A co-worker called out sick this week, which left me to fill in for Tiny Tales.
At the moment, Tiny Tales is our only early literacy program. I have great plans for Every Child Ready to Read ... Born to Read ... and so forth, but until those plans come to fruition, I'm sticking with the Tiny Tales program that this team had running when I arrived.
Tiny Tales is a 6-week registered program for kids ages 2-4. It includes sharing some books, a short film (public performance rights Weston Woods or Scholastic), as well as a craft activity that extends the book. Totally not how I do it, but I'm good with the extensions that are presented.
Ok. So my co-worker calls out sick, and I'm left with 30 minutes to prepare for Tiny Tales. Yeah, not happening.
So what do I do? I do my Mother Goose Walkers program that I've been doing for 16 years. It's been a year or so since I did it, but back in my early days I did them weekly. So ... I can pretty much do it with my eyes closed.
I *might* be a little old-school in my approach, but there are a few fundamentals that I believe in.
1) consistent routine is very important
2) rhymes, songs, finger plays and books are all you need
When it comes to themes, I like to use them, but detest them when forced. So I went loose, with such little time to prepare, and went with "Animals".
Books included Are You ready for Fun by Jan Thomas, Barnyard Banter by Denise Fleming, The Duckling Gets a Cookie by Mo Willems, Polar Bear Polar Bear What do you Hear? by Bill Martin Jr. and Eric Carle.
The one activity included Old MacDonald Has a Farm storytime prop from KidzClub. I cut out the pictures and sound cards, and gave them out to the kids. My plan was to sing the song, and have the kids bring the pictures to the front one at a time. Using stick-tack we stuck them to the wall. Then, as we sung the song and got to the sound, I asked who had the sound card, and then we stuck them to the wall matching the animal. Then we sung back through, with me pointing to the animal and words.
All in all, we had a great time. Because everything was different to the group - me, my format, my rhymes and songs - I had a lot of blank stares from the kids ... but I'm used to that. They all had fun, that I knew, and afterwards the parents and caregivers all told me that they really enjoyed the session and would look forward to more like that.
Good to know. Seeing as how it's a bit of where it's going ... when I have time to sort it all out.
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