Little Fish, One Finger

Book: Blue Sea by Robert Kalan, illustrated by Donald Crews
Props, Puppets: nothing...just fingers
Presenters: One
Audience: Toddler Time (1 & 2 year olds)

After 25+ years of story times, I tend to get a little bored with fingerplays. I stick to my favorites mostly and feel like I’m not being creative, but really there just aren’t many that measure up to “Where is Thumbkin,” “Five Little Monkeys,” and the like. But I do love it when I can find a story that can be told with fingers. That way the kids get the physical activity they need, but at the same time, I still get to tell a story. One of my favorite finger stories is Blue Sea by Robert Kalan and Donald Crews. A perfect picture book, so I hope this version inspires kids to check it out.

You can show the kids how to move as you tell the story or introduce the pieces before as an introduction. Small Fish is your pinky. Big Fish is pointer plus thumb. Bigger Fish is four fingers plus thumb. And Biggest Fish is your whole arm, with your forearm moving up and down to make a closing mouth.

So you use the simple words directly from the story and motion out the chases with your fingers. And the kids do the same. Little Fish appears. Big Fish appears and chase them. Then you leave Big Fish there and your Little Fish hand now becomes Bigger Fish, who chases Big Fish. And so on.

Then each fish gets caught in a hole, which you (and the kids) also provide. Small Hole is a triangle made when you touch your hand to your shoulder. Each fish zips through it, but Biggest Fish can’t fit (and says: “Ouch!”). Smaller Hole is the biggest circle you can make with finger and thumb. Smallest Hole is a tiny hole with finger and thumb. In the end your left with just your pinky floating around and the words: “Little Fish. Blue sea. The end.”

It makes a great participatory story, and it also has strong early literacy elements. The patterned words exercise narrative skills. Pretty young kids catch the pattern right away, then are able to see how it reverses itself as the fish disappear. With very few words, it’s still excellent for vocabulary, introducing the comparative (er) and superlative (est) suffixes in a way that makes sense. And although adding motions seems to make it more complicated to learn, the motions of the story actually make it easier to remember, especially for kinetic learners who learn by doing. After it's over I'll sometimes encourage the parents to try retelling the story this way at home, since you really can learn it pretty completely just by doing it once.

Program Summary: Bug Tales

K-2 Program Summary: "Bug Tales"
We do a monthly program called “K-2 Book Adventures” that’s lots of fun to develop and present. Our goal is to get 5-8 year olds really excited about books and the library. We approach it sort of like a storytime for older kids, but try to mix it up a lot with a variety of presentation approaches. We have multiple copies of the featured books on hand and are glad to see most of them check out each time.

I’ll post details on individual stories separately, but will also do a quick rundown of the pieces of each program. We’ve only done four so far. "Bug Tales" was in January, with Sheila, Terri, and I (Steven) presenting for about 100 kids and 50 adults. The program ran about 45-50 minutes:

Diary of a Fly/Spider/Worm books by Doreen Cronin and Harry Bliss.
We scanned and projected illustrations from a couple of these books. Terri (as Spider) and Sheila (as Fly) read the words while I narrated. I introduced them by saying: "We can learn a lot about bugs from books, but wouldn’t it be great if they could tell us their own stories, or maybe write them down in a diary…?” It made a nice intro, we thought.

Two Bad Ants by Chris Van Allsburg
Told with one narrator, two silent ants, and projected images. Details in separate post.

Insectlopedia by Douglas Florian
We read two poems, with Florian's words projected alongside several photographs of the featured insects. We chose “The Monarch Butterfly” and “The Daddy Longlegs” (“Oh Daddy, Daddy-O, How’d you get those legs to grow?...”). We alternated lines between the three of us as we told.

“Name That Bug”We chose three kids, and each one read three clues about a bug. The audience made guesses and we revealed the answer at the end, showing a picture in the book. For example: “I have eight legs.” Some guesses. “I have two big eyes and two small eyes.” More guesses. “If I were your size, I could jump 80 feet.” A correct guess (which impressed me) and then we showed the fold out photo of the jumping spider from Nic Bishop Spiders. Along with the stories, we wanted to highlight non-fiction bug books in general, and also call attention to excellent individual titles like this one.

The Fly Guy books by Tedd Arnold
We did quick booktalks for several of these, using scanned images from the books. For example, with I Spy Fly Guy, we showed the image of Fly Guy happily using a garbage can for "hide and seek," then told how the can was taken to the dump and when Buzz got there and called Fly Guy's name, a zillion flies answered "BUZZ!" We've learned that if we combine booktalks in with the storytelling it's best to make them quick and concise. A good 20 or so Fly Guy books got checked out afterwards, so I think this one worked.

