Valentine's Day!

It’s that time again – hearts and pink and white and red!  Valentine’s still is one of my least favorite holiday but it’s all about candy with kids, you know?  So I went traditionally this year and read two Valentine’s stories and we did a heart-shaped craft.  I might have to switch up it next year though.

BOOKS:

Love, Ruby Valentine by Laurie Friedman (illustrated by Lynne Avril Cravath) and Froggy’s First Kiss by Jonathan London (illustrated by Frank Remkiewicz)

Froggy was (as usual) a crowd favorite.  It has sound effects (BONK!), voices (Miss Witherspoon’s FROOOOOOOGGY!) and general goofiness.  Ruby Valentine was okay – it was a little long and it didn’t scan quite perfectly so there were a few parts that I had trouble wrapping my mouth around.  

FLANNELBOARD: 

I chose to use SLC Book Boy’s Never too Little to Love flannel set for storytime this week.  We talked about how Timmy too Tiny wanted to give the Cat in the Hat a kiss, but he was WAY at the top of the board.  Each child took a different pieces and used it to help Timmy climb to the top of the board.  BUT! Oh no!  When he got to the top, all of the pieces fell down, but the cat jumped down to give Timmy a kiss any way.

The cabbage and the tea cup were my favorite parts of this set.  

CRAFT:

Our craft for the day was heart suncatchers.  I cut out a bajillion tissue paper hearts of various sizes and colors and circles  out of contact paper and construction paper.   This craft was SO easy and kids really liked sticking the hearts to the contact paper.  PLUS EXTRA BONUS! Good fine motor skill activity!

Frolicking! Prancing! Unicorns!

I was soooooo pumped when Unicorn Thinks He’s Really Great by Bob Shea came in.  I may or may not have peer pressured our cataloger to catalog-it-right-away-because-I-need-it-NOW!! It is pretty much as awesome as I thought it would be.  It was glaringly apparent that I HAD to do a unicorn storytime ASAP.

BOOKS:

We read The Unicorn and the Moon by Tomie DePaola and (of course) Unicorn Thinks He’s Pretty Great by Bob Shea.

The Unicorn and the Moon got a little long for my toddlers.  They couldn’t sit still through the whole thing even though I skipped three pages.  Unicorn Thinks He’s Pretty Great worked better.  I did a goat voice and a unicorn voice (which is pretty much my small ditzy girl voice).  Best line: “Lucky.  I can only eat glitter and rainbows.  Darn my sensitive stomach!”

SONG:

What kind of unicorn storytime would this be if we didn’t play “Space Unicorn” by Parry Gripp (which is also my ringtone for REASONS).

We divvied up the scarves ahead of time and everyone danced with scarves to one of the happiest best songs ever!  (Okay, yes, I’m exaggerating, but it is a good song.)

CRAFT:

We made unicorn masks!  I wanted to whip out the glitter and go full on unicorn for these, BUUUUUUTTTTT most of our participants are toddlers and I thought that glitter probably wasn’t the best idea.  So we colored our blank masks and glued on our horns and went to it.  (As you can probably see in the picture, I didn’t take into account actual human measurements when making these, so there is no way that an actual toddler can look out both eyes.)

Tools

Tools has been one of my favorite storytime themes so far this year.  Boys liked it, because, duh, tools.  Girls liked it because their dads and moms have tools that they used.  The craft was easy and super engaging to the kids (and promoted imaginative play), and everyone had an all around good time.

BOOKS:

We read Monkey with a Tool Belt and the Noisy Problem by Chris Monroe and Tap Tap Bang Bang by Emma Garcia.

Monkey with a Tool Belt was funny and helped get the kids thinking.  How did that elephant get in the laundry chute?  I like the illustrations – they’re detailed and tell a little bit more story if you’re at the age where you can “read” the illustrations.  Tap Tap showed tools and what sounds they make which happily led us right into our song.

