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Friday, April 22, 2011

Fire Safety Storytime

Our second storytime during National Library Week was a special Fire Safety Storytime where we had a real firefighter visit.  This kids were very excited about this.  We started the "Night Owl Storytime" on Thursday nights as part of the school district's new four-year-old-kindergarten program.  I collaborate with the local Family Resource Center to offer storytime and crafts.  It's nice to work with someone else on things, so I enjoy it but attendance has been pretty spotty.  This was our final week for this year, and I think we'll try something different next year since attendance was so poor overall. 
I was a little nervous about sharing storytime with a guest since I'd never done it before and didn't really know how it would go.  It was great--I guess I need to work on my sharing!  I was also concerned about attendance, but the good news is we had a nice crowd this week of 20 kids and 11 adults. 

I started out our normal storytime routine, and after the opening song we read Fire Engine Man by Andrea Zimmerman.  I wanted to get some energy expelled before I introduced our guest, so we sang "Dr. Seuss is on the Loose" from last week's Dr. Suess Party. From there we went right into the fingerplay, "Five Little Firemen" which can be seen here.  The kids enjoy that one, although I have a hard time settling on what actions go with what part of the rhyme--I probably just need to do it more often. 

Then our firefighter spoke to the kids and read one of the books I suggested to him,
Firefighters! Speeding! Spraying! Saving! by Hubbel.  He started telling the kids about the other part of his job (besides putting out fires), which is working on the ambulance when people get sick.  Hearing the word, "sick" prompted one little girl to shout out that she had gotten sick and puked in a bucket.  Our brave fireman responded that his daughter had been sick that day and threw up outside.  Anyone who works with kids knows where this story is going--suddenly every kid in the room was earnestly sharing his or her best puke story!   With a little redirection we transitioned into playing, "Firefighter says" which was a major hit, and a good lesson since you should always listen to what a firefighter tells you.

After that we sang, "I Had a Little Turtle" and "Jonny Taps With One Hammer" before ending storytime and heading over to the craft area.   

For Night Owl Storytimes, I'm not in charge of crafts so I gave the kids their hand stamps and sent them on their way!

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