Bug YogaTo give the audience something active to do midway, we did three yoga poses and related them to bugs. Goddess Pose became “The Water Bug Pose,” Child’s Pose became “Roly Poly Pose,” and we got to use the real name for “Dead Bug Pose” (aka Happy Baby). On the screen we projected a photo of the bug and a diagram of the pose.

"Name That Bug" Part 2
This time we used the projector to have kids guess bugs. We scan an illustration and show just a small portion with the first slide and have the audience guess. The next slide shows more of the illustration and the final one shows the whole thing. An army ant from Micro Monsters is one example. Kind of similar to Tana Hoban's excellent die cut books like Look Book...but with pictures big enough for a large group to see. And again, when they've guessed the bug, we show them the book that it came from.

Anansi the Spider by Gerald McDermott
Told with child volunteers, puppets, and props. Details in separate post.

Fruit Loop Caterpillars
We added a snack/craft to close the program, where you put Fruit Loops on a pipe cleaner to make a caterpillar. You can eat the cereal but not the pipe cleaners. Apparently this works with licorice too, but we couldn’t find thin enough licorice around here.

School Promotion
Each month we present a "sneak preview" of the K-2 Book Adventure to about 130 kids at our two primary schools. We alternate grades so that all of the K's, 1's, and 2's see us every three months. We have about 15-20 minutes to get them excited about coming. This time we did one "Name That Bug" piece (which included a reference to crickets in lollipops that we knew they'd remember) and a bit from Anansi the Spider, which included squirting water and spraying silly string. We bring a quarter sheet reminder slip for all K-2 students, even the ones we don't visit that month, to make sure parents and caregivers get the details too.

Previous K-2 Book Adventure programs were: “Dragons,” “Arnold Lobel,” and “Fractured Fairy Tales.” Details may follow in separate posts, though it may be a while…

Elephant Stretching

Book: Babar’s Yoga for Elephants

Equipment: Scanner, Projector

Presenters: One

Audience: Mostly 3-6

Our weekly Family Storytimes typically feature three stories, with “in-betweeners” mixed in, as well as an opening and closing song. We choose stories by theme, but don’t worry about that with the in-betweeners. We need activities that are active, fun, and easy to follow, since our crowds are large and mixed in terms of age. For our “Elephants” theme, though, I thought of one that would fit nicely and be a bit different from the standards we usually use.

I’m not sure how Babar’s Yoga for Elephants by Laurent de Brunhoff compares to the other child yoga books out there, but in this case it had what we needed: at least two poses that were simple enough for preschool ages and for a not-so-flexible middle aged librarian; and an elephant character demonstrating them. We scanned each step of the illustrations that demonstrated two poses: “The Inverted Triangle” and “The Happy Warrior.” Clicking on the remote revealed the stages of the poses. Some of the kids did quite well, others were vaguely on track with the pictures, but all seemed to get a good stretch. Plus I got to remind them about Babar books even though we didn’t use one for our stories (but we did have plenty on display for checkout). And another nice thing about yoga for stretches is that you can introduce it by reminding all that “yoga is a very quiet and peaceful activity,” which does settle the group down some.

We also used yoga as a stretching activity for our January “K-2 Book Adventures” program, “Bug Tales.” We got the idea from our volunteer Sam, who pointed out that some yoga poses have buggish names (“The Dead Bug Pose” was our favorite) and others suggest bug poses even when the name doesn’t match (so we did “Child’s Pose” and said: “but we like to think of it as The Roly Poly Pose.”) It made a nice break in a packed program, which also included Elephants Can Paint Too by Katya Arnold and Watch Me Throw the Ball by Mo Willems, with details in separate posts.

Projected Painting Elephants

Story: Elephants Can Paint Too by Katya Arnold
Equipment: Scanner / Projector
Presenters: One

Audience: 3-6 year olds mostly

Since our audience is usually too big to see pictures from the book, we often scan and project illustrations, along with the usual acting out and puppetry. For our recent "Elephants" theme I shared Elephants Can Paint Too this way. Our storytimes are very performance oriented with lots of action and humor, but it's nice when we can mix in the occasional quiet, thoughtful, or just different book. This is a photo essay about Arnold's experience teaching elephants to paint in Thailand. The book is cleverly built around the contrast between her human students and her elephant ones. So "some students live in the city" is accompanied by a photo of a New York City school. And "some students live in the jungle" shows an elephant marching through the jungle. The book is a great example of creative non-fiction for young children, with well chosen photographs and a strong storytelling approach.

