Monday, June 6, 2011

One World, Many Stories














This week I've been running around to all the classes in our elementary and middle schools to talk about the summer reading program. Between all the classes, I think I've talked to over 500 kids. Add that to all the preschools and daycares I covered in the last couple weeks, and I think I've seen just about every kid under the age of 14 that lives in our area at least once this month.

We are doing the theme "One World, Many Stories" for our summer reading program this year. Cool storytimes, fun prizes, and all that usual stuff (check it out on our website for more details). But what I'm really excited about is that we're working to put together a book of real-life stories from members of our community - both adults and kids. Got a great story? Please send it in to me!

We did an abbreviated storytime this week, since I talked to the kids here about the summer reading program as well. I did tell them a true story about myself as a child (involving a couple toads and the gas tank of a lawnmower) and then did a few stories from around the world.

Books:
Everywhere the Cow Says "Moo!" by Ellen Slusky Weinstein
A fun book that I've done before where we learn what cats, dogs, frogs, and other animals say in Spanish, French, and Japanese. After each animal, I let the kids repeat the animal noise, and we all join in on "And everywhere, the cow says Moo!" 
  
Similar, but not quite as fun are the books Yum! Yuck! A Foldout Book of People Sounds and Mung-Mung: A foldout Book of Animal Sounds both by Linda Sue Park. It's interesting how the same concept of different sounds in each language can be such a hit or miss. The kids I read these books to didn't seem to "get" the sounds were in different languages, and they were presented on the page in such a way that it didn't lend itself to the "kid chorus" like the Weinstein book. 

I also wanted to do a little storytelling, so in addition to my own story, I read a few selections from Three Minute Tales: Stories from around the World To Tell When the Time is Short by  Margaret Read MacDonald. We didn't have this at our library, so I got it through ILL (I just love that service). There are great stories in here for all ages, all of them perfect for those with short-attention spans like my toddlers & preschoolers, or more thoughtful tales that just happen to be shorter. I need to get a copy of this book for myself.

Craft:
We told stories during craft time - I let the kids write down or tell me stories for our book if they wanted to do it. Otherwise, I put down paper on the tables and let them draw whatever they wanted to. Always nice to have an very open-ended activity once in a while.
 
This theme was used the week of May 30, 2011.
Next week we'll start our world tour for summer reading, starting with Norway.