Cell phone videos

Last week I gave a workshop on story hour stretches, games and songs for the Children's Services librarians at the Kansas City (MO) Public Library. I LOVE working with librarians, partly because I am still one to my core, even though I haven't worked as a librarian since 1994. It's not the diploma that proves it (though I have one). It's in my DNA. You laugh? Here's a quote from a piece my mother wrote about her mother-in-law, not officially a librarian but...

Like her father before her, she chose the books for Bristol's Rogers Free Library, and read most of them first. (Some categories she shunned, letting other Library people choose the romances and Westerns.)

Granny Howe referred to those as trashy novels, my father said. All but those were delivered to the house before they ever got to the library.

Sidetracked. Isn't this post about videos? One of the librarians at the Westport Branch sent me links for four videos she put on Youtube. Keep in mind that these were taken on a cell phone!

You can see another of the librarians recording the workshop on her iPad, so there may be more videos to come. 

Kindy Kids

Today I gave a workshop on songs, stretches and games at Kindy Kids school, for teachers. I'd met many of them on Thursday when I told stories for their students, as well as for the students at a few other schools in their consortium. These teachers were great! So was Katia, the principal! They gave up their Saturday morning to be there, joined right in on all the songs, asked good questions, and I think had a good time. I certainly did.

The children who saw me on Thursday made me a thank-you card:

Here's the inside:

And a detail from the inside: 

Claudia, the wonderful teacher who presented this to me also told me the story of the Indian girl who was promised as the bride of a prince. Though this was a great honor, her true love lived in the Amazon river, a pink manatee (boto cor-de-rosa). She went to the Sun god and asked if she could be married to the pink manatee. No, she would have to follow her family's wishes. She cried under the Moon and then asked the Moon god if she could marry the pink manatee. Yes, but only under one condition, that she be changed into a flower, a Victoria Regia. She agreed to this condition and was changed into a Victoria Regia, a flower that blooms pink in the moonlight.

When I heard this, I thought maybe it was a night-blooming cereus, but I've just looked it up to discover that it's a specific kind of water lily. Lovely!  This is the flower they put on the outside of the card, and it's the reason they said, "Thank you for being such a flower in our garden!!!" 

By the way, it IS spring here, with Halloween just around the corner.