Keeping the little ones busy: Pirates!

How are you all getting on? Have you begun to lose count of the days in confinement and to forget what the old normal was yet? It feels a bit like that here...
To help with the long days, I'll be sharing some of the tried and tested activities we've enjoyed in Baby Book Club. You'll need very few materials and could get hours of entertainment out of these!

Today, I give you: Piratic adventures!
There tons of books about pirates and you possibly have some lying around. If you don't, it doesn't really matter: there's still plenty of fun to be had. You can enlist the help of older kids there as well, as they can push the pretend play into some detail.

Today, pretend you're all part of a pirate crew.
First, you are going to need a ship. The couch could do very well, or bunk beds, or under the kitchen table, or, the ultimate holy grail of pretend play, you might have a cardboard box lying around? Decorate it together. What could you use for sails? Do you want a flag? And what will you call your ship?

Next you'll have to look the part. What you need is a hat! Take a sheet of A3 paper if you have it (if you don't, tape together two A4) and fold it in half. Draw a piratic hat shape and cut it out. Unfold it again and let your little one decorate it. They can draw, use stickers, stampers, whatever you have to hand! Refold the paper and staple the sides together, it should sit nice and snug on your young pirate's head, as in the pic above.

Finally you'll need a place to go, in other words, a treasure map! Print an island shape off the internet or draw one yourself and add detail to it with your child. Trees, rivers, mountains, sheep, scribbles, etc. and don't forget to place an X to mark the spot!

Now you're ready to set sail! Remember to use your best piratic words (you'd be amazed how many of those really young kids know!). You can find more in this English/Pirate dictionary and you can also generate your own pirate name over here!

Why not round off the day's adventures with a bit of water play? Take out a basin, pour some water in it and throw in plastic containers, slotted spoons, colander, anything that will pour in an interesting fashion. Hours of focused fun guaranteed! (You may want to strip your pirate down to the bare essentials first, though)

As before, here are a few more links to keep the fun going! :)

Peter Pan - A Pirate's life  

Pirates of the Caribbean Orchestral Medley, He's a Pirate  

Flannery Brothers Children's Music - "Pirate or Parrot?"

Hang on in there, me hearties!

Keeping Little Ones Busy: Bringing the Library Home!

No creche, no play group, no storytime, no play dates… The days and weeks ahead are going to feel like one very long break-less, nap-less afternoon.
That said, once everyone has adjusted to the new routine, there are really fun, simple things you can do to keep your little one busy, amused and, yes, learning!

Over the next while, I will share here some of the tried and tested activities we've enjoyed in Baby Book Club. You'll need very few materials and could get hours of entertainment out of these!

Today, I give you: Bringing the Library Home or… Solo Book Clubbing!

If your child is especially missing their trips to the library, why not recreate a story-time setting at home by simply placing teddies and/or other family members in a comfy circle and following the routine you are used to.

In my sessions, we always start with the same songs (one to say good morning, a couple to get moving and get energy out of our systems, one to calm down and get ready to listen), before moving on to the books, anything between 1 and 4, depending on the group. Pick up some books, ask your child to choose some too, and off you go!

Follow your little one's lead: if they want to spend ages poring over the pictures of one story, let them at it. Ask them questions, point and name the things in the illustrations and listen to what they have to say. If they want to skip ahead to the next book, you can always come back to it at a later stage. And if they want to tell the story themselves, your work here is done!

To finish up, you can throw in a craft. One lovely activity that works with really young kids is to get them to make their own book. Fold and staple together a couple of A4 sheets, bring out old magazines and newspapers, some glue and kiddie scissors and off they go! They love cutting (so do the parents, admit it), lifting pictures from supermarket catalogues and messing about with glue.

When you're done, make sure you share your little one's work with other family members (in real life, but also remotely) and display it somewhere around the house: on the fridge or on your kid's bookshelves...

For a perfect finish, you might want to blow some bubbles to mark the end of the 'session' and provide even more lasting fun!

Prolong the fun with these songs and videos!

The Library Song, a fun kids’ song from New Zealand. 

Lil B Dub / The Rapping Bookworm, a thing of silliness!

Martians Discover a Book, classic Sesame Street madness.

Bruno Mars' Uptown Funk Parody: Unread Book (you’ll never look at your librarian in the same way!)

The Mount Desert Island High School version of Meghan Trainor's "All About The Bass/Books" 

Hang on in there!

