Foot Storytime!
Foot Books
Dancing Feet by Charlotte Agell (Ages 1-5)
A simple poem gives three activities each shared by feet, hands, legs, arms eyes and mouths. This works well with toddlers and more settled baby groups if you skip one to three body parts. Sparse text and child-friendly ink and watercolor illustrations.
Whose Toes Are Those? by Jabari Asim
(Ages 1-3)
A rhyming text combined with vibrantly colored round-figured illustrations in a board book about feet.
Shoe Baby by Joyce Dunbar (2+, Skip pages for younger listeners)
A baby sails the sea, drives through town to the zoo, flies and takes tea with the queen and king—all in a giant shoe. At the end, he’s happily reunited with his one-shoed daddy and worried mother. The book is written in rhyming verses with bold-colored, whimsical multimedia illustrations. For groups with shorter attention spans, skip the sailing spread, and go directly from greeting the monkeys and elephants to the one-shoed giant. Read each page from that point until the “Peekaboo!” page, and end there.
Hello Toes! Hello Feet! by Ann Whitford Paul (Ages 2-5)
“Good morning, toes, Good morning feet, tangled up between my sheets.” A cheerful preschooler takes us on a sensuous foot-level view of her day.
Toes Are To Tickle by Shen Roddie, Illustrated by Kady MacDonald Denton (Ages 2-4)
“Morning is for waking up! / An egg is to dip. Bread is for more jam, please. Milk is to give some to the cat. /... / Toes are to tickle. Shoes are for taking feet out for a walk...” In simple declarative statements and ink & watercolor illustrations, here is the purpose of common objects in the life of two very young children.
Whose Feet? by Jeannette Rowe (Ages 1-3)
Unfold the flap to find out whose feet are shown: a frog, a duck, a tortoise, a kangaroo, a giraffe, and… “Whose feet are the cutest feet? MY FEET!” Ask children to guess at the identity of each animal before unfolding the flap.
Baby Shoes by Dashka Slater, Illustrated by Hiroe Nakata (Ages 1-4)
“Baby’s got some brand-new shoes, white as light, stripe of blue. He passed over all the rest, chose the ones he liked the best.” But in the course of walking home, Baby manages to get red chalk, green grass stains, purple plum juice, yellow street paint and more on those clean white shoes. Each time a new stain appears, “Baby says, ‘Uh-oh!’ Mama says, ‘Oh, no!’ But those shoes just go, go, go.” The rhyme, rhythm and repetition make this one particularly successful with toddlers, despite the length.
“More More More,” Said The Baby by Vera Williams (Babies- age 3)
“Pumpkin scoots away so fast / Little Pumpkin’s grandma has to run like anything just to catch that baby up. / But Pumpkin’s grandma catches that baby up all right. / She holds that baby nose to nose / And swings that baby all around. ‘Oh my best little grandbaby,’ Little Pumpkin’s grandma sings to Little Pumpkin. / Just look at you with your ten little toes right on the ends right on the ends right on the ends of your two little feet good enough to eat. / Then Little Pumpkin’s grandma brings that baby right up close / and tastes each of Little Pumpkin’s toes. ‘More,’ laughs Little Pumpkin. ‘More. More. More.’” The stories about Little Guy and Little Bird are similar, with Little Guy’s daddy catching him and kissing his belly button, and Little Bird’s mother kisses her sleepy daughter on each of her little eyes. Read just one story for a group of babies.
Foot Songs
“Everybody Knows I Love My Toes” Track 18 on Allard, Peter and Ellen. Sing It! Stamp It! Sway It!: volume 1. 80-Z Music, 1999.
Everybody knows I love my toes, Everybody knows I love my toes.
I love my eyes, my ears, my mouth and my nose
But everybody knows I love my toes.
(Repeat, replacing middle line:)
...I love my knees, my chin, my belly & my nose...
...I love my hair, my cheeks, my back & my nose...
...I love my fingers, my shoulders, my ankles & my nose...
...I love my neck, my tongue, my eyebrows & my nose...
...I love my arms, my legs, my head & my nose...
“Stinky Feet” Track 3 on
Cosgrove, Jim. Stinky Feet. Hiccup Productions, 1999.
“Smelly Feet” Track 4 on
Foote, Norman. Shake A Leg. Casablanca Kids, 2000.
“Tickle Toe” Track 11 on
Gill, Jim. Jim Gill Makes it Noisy in Boise, Idaho. CD. Jim Gill Music, BMI, 1995.
“Toe Leg Knee” Track 5 on
Gill, Jim. Jim Gill Sings Do Re Mi on his Toe Leg Knee. Jim Gill Music, Inc., 1999.
Foot Rhymes
Cobbler, Cobbler
Cobbler, cobbler, mend my shoe,
Hold baby’s feet and swing them back and forth
Have it done by half past two;
Swing legs in circles to mime clocks' arms
Stitch it up and stitch it down,
Make sewing motion up and down one foot
Now nail the heel all around.
Lightly tap the baby’s heel.
Shoe The Little Horse
Shoe the little horse.
Pat the sole of the baby’s left foot,
Shoe the little mare.
then pat the sole of the baby’s right foot in rhythm.
But let the little colt
Take both feet and swing them gently back and forth (like running) during final two lines.
Run bare, bare, BARE!
This Little Piggie
This little piggie went to market
Wiggle baby’s big toe
This little piggie stayed home.
Grab and wiggle baby’s second toe
This little piggie had roast beef.
Grab and wiggle baby’s third toe.
This little piggie had none.
Grab and wiggle baby’s fourth toe.
And this little piggie cried “Wee-wee-wee!’
Grab and wiggle baby toe, then crawl fingers across toes, tickle foot
All the way home!
Silly Toe Song
Eyes and nose, Mouth and TOES!
Ears and nose, Mouth and TOES!
Cheeks and nose, Mouth and TOES!
That is how this Toe Song Goes!
Foot Bibliography
Agell, Charlotte. Dancing Feet. San Diego: Gulliver Books, 1994.
Asim, Jabari. Whose Toes Are Those? New York: Little, Brown, 2006.
Dunbar, Joyce. Shoe Baby. Illus. Polly Dunbar.Cambridge, Massachusetts: Candlewick Press, 2005.
Paul, Ann Whitford. Hello Toes! Hello Feet! Illus. Nadine Bernard Westcott. DK Publishing, Inc., 1998.
Roddie, Shen. Toes are to Tickle. Illus. Kady MacDonald Denton. Berkeley, Cal.: Tricycle Press, 1997.
Rowe, Jeannette. Whose Feet? Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1998.
Slater, Dashka. Baby Shoes. Illus. Hiroe Nakata. New York: Bloomsbury Children’s Books, 2006.
Williams, Vera B. More More More Said the Baby : 3 Love Stories. New York: Greenwillow Books, 1990.
