Wednesday, February 28, 2007

What An Exciting Day!

My week, contrary to my dire feelings at the beginning, is getting better! This morning I put on a special storytime for the toddlers and preschoolers in honor of Read Across America! The best thing about it was the participation of our local fire fighters! The basic plan was for the fire fighters to come, talk to the kids, read a story or two and show the kids their rigs! Right at 10:30 am when they were scheduled to be here, they pulled into the parking lot...almost immediately I heard their sirens, and I thought, "Oh, cool! They are showing us their sirens and lights!" But as we watched, they raced out of the parking lot! Oh no! A real emergency! But the program had to go on! So, I got everyone settled in...there were about 100 people! We sang "Smoky", which is just like "Bingo" only with a fireman's dog instead of a farmers dog! We watched a short video called "Dot the Fire Dog"! I kept telling everyone how I sure hoped the fire fighters would be back soon! I told them that for now, they would have to listen to me read a story! I read one and still no fire fighters! Just as I got a couple of pages into my second story they came walking in! We all cheered! At that point they took over for me, finished the book, read one more and answered questions! Then, the kids got to take a little snack of Teddy Grahams and Juicy Juice and head out to the fire truck for a tour! It was so exciting for the kids, who were mostly 2-5 year olds! The program turned out to be a huge success, but it was touch and go for a while there! My mind was racing with ways to redeem the program with no actual fire fighters there! Luckily, I didn't have to make candy rain from the sky or anything like that!
So, you see?!?!?! Things really are getting better this week!

You might be thinking, "There a lot of exclamation points in this post!" You can thanks Tara over at Eclectic Spaghetti for that! It is a holiday and I am observing it!

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hmmm, I think the exclamation points would have been there anyway...I have read your prior work and have noticed that firemen are mentioned quite a bit. I think a certain library employee was more excited to see the firemen!!!!

Tara said...

Firemen are hot!! Especially in their uniforms!!

I agree with Evil-E, that even if this wasn't a holiday about exclamation points, the story about the fireman and their engines would just be asking for exclamation points!!

Not sure if you've read this to the kids before, but you should check out "The Fire Cat"!! It's a wonderful story!!

laura b. said...

Evil-E: I can't believe that someone who only knows me online knows me too well! You called me on it...its true, I love me some firemen! (I am going to be a little sad to go back to restrained use of the !!!)

Tara: Today was serendipity at its finest! When I saw that it was a day to use the exclamation point and also a day with a story about firemen, I knew things were looking up!
I love "The Fire Cat"! Today we used "Throw a Kiss Harry", which also has a cat in it! Also "Daisy the Firecow" and "Clifford the Firehouse Dog"! There are more books than you would think about animals and fire fighters... !!!

Mrs. Hairy Woman said...

I too love a man in uniform.. especially Firemen..Can they give me a tour? well I'm glad it all worked out and the week is almost over for you..

laura b. said...

Thanks, BabyBull. I would say the firemen were definitely the high point of the week :-)