Montessori Storytime: a Seed Grew!

There was a boy who attended the Montessori School where I volunteered storytime last summer who sat there with a grumbly grimace throughout my one hour "productions." He refused to do any of the songs, the rhymes, the body motion activities. Just sat there and if I asked him a question, woe to me with his monotone, monosyllabic responses.

The other day I was entering the school to retrieve my son as Mr. Grumpy Grump and his family were exiting. He stops me to ask if I'll be doing storytime again next year. I looked at him, weary of his reaction and said, "why not?" expecting there to be a very emphatic, "aww, maaaaannnn" and a roll of the eyes.

I was stunned to watch him jump up and down, pumping his fist in the air, and exclaiming, "yes!" It put a big grin on my face and made me determined to provide better storytimes. A seed grew, in both of us.

Here are some themes I've come up with based on books my son and I have read lately:

• Cooking/Building Theme
• Books: Rubia and the Three Osos 
• Activity: What can we mix that doesn't need baking? or a building theme (boxes with my "nails" for hammering? Building something out of cardboard?)
• Adventures and Storytelling Theme
• Book: Clever Jack Takes the Cake
• Activity: circle up and whisper a sentence in the ear of one of the kids and have them send it round, what ends up being told?), maybe a pick your own adventure type story?
• Craft: can we do a group build of Clever Jack's story on a large piece of butcher paper?
• Art Theme
• Books: Warthogs Paint, David's Drawings and maybe one of those artists for little kids books, 
• Activity- Joy of Zentangle lesson (prep the boards, have a space for the kids to write their names) or Ed Emberley's fingerprint drawing book
• Fire Theme
• Books: Fire Fuego Bravo Bomberos, Fire Engines Up Close (non-fiction), Munsch's the Fire Station (can get TumbleCloud to do? Yes, with wifi hub!!!)
• Activity: do exercises that a real fire fighter must do.  
• Craft: Paper Cup Fireman Puppet http://www.pinterest.com/pin/111323422010198421/ OR firetruck craft: http://onemomfiveboys.blogspot.com/2009/09/firetruck-craft.html

Training: EBSCOHost Small Business Reference Center

Just some notes from the webinar: Small Business Reference Center

This database is a unique collection with some overlap of materials collected with other EBSCO databases, but by no means is this database a sub-db of say, Business Source Complete. The trainer pointed out that BSC didn't have the full text of the NOLO small business guides that SBRC contains. Aside from collecting 400 FT periodicals and 500 FT reference books, it also has a graphical interface which makes browsing a bit easier for a person who is not used to using a database.

There are Harvard business videos, which are a great resource. I saw that there was a note on the videos that said that there were supplemental lecture materials available for purchase. I asked whether EBSCO collects those materials or not. The trainer said she would look into it.

The start up kit is actually one of the NOLO books with the chapters broken down. There is also a state-by-state guide to what you need, but the guide is not as thorough as I would have liked. Of course that would have been hard to do b/c regulations are always changing/evolving, so the state-by-state guide tells you of the sorts of things you should look out for, such as licensing in your area of business.

Remember you can do a publication search. There's the usual EBSCO functionality such as email an article, permalinks. Remember patrons need to authenticate first, then they'll be able to access the material.

I did a trial search for "florist" b/c I had a patron who was interested in opening a florist shop. There were a lot of industry specific articles that talked about the status of earnings, where to get floral supplies, etc. Very handy. So long story short, be sure to recommend this resource when someone comes in looking to research starting their own business.