Early Literacy Tip: Find ways to incorporate your child’s name or the names of family members into favorite songs and rhymes, the sillier the better (For example: Justin on the bus goes Up and Down, or Suzy Had a Little Lamb). Songs are one of the most effective and fun ways to teach phonemic awareness (the different sounds that make up words). Encouraging kids to play with song lyrics makes them even more powerful and memorable as teaching tools.

We’re getting close to the end of our alphabetic storytime journey (I’m already dreading X!). This week, we focused on the letter W.

Lately, I’ve been introducing the week’s theme by singing The Alphabet Song and stopping just before we sing the letter of the day, so the kids can fill it in. Then we finish the song together (I like to end by changing the last word –me– to something silly, like “Next time won’t you sing with Spiderman?”).

After The Alphabet Song, we drew upper- and lower-case letter W’s together in the air, and brainstormed W words. The kids suggested wheel, witch, and watermelon. I pulled some other items out of a paper bag: a toy wagon, a bright orange costume wig, and a small atomizer full of water, which I sprayed at any kids who asked me to.

Here’s the rest of what we did (Note: my Outdoor Musical Storytime crowd has been skewing younger lately, now that the four and five-year olds have mostly started transitional Kindergarten. So, I’m reading much shorter, simpler books for that crowd than for Family Storytime):

Books:

Where Is the Green Sheep? by Mem Fox & Judy Horacek

I read a big book version of this for Outdoor Musical Storytime (I have a really hard time turning pages in the big books, but they work so well for large crowds). This is a classic, simple, rhyming story featuring lots of different types of sheep, with the repeated phrase, “But where is the green sheep?”

Worm Makes a Sandwich by Brianne Farley

This is one of my favorite picture books from the past two years (it was published in 2025). An adorable worm offers to make you a sandwich “all by myself.” But first, the worm needs one thing: garbage! The worm eats the garbage and then poops to make dirt to help a tomato grow for your sandwich. The kids always laugh at the page where the worm gets frustrated waiting for the tomato to go: “Why did you ask a worm to make you a sandwich in the first place?” This is so much fun to read aloud (I love using my “worm voice”) and is a wonderful example of embedding an informational topic into an entertaining story.

Today I Will Fly! by Mo Willems

I love reading Elephant and Piggie books for storytime, especially if I have a coworker to read one of the parts. But I enjoy the challenge of doing the different voice myself too. This is one of the original books, where Piggie announces “Today I will fly!” and Gerald insists that she will never fly. To Gerald’s surprise, Piggie does fly with the help of a friendly pelican. For Outdoor Musical Storytime, I had given out the play scarves before reading this one, and I had the kids flap them up and down like wings and join in on the parts where Piggie says, “Fly! Fly! Fly! Fly! Fly!”

Who Has Wiggle-Waggle Toes? by Vicky Shiefman; illustrated by Francesca Chessa

I read this one for Outdoor Musical Storytime, and had the kids stand up to act out the different motions. It’s a cute, action book that asks questions about different body parts (Who has wiggle-waggle toes? Who has a big bold bottom?) and then gives a different motion to do with each one (Can you shimmy your big bold bottom?).

Wednesday Is for Wiggling by Eva Wong Nava; illustrated by Holly Sterling

I read this one at Family Storytime, which was great because it’s on Wednesday nights. The book features a little girl describing how she spends each day of the week doing different activities with different people (tiptoeing on Tuesdays in dance class with her babysitter, visiting the community garden with Grandpa on Saturdays). It’s implied that her parents are separated, since she describes different days with each of them, which is a nice, subtle way of representing different family arrangements. My only regret was not reading this at the beginning of storytime instead of the end, since it is a bit longer than most of the books I share, and the kids were already a little restless because it was an unusually hot evening.

Songs & Rhymes:

Little Bo-Peep

We did this rhyme with play scarves at Outdoor Musical Storytime after reading Where is the Green Sheep? I like the JBrary demonstration below, although I usually have the kids stand up, and we wave the scarves behind us like tails on the line “wagging their tails behind them.”

Little Bo Peep
Has lost her sheep, (hide scarf)
And doesn’t know where to find them.
Leave them alone,
And they’ll come home,
Wagging their tails behind them. (wave scarf in front of you, or behind you like a tail)

The Wishy Washy Washerwoman

This is one of my favorite play scarf songs (see the video below for the tune and the motions). We sang it as part of our usual play scarf set in the middle of Family Storytime.

Way down in the valley where nobody goes,
There’s a wishy washy washer woman washing her clothes.
She goes “Oooh! Ahhh! Oooh! Ahhh! Oooh! Ahhh!”
And that’s the way she washes her clothes.

Repeat with drying her clothes (we blow on the scarves), folding her clothes, and wearing her clothes.

The Waves on the Ocean

We sang this with the parachute at Outdoor Musical Storytime, raising the chute up and down with the song. I put a small fish puppet on the parachute, so it would move with the waves.

To the tune of The Wheels on the Bus:

The waves on the ocean go up and down,
Up and down,
Up and down,
The waves on the ocean go up and down,
All day long.

Bumpin’ Up and Down in My Little Red Wagon by Raffi

We sang this as our instrument play-along at the end. Like Raffi, I called out the names of a couple of the kids to fix the wagon for the third verse. We sang it through a couple of times.

[C] Bumpin’ up and down in my little red wagon,
[G7] Bumpin’ up and down in my little red wagon,
[C] Bumpin’ up and down in my little red wagon,
[G7] Won’t you be my dar-[C]lin’?

One wheel’s off and the axle’s broken (lean right)
One wheel’s off and the axle’s broken (lean left)
One wheel’s off and the axle’s broken (lean right)
Won’t you be my darling?

Henry’s going to fix it with a hammer…

Bumpin’ up and down in my little red wagon…

Stay & Play: Washi Tape Hearts

I love Washi Tape! You can buy it in so many patterns and colors, and for kids, it’s a lot like decorating with stickers. I got this idea from SimpleFunForKids.com.

Before storytime, I precut hearts out of white cardstock. For the Stay & Play, I put out the paper hearts and a wide selection of Washi Tape. The tape is really easy to tear into pieces, but sometimes younger kids struggle to tear it without it crumpling, so for Family Storytime, I put out some kid-friendly scissors. But several of the kids ended up cutting their hearts into pieces, because they loved using the scissors so much!

For Outdoor Musical Storytime, I didn’t bother putting out scissors, and the caregivers helped any kids who had trouble ripping the tape. It ended up being a wonderful shared experience.

Do you have any favorite picture books or songs featuring the letter W? Please share them in the comments below. Also, please let me know if you have any storytime theme ideas you are interested in exploring. I’m getting close to the end of the alphabet, and am looking forward to some new themes.