Tuesday Storytime

If you follow me on IG, you would have seen my "Tuesday Storytime" I started a few weeks ago, in which I read some of our favourite stories; some of these are themed, favourite authors, or just have fun literacy components (and you might know by now: I'm a literacy nerd). I will be turning this into a YouTube channel soon, at the advice of Bri from Urban Gardening Canada! I have never done that before (but anyone can have a YT channel...), so it will be interesting where my creativity takes it.

I absolutely love reading aloud with my kids, and doing author readings in schools. I love making silly voices for silly characters, enunciating literacy components, and being as expressive as possible, especially so kids start understanding what punctuation does! With my own kids I like to point out word patterns, rhyming, and ask questions as we go along (though this doesn't work with every book).

"Song for the Snow" by Jon-Erik Lappano is what I started with, as it is one of our absolutely favourite winter reads. I love the illustrations and the magic they create; I can smell the spice cakes, taste the mother's coffee, and hear the twinkling of the melody at the market. I love the magic of the song and it reminds me of how when people work together - magic happens. The song brought the community together, reminded them of childhood dreams, and it all started with an old woman giving a small gift to a little girl with a big heart. Excuse me while I weep.

The following week, I read "In the tall, tall grass" by Denise Fleming. I absolutely adore this book for its literacy components, and I read this with my kids when they were toddlers over and over again. They would be sitting in the stroller and we would sing-song back and forth the rhymes that we remember. As they got older, we would find other words that had the same ending or the same rhyming sound, like "crunch, munch, lunch, unch, unch, unch". It is too much fun, and of course we can talk about the animals in the book too, leading into pollinators and which of the animals we have seen in our local area or elsewhere. Oh yeah - the fun is endless!

The third Storytime was a book we have been loving from the library called "Sam's Super Seats" by Keah Brown. My eldest wants to read it over and over again; she likes to find things she has in common with the main character, and there is a lot of people-watching to do in the book; it represents, and I love the diversity in it. Sam is a fun character with lots of heart, showing readers how to grow their confidence, and it's a great way to talk about healthy friendships and how we work through hard things. It's a beautiful story, full of bright colours, and positive energy. Highly recommend!

Tomorrow is our next Tuesday Storytime, and I'll be reading the hilariously cute snail Escargot ... just in time for Valentine's Day (I am a sucker for a theme...)!

Looking forward to growing Storytime with you! As always, thank you for your support. Now more than ever.

In love and literature,

Nadine Rake