The Red and Yellow Line, the ALA Conference, and New Material

I had the most exciting time at ALA's Annual Conference in Washington, DC. After learning to finagle the yellow and red lines of the metro, I made it to the convention center and met the elite baby program creators. I had the opportunity to sit down with Jane Cobb, author of a baby program book and really cool lady from Canada, and Dr. Betsy Diamant-Cohen, creator of the acclaimed Mother Goose on the Loose program from Baltimore. For me, I was in as much awe as I would have been sitting down with Tom Cruise! What I gained--- new rhymes (imported from Canada!), signed paraphenalia such as Betsy's CD and Jane's book, and the e-mail address of baby program cohorts from around the nation. I have never seen more librarians in one place--- we were like little busy ants, toting huge amounts of librarian goodies on our backs, around the convention center. And whoever believes librarians are not hip should spend some time with the YALSA crowd! Although, I must say, on the metro, I could always spot the librarians, even without their conference badges. In any case, the biggest challenge was trading in the New York City Subway system for the yellow and red lines. The rest of the conference was a breeze. For you--- great links posted with lyrics and tune included... look to the upper left of this screen.

You oughta be in pictures...

There was an article in the newspaper featuring one of the little gals from my program, and I have never seen anything like her reaction. She walked right up to me and said "I was in the paper. How are you?, and how is your family?" This coming from a 2 year old! So cute. I went to the ALA conference and learned a whole bunch of new rhymes from Dr. Diamant-Cohen, who runs Mother Goose on the Loose from Baltimore. She was great to hear, and I will post her rhymes soon. After reading about her program, it was a bit like seeing a legend in the flesh...

Puppets and the teddy bear phenomenan

It is a tough call when it comes to toddler programs--- to puppet, or not to puppet. With the pre-walkers it's OK to use puppets as long as they're not big and scary, or involve bugs. The pre-walkers can't walk over and pull the puppet off of the programmer's hand, nor can they run over and drool on it. However, if the puppet is too enticing, the toddlers will walk over and try to adopt it themselves. The way I get around this is I tell them they can line up and pet the puppet after the rhyme is over--- it's good, because they experience the puppet in a different way by touching it and realizing whether it's soft, tough, scaly, or feathery. Plus, I get to bond with them in a more personal way. However, this past week, I introduced a new puppet--- I called him Freddy the Teddy. It seemed innocuous enough. It is a teddy bear puppet, really soft, and really cute. The problem was it was a little too cute. The toddlers bum rushed me when I took it out and it was almost a melee before I told the children the teddy needed to take a nap. The pre-walkers weren't much better. They cried when I moved the teddy bear away from them. The moral of the story is--- puppets are great, when the balance is right. They can't be big because they'll scare the children, and they can't be too cute or the children will want to take them home.

The Same Songs... Over, and Over, and Over, and Over, and Over....

It's getting bad. Lately, as I do my daily worker bee chores around the house, I can't get The Noble Duke of York out of my head. It's no wonder--- I sing it each week, over and over again. I don't have any children, so I had to learn all of these songs from scratch, which was no easy feat. Recently, I've been trying to improve my mental file cabinet of songs. I looked in many books, such as Babies in the Library by Jane Marino, and I'm a Little Teapot by Jane Cobb (special note: it seems those who write professional development books on Mother Goose times are all named Jane! :) ). At my last Rhythm and Rhyme session, I was armed with an arsenal of new rhymes, which I proudly learned and was excited to relay.... and you know what? All they wanted to hear was The Noble Duke of York. Lesson learned: The familiar is what works for toddlers and babies. So this week, I will be back to singing the old favorites, even if it means singing The Itsy Bitsy Spider as I go for my morning run!

If You Build It, They Will Come

Boy... when I started this program, I had no idea how popular it would become (time for me to pat myself on the back!). When I started the toddler program in October, I was lucky if 25 children showed up. Now, I've got two programs and they're both overbooked. On Thursdays, I do an hour and a half of programs--- that's three programs--- two for the toddlers (walkers up to 2/12) and one for the babies (children not walking yet). Today, about 100 toddlers under 2 1/2 passed through our doors! I've got to tell you--- by the time it was over, I was really punchy (which can be good for that age). I am so glad this is a success, so far!!!

Leave the bling at home

Here's a suggestion you won't find in the how-to books for mother goose programs. I learned the hard way this past Thursday to take my necklace off for the baby programs. While most of my little angels sang and clapped along, there was one who just couldn't get over the sparkles in my necklace, and spend about 20 minutes trying to rip it off. She was a little woman on a mission--- like the terminator, noone could stop her. Finally, the crisis was averted when a very chagrined mom removed her from the program. So the well learned lesson from last week was to remove all jewelry before my transformation into M.G.

How I got started

As a librarian-in-training, I was given the task nobody at the library wanted--- I was charged with becoming mother goose. The thought of singing and making up rhymes for screaming toddlers didn't thrill me at first, but from the first class on, I was hooked. This blog was created to share some of the ideas I came up with for the program. More to follow!