Let It Snow

The babies braved the snow, the rain and everything in between today! We, very aptly, looked at books with a wintery feel where polar bears featured prominently. We explored textures and our senses with Usbourne's This is Not My Polar Bear and enjoyed another 'touchy-feely' book, Making Tracks: Snow by Cocoretto, this time following grooves in the sturdy cardboard with our fingers and guessing who might me hiding behind the flaps.

We also made connections with our bear-loving siblings and had a lovely sensory moment playing with cotton wool to give our very own polar bears some fur. Your fridges will look glorious tonight, babies!
As promised, here are the links!

World’s coolest snow sculptures: 

Do The Funky Penguin by Rufus Thomas :

Penguins ice-skating, clip from a BBC documentary: 

Pingu!

Roaaaar Like a Baby

The little ones in this group are really little, which means you see them grow week by week. Today, the wobblers were a wee more steady, the shy ones came out of themselves a bit more and the talkers got super chatty thanks to Dinosaur Roar. There was a lot of interaction with the book, with what was going on in the pictures, a lot of description and general excitement. You know, dinosaurs!
We then played freely with a bunch of plastic and soft dinosaurs, shared them, swapped them, gave them tea and some even spotted other dinosaurs in other books around the room...
As promised, here are the links to the songs and videos.

The Dinosaurs Song by Big Word Club

The Dinosaur Song by Johnny Cash

Running from a T-Rex by Daddy Donut

Don't Worry, It's Baby Book Club!

What do babies do? They grow! It's been a while since I last saw some of our regular Baby Book Club members and the changes are astonishing! We now crawl, walk, look out, make sentences!
Today we went for a dip in Chris Haughton's huge-enormous-massive waves as we read Don't Worry Little Crab. They enjoyed 'holding tight' before each wave and the colourful fish the pair of crabs meet on the sea floor. They loved when Little Crab introduces themselves to said fish, as they saw it as an opportunity to say 'Hello, fishy!' and started on a round of introductions of our own: 'Hello, fishy, I'm Juliette! Hello, fishy, I'm Flynn...' The excitement to 'find' themselves in the book!
Overall, I think this crowd might have been a little too little for this book. It's longer than Haughton's previous offerings and didn't keep their attention as well as, say, A Bit Lost or Goodnight Everyone.
Our activity today was… to go fishing! I had drawn and cut out sea creatures and plants inspired by the illustrations and stuffed them into a box full of shredded cardboard, a leftover from my Christmas book shopping.
The kids really enjoyed the challenge of touching the strange-to-them texture and rummaging through it. It took some longer than others to go for it, but everyone took part in the end. They were then plied with blue paper and glue sticks and got a chance to create their own seascape. The concentration and seriousness as they worked was fantastic. These guys are aged 10 months to 2 and a half!
As promised, here are the lings to the songs and videos.
Until next time!

1, 2, 3, 4, 5 Once I Caught a Fish Alive l


The Monterey Bay Aquarium has a great YouTube channels with lots of videos. Try the Bell Jellies:

 the Galloping Bay Pacific Seahorses:

 or the Pelagic Red Crabs:

That’s What Makes the World Go Round (the fish scene from the Sword in the Stone): 

The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

We had a very lively session today with a selection of Christmas stories, Christmas FM in the background and mince pies! The little ones, most of which will be celebrating their first xmas in a few weeks, were in a showing off mood, practising standing on their own two feet and showing us how Head Shoulders Knees and Toes is done. We loved looking at how Maisie and her friends decorate their tree (it's a bit like how we do it), listening to the sounds of the Noisy Christmas Book and driving Santa's scooter from Whizzy Santa. 

As our members are really quite young at the moment, we try and come up with activities that will appeal to their senses and will amuse their grown-ups. It turns out cutting shapes out of wrapping paper is a hit with both, and that babies LOVE exploring cotton wool. So we had the ideal materials to decorate our own Christmas tree, inspired by Maisie and co. The babies enjoyed manipulating the paper and the cotton, passing them to be glued to the 'tree' and rolling about in the books.

We left everyone full of seasonal spirit… and ready for a good nap!

As promised, here are the links to the songs and videos.

It's the Most Wonderful Time Of The Year - The Muppets Christmas Song:

You're a mean one, Mr Grinch (Original 1966 Version) 

Watch the Snowman, based on the book by Raymond Briggs

For an amazing display of lights, check out Trista Lights 2016 Christmas Light Show - Featured on ABC's The Great Christmas Light Fight 

Tune in to ChristmasFM online or on 105.2 FM.