Scanning and projecting lets us play with the child/elephant contrast a little more directly. As narrator, you can time your words and your "clicks" with the remote to maximize the interplay of text and pictures. With the words "Some students use their hands," I click that image just as I start the sentence. But then I slow down and draw it out a bit: "....and some students paint with their [click] trunks!" The medium allows you to pace the telling in a way I don't think you can quite match with a book. I'm not suggesting it's better, just different, and I'm interested in exploring the possibilities as we do more of this.

Arnold does a neat job of guiding readers through the book, using large print to convey the basics and smaller print to add details. As a teller I stuck mostly with the large print, paraphrasing on occasion. I chose two of the more detailed bits that I felt were essential: That elephants don't really try to paint flowers, but sometimes the colors and lines they paint look like things we recognize. And I shared the part about why Arnold teaches elephants.

As a little bonus, after the book was over I added a few slides from the web of our local painting elephant, Rama, who lives at the Oregon Zoo and has his work on display there. Our "Elephants" theme also included Watch Me Throw the Ball by Mo Willems and bits from Babar's Yoga for Elephants by Laurent de Brunhoff...details in separate posts.

Elephant and Piggie - Minimal Adaptation Required

Story: Watch Me Throw the Ball! by Mo Willems

Props: Elephant stuff (such as a nose and ears), Piggie stuff (nose, tail, or similar), a ball
Presenters: two

Audience: 3-6 mostly

I'm not sure I can choose which of Mo Willems' creations is my favorite...he's just too good at picture books. The Pigeon and Knuffle Bunny books should be enough genius for one person, and then along comes City Dog, Country Frog....amazing. But when it comes to adapting for larger crowds without the book, you can't beat Elephant and Piggie. At a recent Family Storytime, Brad and I acted out Watch Me Throw the Ball. You'd think that with an early reader and controlled vocabulary you would want to adapt pretty freely for storytelling, but in this case we pretty much used Willems words straight through. They're that good. You're supposed to repeat words in a book like this, so the new reader can get familiar with them. And he does that, but somehow makes that repetition part of character development. Like when Elephant says "It takes skill. It takes practice. It takes skill and practice." Good for new readers, great for a story teller trying to convey Elephant's personality (a little full of himself).

So anyway, our script was pretty much straight from the book. And the acting out was easy. I had an elephant nose and felt ears; Brad had a pig nose and a spiraly thing he found somewhere in our props for a tail. The dialog between the two, with their personalities so clearly different, works well. The big joke, when Piggie throws the ball (after a funny spinning wind-up) and it lands behind him, stretches out perfectly as a performance sequence: Piggie doesn't see the ball behind him, while the audience and Elephant do, and the dialog of the book leads us neatly through Piggie's initial excitement ("Call me Super Pig"), then denial ("I threw it around the world"), then happy acceptance ("I had fun"). When Piggie exits and Elephant thinks about it, then throws the ball backwards too, Piggie style, it's a fine ending.

I think there's something about the Early Reader format that can work really well for puppetry or acting out. Lobel's "Frog and Toad" books and Wiseman's "Morris and Boris" series are two others that have numerous stories that adapt naturally to use without the book, because they feature dialogue, humor, and personailities....I've done several of each over the years in various ways. But this was my first "Elephant and Piggie" and I look forward to trying more.

This was part of our "Elephants" Family Storytime. We also did a version of Elephants Can Paint Too by Katya Arnold and a bit from Babar's Yoga for Elephants...details in separate posts.

Two Bad Ants, Three Tellers, and One Laptop

Story: Two Bad Ants by Chris Van Allsburg
Props: Two pairs of antennae or something to suggest ants
Technology: Laptop + Projector
Presnters: One Narrator, two others acting out Ants
Audience: K-2 grades

Our “Bug Tales” program for grades K-2 included an adaptation of Chris Van Allsburg’s Two Bad Ants. His illustrations for this are great, but too small for our 100+ kids, so we projected images onto our screen using a laptop, projector, and PowerPoint. Projecting Van Allsburg's drawings onto the screen just didn't work well, so we dropped that idea and used photos, using these to support the central hook of the book: when the ants visit a kitchen they see things that we recognize, but they don’t. So a cup of coffee is a lake and a socket is a cave. Because they’re ant-sized. So the narrator told the bare bones of the story, while the two ants silently acted out the appropriate motions, and at the same time the image on the screen revealed the ants’ mistake. Easier to show than to tell, so here are a couple examples:

Narrator: The ants marched through forests of tall green trees.
Ants: March playfully across the stage.
Image: A photograph of a field of grass.

