For my first Toddler Rhyme Time, I wanted to use lots of – you guessed it – rhymes!

After warming up our fingers with “This Little Piggy,” we moved on to “The Itsy Bitsy Spider.” After doing the fingerplay, we read from a book in which the Itsy Bitsy Spider has several friends! We really enjoyed the Oochy Koochy spider, who climbs an apple tree. (Early literacy tip: You don’t always have to read a whole book with your child – we just read about two of the spiders in this story, skipping over other pages.)

Following some singing and marching, we read a wonderful book that’s great for practicing animal sounds, Margaret Wise Brown’s The Big Red Barn. We mooed, oinked, quacked, neighed, hee-hawed, clucked, meowed, and barked our way through this gentle tale of the animals on a farm. (Early literacy tip: Mimicking animal sounds increases children’s awareness of the sounds all around them, encouraging them to play with language.) You’ll certainly be seeing this book again – repetition is a big part of toddler storytimes because research has shown that young children learn best with routine and repetition in a nurturing environment.

After some fun time with egg shakers, scarves, and a nice snuggle song (this week we sang “You Are My Sunshine”), we read one more story, Bill Martin, Jr. and Eric Carle’s classic Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? For this story, we used the flannel board, making the tale more interactive!Thanks for joining me for storytime. I hope to see you next week!

~*Nicole