We Like to Move It, Move It, at Baby Book Club

Today we were all about moving around freely within our space at Baby Book Club. We had a ball reading Jump! by Tatsuhide Matsuoka, meeting all the animals and experimenting with jumping just like they do. For the wobblers who felt more like Snail ('A snail jumps./ Mmh. Maybe not.') than like Frog ('A frog jumps./ Boing!'), fear not: it will come to you!
The little ones enjoyed practising sharing the teddy ball and exploring the barrier of bean bags set up around our rug: not very much can stand in the way of a determined baba!
As promised, here are the links to get you and your young person moving!

Toddler Completes Obstacle Course

Throw your own Baby Rave! See how Young at Art does it (above), try this great playlist from Kitty Lynn, or make up your own! 

CosmicKids have loads of videos for kids to do yoga, relaxation and learn about mindfulness. You can choose by length, energy level or category.

I Am Yoga Song - Emily Arrow 

Press this!

We had a bit of a magic session this week in Baby Book Club, thanks to Hervé Tullet's Press Here. His are books that typically look weird and confusing to grown-ups but that little ones just get and can't get enough of. In Press Here kids are invited to press, rub, shake, upend and generally manhandle the book and stuff happens! They stroke a yellow dot on the page and suddenly, on the next one, it turns red! They tap another and, tada, there are now 5 dots where there had only been one! Absolute magic!
They loved manipulating the pages, interacting physically with the pictures and being, it seemed, in charge of the magic.
We clapped, we danced, we squealed with delight. This is not a quiet book.
To add to the general volume levels, we then taped some bubblewrap on the floor and set the babies loose...

If you don't know Hervé Tullet's books, seek them out! If you do, why not read them again and try making your own colourful masterpiece inspired by his dots and squiggles, like we did before?
As promised, here are the links to the songs and videos.

PRESS HERE by Hervé Tullet made out of playdo!  

The Dot Song LIVE - Emily Arrow & Peter H. Reynolds 

Lunch Money "I Want to Push Buttons" 

Buttons In the Wind 

Magic!

Baby Book Club is nothing if not topical, so with Halloween fast approaching, we started off our session with Satoshi Kitamura's wonderfully effective Hat Tricks, about Hattie, a small bunny and great magician, who can make some pretty spectacular stuff come out of her magic hat.
We tried to guess what would next appear and to figure out how it could all fit in there. We particularly enjoyed the humongous octopus and the elephant whose bum gets stuck in the hat.
We continued our magic-themed session with a bit of witchcraft, courtesy of Meg and Mog, who cook up a wriggly-worm of a storm for their dinner before going to bed.
We then proceeded to prepare for our own magic show and made some very fetching hats, complete with stars and bats and black cats. Who knows what will come out of those?
As promised, here are the links to the songs and videos.

Satoshi Kitamura reading Hat Tricks with the help of a kamishibai: 

Bibbidi Bobbidi Boo from Cinderella: 

Paul Daniels - Rabbit from a Hat: 

Happy Halloween, all!

Baby You Can Drive My Car

It was all go in Baby Book Club this week thanks to Pippa Goodheart and Nick Sharratt's Car Car Truck Jeep. We enjoyed following the blue car as it drove around busy roads, naming all sorts of vehicles and adding our own sound effects. But of course, the best bit was driving our own cars on our own road.
The little ones enjoyed manipulating the toy cars while the slightly older kids had a ball cover our 'road' with big, purposeful scribbles and collecting all the crayons available. Eating the crayons was also nice, apparently. And I suspect the grown-ups enjoyed adding their doodles to the big roll of paper on the floor too...
As promised, here are the links to the songs and videos.
Until next time!
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: 

A Bit Lost... A Lot Found

And we're off for a third round of weekly Baby Book Club sessions in Crumlin with a fresh new gang as most of last year's veterans have now graduated to preschool and the like.
Our new recruits, aged 2 and a lot under, enjoyed discovering a space that was new to them and meeting new potential friends.
We sang, we read, we laughed, we cried, we teethed, we shared, we hugged… all in a day's work at Baby Book Club.
After reading the always-excellent A Bit Lost by Chris Haughton, we made our own owls out of collage. Some of our members revelled in wielding the glue sticks while others thought long and hard about the colour pattern of their creation.
Everybody was well ready for a nap at the end, which is of course the secret plan behind all this!
As promised, here are the links to the songs and videos.
Until next time!

The Owl Song, by the Whizpops

The Old Owl Said, "Who?", by Eric Ode

And A Bit Hungry, a tiny play inspired by A Bit Lost

And why not relax with non-stop birdsong! http://birdsong.fm/

Until next time!

