A VERY high-energy Baby Book Club session today! We were reading a French book (those babies are pretty amazing, oui?) about a blue bear who just stands on the page, looking straight at the reader and inviting them to 'do like me': open your eyes, touch your nose, stick your tongue out…
The babies were very happy to follow the bear's lead and improvise in all sorts of directions, especially when it came to blowing kisses and making silly sounds with our puffed up cheeks. (Extra brownie points to the grown-ups who bravely joined in!)
The book ends with a big flap that needs lifting, and behind the flap… a mirror! Each little one was delighted to see that they too were included in the book. That's not something you see every day!
We continued on with our own game of Follow the Leader, jumping up and down, bending over and, following one of the babies' example, falling flat on our faces (on a bean bag!).
We added a few charades to the mix and things got even livelier. All the while, the youngest members of the audience were plied with mirrors and spent some fascinating minutes looking at the smiling kid in front of them.
As promised, here are the links to the songs and videos! Funny
Babies Doing Exercises Compilation:
Charades
| Kids Play | HiHo Kids:
"Babies
Discovering Mirrors for the First Time Compilation" || CFS:
Welcome Baby Book Clubbers from far and near! This week, we read Leslie Patricelli's Yummy Yucky and had a ball. I rank Leslie's books very highly in my personal library of awesomeness and Yummy Yucky is an enduring favourite both at home and baby book clubs. The pictures are both funny and very relatable, and they are terrific conversation starters: about food, about taste, about likes and dislikes, about trying out new things… and avoiding other kinds of experiments (dog poo anyone?).
We had a lively reading, followed by a root around a bag full of pretend food and our activity for the day. The kids were given various pictures and had to decide whether they were of 'yummy' or 'yucky' things. There were no set answers, so everyone was free to decide they didn't like bananas… or loved bugs! To finish off, we took out some supermarket catalogues and let the babies look for more things to include in their chart. Again, plenty of interesting conversations arose and some kids discovered the inimitable joy of cutting with scissors.
Well done and thanks all!
As promised, here are the links to the songs and videos:
I Like Pie,
I Like Cake by the Four Clefs:
Food,
Glorious Food - Oliver! By the Young People's Theater:
Laura
Linney - Please can I keep it?
The
animated version of the Ravenous Beast:
Check out this video about the Edible Book Festival:
Baby Book Clubbers had great fun this morning following the adventures of Zebedee who looks high and low for his round, red balloon and makes plenty of new friends along the way. We were really taken by the pictures and their stark contrast of black and white and red, and we had all sorts of conversations about the taste of strawberries and our favourite colours. To flex our muscles (both physical and creative) we then moved on to stamping and populated our blanc and white forests with colourful friends for Zebedee. Mainly dinosaurs, but really friendly ones! As promised, here are the links to the songs and videos. Enjoy!
It Only Takes One Night to Make a Balloon Your Friend by Lunch Money
Steve Lee - Grab A Balloon - Miller Made Music Showcase
Colorful Time-Lapse of Hot Air Balloons in New Mexico | Short Film Showcase
What a pleasure it was to be Writer in Residence for Meath County Libraries with Creative Ireland!
The proof is in the vid!
Well done and a massive thank you to all who took part in the Poetry Treasure Hunts, Book Club sessions, creative writing workshops and especially to the two classes who made my Mondays such fun out in Dunsany and Enfield. You rock!
Librarians, teachers and other helpers, a big 'merci' too. This was a team effort and so worth it!
Baby Book Club explored new territories this morning as we took up our new quarters in the sensory room. The babies weren't phased in the slightest by the darkish, reddish light and made a beeline for all the new things they just had to try out: the blackout tent, the foam balls, the bean bags, the skittles! We were a bit distracted in our reading, but that's all right. We still got a good helping of Car Car Jeep Jeep and we did some excellent singing. We then moved on to our craft and play session, drawing a collective city with roads, playgrounds, train tracks, trees and resident cats for our toy cars to drive around. We enjoyed naming things and colours and practising with markers and crayons. we noticed the latter didn't taste particularly well, no matter their colour. As promised, here are the links to the videos and songs. Until next time, team!
The Chitty-Chitty Bang-Bang song!
Drive My Car by the Beatles:
For an action-packed day at ‘Digger School’, watch Here Comes A Digger:
Thanks to all who came along to our first Baby Book Club of the new school year! It was lovely to see veterans coming back and new recruits joining in the fun. We've added a few things to our regular schedule and you can now expect songs! tickling rhymes! teddies! To kick us off this year, we revisited a favourite of babies across the world: Chris Haughton's A Bit Lost. We loved repeating 'uh-ho' when Little Owl falls out of the nest and mimicking his bumpy way down to the forest floor. And we agreed that Squirrel's ideas of what a Mammy Owl might look like were just hilarious. We also practised our evil laughter, just because.
We rounded up the session with some craft-making and put our fine motor skills and our imagination to good use: gluing, placing, taping our baby owls together... and pretending they were lollies to lick! Thanks again everyone and well done!
As promised, here are the links to the songs and videos. See you in two weeks!
As part of Cruinniú na nÓg, over the last few weeks, Margaret Anne Suggs and myself have been running a series of writing and art workshops with children from Fourth Class in Inchicore. The result is 37 bespoke encyclopaedias written and illustrated by the kids all about the topic they are experts in: themselves. Here is a wee video about the project: Ourselvesopedia!
