After the madness that was FST, a smaller, quieter, gentler baby time was just what the doctor ordered.
Welcome Song: Hello, Friends!
Touching Rhymes/Tickles
- Wake up, feet
- Say hello, can you touch your nose?
- Eyes, nose, cheeky cheeky chin
- Roly Poly
Book 1: Maisy at the farm / Lucy Cousins
Songs/Bounces
- A hippopotamus got on a city bus
- You be the ice cream
- Bumping up and down in my little red wagon
- The grand old duke of york
Book Two: Cat the Cat Who is That? / Mo Willems
Movement Songs
- Up, up, up in the sky like this
- Love somebody, yes I do
- Zoom, zoom, zoom
- The elevator song
Soothing Songs
- Rain is falling down
Goodbye song: Goodbye, Friends!
Mo Willems is picture book gold. This series is actually designed for emerging readers, but it works swimmingly at baby time. Very simple, repetitive text, bold illustrations with strong black outlines and simple colours, plenty of opportunities for animal noises, and a sweet twist ending make for a great story time book.
I finally feel like I’m getting the hang of baby time. When I first started doing regular baby times I never really felt like I was in my element – unlike at a regular story time I wasn’t interacting with children as much as I was with parents, and it was a bit difficult to adapt my style of delivery. I think including a soothing element at the end has really given my program a sense of structure – we don’t just do a bunch of exciting lifts and then leave – I now do fewer active lifting songs, and include one or two soothing songs to round out the program – today we did a couple verses of Rain is falling down, and repeated the song several times, because it’s just such a gentle, peaceful way to end the program. I’ve recently learned a few new soothing songs that I can’t wait to include in my program next week!