Another brilliant year of reading, crafting, playing, chatting, spilling milk, demolishing biscuits, swapping tips, running, footballing, dancing, laughing, sharing, taking turns and all other manner of learning comes to an end with the final session of Baby Book Club.

This time, we took a stroll through Dublin with My Little Album of Dublin, and were delighted to spot things that we knew, like a Luas! a slide! a dog! a football! a scooter! and even… ourselves!

To celebrate the end of the year we danced, we got out the balloons and we had an official award-giving ceremony. 

A huge thank you to everyone who came a long over the weeks, to Liz and Jane for keeping the show on the road and to David for setting it up in the first place!

Until next time!

A sigh... and a stretch... and a ya-a-a-awn: the magic of Chris Haughton

Chris Haughton worked his magic again in Baby Book Club this week. I like to start the year with the wonderful A Bit Lost as it's a book that commands little ones' attention the minute you say 'Uh oh...' Also, the owls lend themselves to some super crafting afterwards.
This year, we practically bookended our sessions with Chris: A Bit Lost at one end, Goodnight Everyone at the other. This time, everybody was taking part in the telling as the mice and deer and bears getting ready for sleep quickly had everyone yawning (in a good way!). So we sighed, we stretched and aaah-ya-a-a-awned, and felt much refreshed and zen afterwards.
The only thing left then was to make our won starry skies with freshly cut sheets of night and some snazzy shiny stickers. Equipped with pale crayons we added tails, clouds, lines, creating our own shooting stars, milky ways and constellations. Stellar work!
As promised, here are the links!

Some tips about reading at bedtime with kids aged 0-9.

"Pajama Time!" by The Laurie Berkner Band from Superhero Album

Yawning Man - For Insomniac Children 

Funniest and Cutest Animal Yawning Compilation 2017

Avast! Ahoy! And all that jazz...

Coming right up to the end of this season of Baby Book Club, we are exploring books with that bit more text, that bit more elaborate rhyming. You will be glad to know (though not at all surprised) that our more senior* members, as they grow up and as they learn more, can absolutely take it.
It was a bit beyond our very new newcomers, but it looked like they enjoyed the atmosphere and got enough excitement to have a sound nap afterwards. Win win!

This week we looked at Rob Biddulph's Sunk, with its snappy, choppy, rhymy text and its very cool illustrations, where there's enough happening that you'd really want to go back and check out all the detail. We did a fair bit of (accurate) predicting and problem-solving and really enjoyed both the piratical theme and the double happy ending with its focus on friendship and the giant--ship-turned-playground dénouement.
We then embraced our inner piracy and got crafting our own treasure maps and customizing our hats. The little ones were delighted to have an occasion to use their pirate speak and we parted on some rousing cries of 'Me hearties!'
As promised, here are the links to the songs and videos.
*(aged at least 12 months!)

Peter Pan - 03 A Pirate's life 

Pirates of the Caribbean Orchestral Medley, He's a Pirate

Flannery Brothers Children's Music - "Pirate or Parrot?" 

What luck!

What luck to have such a dedicated band of baby book clubbers! What luck to have such great books to choose from to entertain and delight!
We were a lucky bunch to read Lucky Lazlo by Steve Light this week and follow the antics of a cheeky and catastrophe-prone cat as they both make their way through a busy theatre. We enjoyed spotting the bright orange feline in a mostly black and white décor, informing whoever would listen that cats say meow, but also that cows say moo. We kept our eyes on the ruby red flower at all times and were delighted to see Lazlo, his sweetheart and the rose reunited at the end.

So of course, we just had to make our own flowers, crumpling up strips of crepe paper and gluing the little colourful balls on our templates. There is something about glue sticks that some of our members find deeply satisfying and today was no exception. The parents found the process of crumpling paper extremely therapeutic and soothing. Mindfulness has nothing on Baby Book Club!
If you fancy taking your little one to a play or a show, check out The Ark in Dublin, the Mill in Dundrum and the Civic in Tallaght! They often have programmes designed for very young spectators.

As always, here are the links to the songs and videos. 

Showtime!

Disney's "Pinocchio" - An Actor's Life for Me

The Muppet Show theme song – It’s time to play the music!

Children's Theatre Company: Alice in Wonderland (1982)

Daft Punk - Get Lucky (Official Audio) ft. Pharrell Williams, Nile Rodgers

We're going to catch a big one!