Narrator: The ants were dropped into a hot lake of brown water.
Ants: Pretend to swim desperately.
Image: A cup of coffee.

I was a little worried that this wouldn’t quite come together, but the audience totally got it. They laughed at the ants’ antics, guessed what the next image would be, and followed the story just fine. The two silent ants really made this story work. It could be done with one person, who could narrate and do the actions of one ant (to represent both), but not as effectively I think. I’ve done the story solo to a smaller group, using two ant hand puppets and instead of images on a screen, pulling the real objects (toaster, brick, coffee cup) out of a bag. Pretty successful, but the group performance was much more engaging. It helps to work with Terri and Sheila who are wonderful at physical comedy and make everything look so fun.

Finding matching images is really not that hard these days thanks to the web. I never did find a garbage disposal that worked well, so we cut that incident. Showing a photo of a shiny toaster, followed by one of the red-hot insides of a toaster, was especially effective. My image-searching philosophy is to use the first one that works…I don’t like to spend a ton of time on it, and if it requires more I figure it just might not be worth it.

I made a brief attempt to include sounds in the PowerPoint, searching for garbage disposal, flowing faucet, and an explosion (when the wet ants are shot out of the light socket), but it was harder to find just right ones, plus it felt like it might be a distraction….maybe next time. My co-worker Brad uses sound very effectively in his screen/projector version of The Wizard, the Fairy, and the Magic Chicken by Helen Lester. He tells it with images on the screen, and when the characters finally vanquish the monsters with thunder, lightning, and rain, some very loud thunder plays….the kids love it. So I’m keeping an ear open for stories that would work well with sound as well as images. But for Two Bad Ants, I thought the narration, acting out, and images on the screen worked just about right.

Our "Bug Tales" program for K-2 also included Anansi the Spider by Gerald McDermott, with details in a separate post.

About This Blog

What’s in it? Mostly it’s ideas for sharing children’s books with groups (storytimes and other programs) in ways besides the obvious, which is: read them. Not that there’s anything wrong with reading books. It’s still the single best way to get kids and parents excited about books. But in my 25+ years as a children’s librarian, I’ve run across many situations where that doesn’t always work that well: The pictures are too small, the group is too large or the story is too long, for example. And I’ve also found that mixing up a presentation with puppets, props, drama, and (more recently) technology can grab the attention of kids in a different way. And all of these ways still generate excitement about stories and books, which is what we’re all about. Plus it’s fun for me to mix it up a little. Bark George is truly a perfect picture book, but once in a while I like to put the book down, pick up my big dog puppet, put on a latex glove, and pull some animals out of his throat…

Where do these stories get told? With my current job as Youth Services Librarian with the Wilsonville Public Library (OR), I have several regular programs where I have occasions tell stories without the book. In my weekly Toddler Time for ages 1 and 2 I use puppets at least once, usually twice. We do a monthly program called “K-2 Book Adventures” where we typically present several books in a variety of ways. And we do weekly Family Storytimes that often draw 100+ people, which requires lots of creative approaches to telling. So those programs provide much of the “what we did this week” material, plus I’ll also mention a few tales that I’ve done in the past.

Who tells these stories? When I mention “we,” I’m referring to the five person team of storytellers at the Wilsonville Public Library. I only started here in 2010, but the children’s staff have been doing dynamic, creative storytimes to huge crowds for many years. Our current members are Sheila Shapiro, Terri Wortman, Brad Clark, and Shannon Belford. Much of our story development is collaborative, and we frequently use two or more tellers in a presentation. As you read this blog you’ll hear plenty about their creative contributions.

Why share them on a blog? When I was just starting out as a Children’s Librarian I was invited to observe another librarian, Peggy Tollefson do a storytime. She took out a great picture book: Peace at Last by Jill Murphy. She showed it to the kids, then put down the book, took her bear puppet and proceeded to tell the story orally, using the bear. I was just getting the hang of reading to kids in a group and I thought: wow, now that’s something different! Ever since I’ve been on the look out for new ways to share books and have regularly borrowed, adapted, or flat out copied ideas from others doing the same. Children’s librarians generally love to trade ideas and adapt them to our styles and situations. So I’ll share some here and hope a few of them take life somewhere else. Meanwhile I’m also hoping to get feedback from readers about your own experiences and ideas about telling without the book.

How can I find particular stories or story types? You can use the list of labels that always appears on the right. Entries are labeled according to the program/age level they work for: Toddler, Storytime, and K-2 are the main ones for now. There are also labels for the type of story: Puppets, Props, and Projectors for example. Also you can check the Index of Stories for an alphabetical list.