• Activities

    Storytime Theme: Jazz

    piano

    Black History Month is here! And I wanted to share a way you can celebrate this special month with some of your youngest patrons, students, or family members. Today I wanted to focus solely on one specific music style – jazz! I love taking the time to introduce young children…

  • Activities

    Storytime Theme: Black History Month

    March

    Black History Month is here! And I wanted to share a way you can celebrate this special month with some of your youngest patrons, students, or family members. Trying to make a rather complicated celebration as simple as I could, I wanted to highlight more than one individual. This storytime…

  • Activities

    Storytime Theme: Lunar New Year

    dragon

    Happy New Year! Today I’m celebrating Lunar New Year by offering a beautiful storytime to ring in the new year. What many used to call Chinese New Year, Lunar New Year is actually celebrated by many Asian countries including China, Korea, Vietnam and more. This year we celebrate the Year…

  • Activities

    Storytime Theme: Hibernation

    bear

    With classic favorites like Bear Snores On by Karma Wilson and nonfiction titles like Why Do Bears Sleep All Winter? by Mary Englar, this storytime theme: hibernation is an easy one to create! You can incorporate as much weather-related science as you want to create a STEM storytime, or shift…

  • Reviews

    One, Two, Three Dim Sum

    dim sum

    One, Two, Three Dim Sum Synopsis: “Children and their parents can learn to count to ten in both English and Mandarin in this fun bilingual counting book of food. This book features traditional Chinese food items paired with numbers in both English and Chinese. Illustrated by Rich Lo, you’ll learn…

  • Activities

    Storytime Theme: Snow

    snowflakes

    It’s kind of ironic that I’m posting my Storytime Theme: Snow today. In my neck of the woods, our high today is 66°F which means I’ll be outside walking the pup with a sweatshirt on instead of my winter coat, hat, mittens, and boots. I have a love-hate relationship with…

  • Reviews

    The Night Baafore Christmas

    Christmas decorations

    The Night Baafore Christmas Synopsis: “It’s Christmas Eve and Bo can’t sleep, so he starts counting sheep. But when the sheep get bored, they scatter, wreaking holiday mayhem all over the house. “Sheep 4 gnaws the stockings–leaves holes in the toes; 5 swallows some garland, and tinsel, and bows!” Children…

  • Reviews

    Odd Dog Out

    dachshund

    Synopsis: “It’s a dog’s life in the big, busy city, but there’s one lonely pup who doesn’t quite fit in. She behaves differently from the rest, sports rainbow in a sea of gray, and marches to the beat of her own drum. She’s one Odd Dog. Join Odd Dog as…

  • Activities

    Read for the Record 2019

    soup

    Today is Jumpstart’s Read for the Record 2019! It’s an initiative created to “raise awareness about the critical importance of early literacy” where millions of adults and children all read the same title. This year’s title is Thank You, Omu! by author-illustrator Oge Mora. About the Book “In this remarkable author-illustrator…

  • Lists

    Chapter Book Read Alouds for First Graders

    kids

    I got a chance to see a close friend over the weekend and she was remarking how she and her husband were looking for chapter book read alouds for first graders. I love requests like this – I create booklists of all sorts for my blog, but when I get…