We went on a bear hunt in Baby Book Club this week! We were not scared. Not one little bit. At all. But we were awfully glad to be back home under the covers and we agreed we would never go again.
That said, that lonely bear looking at the sea at the very end got us thinking that maybe he had just been trying to make friends. He only went about it the wrong way…
We stopped our theorising just short of wondering whether maybe going on a HUNT wasn't a very nice idea in the first place, but that might be for next time!

After that, we had our own adventure: an obstacle course in the hall where the bear was chasing us. We ran, we jumped, we tumbled, we hopped and that was only the grown-ups! I'm fully expecting everyone to have a lovely quiet time after this…
As promised, here are the links to the songs and videos. What a beautiful day! :)

Michael Rosen performs We're Going on a Bear Hunt

The Bare Necessities (from The Jungle Book)

Toddler Completes Obstacle Course

And it's a gooooooooaaaal!

We had a very sporty session at Baby Book Club, flexing a number physical and metaphorical muscles… We read the Noisy Football Match by Sam Taplin and Lee Wildish and enjoyed using our footy vocabulary to comment on the action: a kick! a goal! a win! We loved pressing those trickier-than-they-look buttons to make the ref blow his whistle and the crowd roar. (We would have liked to see girls on the teams, but for now you'll have to look for them in the books I suggested on the sheet) (go Maisy Mouse!) (or you might check these football books for kids of all ages) 

Next, for a special treat, we went in a very orderly fashion into the hall, like a team entering the pitch. The wide open space was all ours and we made the best of it. We ran, we kicked, we passed, we dribbled, we scored. We played about 4 matches simultaneously and the parent-goalies did an excellent job too. Some of us developed a nice pass-and-shot combo, so there was even the beginnings of an element of collaboration there. 

As promised, here are the links to the songs and videos, all about the beautiful game…

Sports Balls Song for Kids by Pancake Manor

Shakira - Waka Waka (This Time for Africa) (The Official 2010 FIFA World Cup Song)

The opening of classic kids animé Captain Tsubasa, in Japanese! 

Up, up and away!

We had a ball(oon) in Baby Book Club today reading Mick Inkpen's The Blue Balloon. There was suspense and emotions aplenty while we feared the eponymous balloon might pop when the characters squeezed and squashed and crushed it. There was wonder and delight when the heroes took off and landed in foreign lands.

And then there was laughter when we took out our own balloons and made all sorts of ridiculous noises with them, emptied them out in our faces, punched them, kicked them, shook them and played conkers with them. It was a brilliant moment of experimentation and play which hopefully continued later on at home...

As always, here are the links to the songs and videos!

I Love Balloons! The Raytones! Sing-along video! 

Watch Jeff Koons talking about 'Balloon Dog (Orange)' 

Watch 50K balloons being released over Brazil to mark end of 2018

World Book Day with the Littlies!

What a bookish week it's been! Between Baby Book Club and class visits in Clondalkin Library it was all about the books!

With the babas, we read Stephanie Blake's cheeky Poo Bum and delighted in saying "poo poo" like our bold bunny hero. We then got on to the business of making our very own books, using pictures from magazines and old printouts.

Some of the kids chose to include images of things liked (rockets and diggers featured a lot) while others went looking for themselves and their relatives in the pile of pictures on offer.

Some of them even added some writing and illustrations of their own, showing daddy at work and baby playing and… mammy chatting. (Mammy disagreed).
As promised, here are the links!

The Library Song, a fun kids’ song from New Zealand

Lil B Dub / The Rapping Bookworm, a thing of silliness! 

Martians Discover a Book, classic Sesame Street madness

Bruno Mars Uptown Funk Parody: Unread Book (you’ll never look at your librarian in the same way!)

The Mount Desert Island High School version of Meghan Trainor's "All About The Bass/Books"

Shake it, shake it, baby!

We had an action-packed morning today in Baby Book Club! We read Shake the Tree by Silvia Borando, Chiara Vignocchi and Paolo Chiarinotti and got shaking, shaking to the left, shaking, shaking, shaking to the right. The babies got the idea very quickly and started shaking their teddy, ball, hands, etc, without being asked to. We roared with bear and bravely faced the possibility of being gobbled up. All was well in the end.
We then fixed a badly shaken tree by looking for leaves, animals and conkers to stick back on. This was also quite a brave thing to do as we had to rummage through a deep box where anything might have been lurking. But some babies were very practical and decided the sensible thing to do was to upend said box and spill everything out. So it was done.
We ended the session making it rain conkers: pop them in a paper cup, shake it, hold it high… and rain it down! Endless fun!
The tidying was a very collective affair today as well, because once the box was full again, it meant you could just…  empty it out once more.
See you all next week for our World Book Day special!