This month brought great fun at each family day care.  The children are usually waiting at the door or already sitting down when I arrive.  There are many squeals of delight and curiosities.  “What’s in your bag today?”  “What are you going to read?”  “Do you have a Pete the Cat book?” “Eggs?”  (shaker eggs!)  And so on.

At many houses this month, the first book I read was My Bike by Byron Barton.  In Byron Barton style, this is a simple story about a man riding his bike to work.  The children are always surprised to find out that he is riding his bike to his job which is being a clown!  It is a fun story, with simple text.  In fact, at a few of the homes this month, some of the older children were able to read the words in the story!

In My Bike, the clown wears polka dot overalls, leading us to talk about polka dots.  Using a very large pair of paper pants and talking about colors, the children each got a turn to attach some dots and create a pair of polka dot pants.  This was followed by a fun reading/singing/dancing of Eric Litwin’s Sing and Dance in Your Polka Dot Pants.  This story has a catchy phrase of “sing and dance in your polka dot pants.”  At the end of the story, we went around and personalized the song depending on each child’s pants that day.  We sang, “Sing and dance in your flowered pants,” “Sing and dance in your striped pants,” “Sing and dance in your blue pants,” and so many more versions.  It is a catchy tune and one that we continued to sing throughout the visit.

Some other books read this month include I Spy with my Little Eye by Edward Gibbs and Gossie by Olivier Dunrea.  Both of these are fun stories and created great joy for all the children and caregivers.