Louise Gabriel has published three adventures of Puddles the Raindrop so far, and has plans for a lot more. They are nonfiction workbooks coupled with the story of Puddles as he travels through the stages of the water cycle.
As a lot of guest presenters do, Louise asked me to kick off the storytime the way I usually do so the kids have the same structure they are used to. So I did my three-song introduction, which you can view in full here. When I was done, Louise read her Arizona story, Puddles the Raindrop Explores the Grand Canyon State, Arizona.
In the book, there is an illustration of the water cycle that I recreated out of felt and put up on our giant felt board. So after she was done reading the story, we went over the stages of the water cycle with the kids, moving our little felt Puddles as we talked about each one.
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| I made this! |
Finally, we passed out a coloring sheet and put crayons out, and gave the kids about 10 minutes to color. The sheet was in the theme also: a rainy desert scene.
At the end, we sang our goodbye song and had the ritual bubbles. Then Louise stuck around to speak to parents about her book series, sell copies of her book and Puddles plushies, and take pictures with/of me:
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| Me, Louise, and Puddles |
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| Me and Puddles in front of the water cycle |
Having guest presenters in storytime can be fun if they are comfortable in front of large groups of children, skilled at public speaking (loudly) and controlling a crowd, and not afraid to get a little silly with us. You would be surprised how many people, even children's book authors, do not possess even one of those three qualities. Luckily, Louise was an excellent storytime guest. We had a lot of fun, and might even have her back when her next Puddles adventure is published!
