been the reason we had extra wiggles during this book.

After the story, we sang a shortened version of Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes and played Pat a Cake.   NOW LET THE MUSICAL FUN BEGIN!!  First up: Egg Shakers!

To warm up, we shook our shakers to the song, Where is Shaker?  This is to the tune of Frere Jacques.  I found this great little song in the book 101 Rhythm Instrument Activities for Young Children by Abigal Flesch Connors.  Awesome book, full of great ideas! 

Where is Shaker?
Where is Shaker?  Where is Shaker? (Shaker behind your back)
Here I am!  Here I am! (Bring shaker out and shake it)
How are you today, friend? Very well, I thank you. (Pretend to talk to shaker)
Run away, run away. (Hide shaker behind your back again)
There are other verses as well such as rolling on the floor, tapping on your hand, and shaking on your tummy.  I bet you could make up your own as well!

We used the shakers to sing our ABCs and we shook our shakers for the next installment of If You Want to Read a Story...  The second book was appropriately titled, Shake It Up, Baby! by Karen Katz.  This board book has a built in shaker in the spine.  We followed the instruction given in the story and had a great time shaking! 

After collecting the egg shakers, I used one of my go to quieting rhymes to get all the little ones seated.  I needed their attention in order to explain the rules for our next fun musical instrument, the rhythm sticks!  I've used them once before and it went really well so I was confident it would be great again.  This was quite a bit larger group, so I won't say I wasn't nervous, but with the assistance of many awesome parents, all the little ones used their rhythm sticks for making music only.

I started off with Hap Palmer's song Tap Your Sticks from his cd, Rhythms on Parade.  This song begins with simple instructions to follow such as tapping your sticks in the air and on the floor and rubbing the sticks together.  Then suddenly, it gets advanced!  I explained to the parents before the start of the song that I would be cutting it off at a certain point.  The little ones did fantastic!

We also sang the song This is The Way..., to the tune of Mulberry Bush.  I found this great tapping tune at Ring Sing Play.

This is the Way...
This is the way we tap our sticks, tap our sticks, tap our sticks
This is the way we tap our sticks so early in the morning!
This is the way we rub our sticks, rub our sticks, rub our sticks
This is the way we rub our sticks so early in the morning!
This is the way we tap our knees, tap our knees, tap our knees
This is the way we tap our knees so early in the morning!

Rhythm sticks safely put away, we wiggled our fingers high and low and turned our attention to our last verse of If You Want to Read a Story...  This time we wiggled our nose.  Why you ask?  Because we read Wiggle by Doreen Cronin.  They loved it!  Great illustrations and funny story. 

And that wrapped up our musical story time!  It was a great morning and I think everyone deserved a good nap when we were through.  Or maybe just me..  We are very lucky to have access to such great props to use during our story times.  The little ones love it and I do too!