SONG:

I saw on Storytime Katie’s blog that she used a book called Old MacDonald Had a Woodshop that I really really really wanted to use, but neither our library nor our neighbor city’s library had it.  I did find that Lisa Shulman (the book’s author) had an extension activity on her website that had most of the song’s words, so we were able to use this as a song.  The combination of the familiar song plus the tools made this just perfect for the groups I’ve been having at storytime.

CRAFT:

We made our own tool belts!  (Inspired by Storytime Katie) HOW AWESOME!  I got out the foam letter stickers and the kids had a blast putting these together and then playing with their tools.  I had a bunch of kids who were pretending to pound nails into the walls and sawing on the tables and chairs.  Fabulous fabulous fabulous craft.

Thanksgiving

To be completely honest, I did not really want to do a Thanksgiving theme this year.  The books we have are either totally racially inappropriate (i.e. Pilgrims and Indians) or just boring.  My boss ordered some new Thanksgiving books (none of which I ended up using), but it did give me a little boost so I did do Thanksgiving again.  Next year, probably not.

BOOKS:

We read The Thankful Book by Todd Parr and A Feast for Ten by Cathryn Falwell.

Things I liked: neither of these books is specifically about THANKSGIVING – as in a holiday with some fairly mythologized origins.  It makes me super squicky to talk about Pilgrims and Indians (INDIANS, not Native Americans either).  I felt super betrayed in college and high school when I found out that the first Thanksgiving probably didn’t happen and that Columbus was a giant douche who basically committed genocide so I don’t really want to be teaching small children revisionist history.  I like that the books are about being thankful and about being with families.  I LOVE the illustrations in Feast for 10 and the fact that it helps us with counting.

Things I didn’t like: Neither of the books tell a linear story.  My storytime kids like action and excitement apparently.  They didn’t love either of these two books.  I really couldn’t find a book that was about Thanksgiving that was also interesting.  I’m going to celebrate Indigenous People’s Day around Thanksgiving next year instead.

FINGERPLAY:

Between the first and second book, we did a little fingerplay that we had done last year – Mr. Turkey.

Mr. Turkey’s tail is big and wide (spread fingers)
He swings it when he walks (swing hands)
His neck is long (stretch neck)
His chin is red (stroke chin)
And he gobbles when he talks (open and close hands, and gobbles)

We did the fingerplay twice.  Once where I modeled it, and once for them to participate.

SONG:

There really aren’t any good Thanksgiving songs either.  I put on “Everybody Eats When They Come to My House” by John Lithgow because it fit the best to me.  I pulled out the shakers and everyone was happy because everyone is happy when they have a shaker.

RAFT:

We made turkeys out of coffee filters and construction paper.  I like turkeys.  I liked the paper bag turkey puppets we made last year, but wasn’t ready to repeat yet.  Here’s one of mine.

Teeth

I’ve been itching to do a tooth related storytime for a while.  I’m really not sure why; it just seemed like a fun theme.  (FULL DISCLOSURE: I only did this storytime once – I went to the Minnesota Library Association Conference in Mankato, MN and missed the second storytime)

BOOKS:

We read Bear’s Loose Tooth by Karma Wilson (one of my all-time favorites) and Pony Brushes His Teeth by Michael Dahl.

The storytime tots were okay with both of these books.  It didn’t even occur to me that some of them might not know that you lose your teeth and grow new ones (it does sound a little grotesque when you think about it).  So we talked about teeth and how you brush them and losing them before we started.

FINGERPLAY:

I have been eyeing those little black glove activities for a long time and I found one that fit teeth and little black gloves are in season so I went for it.

This was a smash hit!  I’m definitely going to do more of these.  The rhyme that went along with it was:

“There were five little teeth in my teeny tiny mouth.
I pulled and I twisted and one popped out!
Now there are four little teeth….”

The pulling and twisting and popping just hit the spot.  All the kids were giggling.

CRAFT:

I had a hard time figuring out a craft for this one.  Smily faces are okay and sharks are great, but we didn’t read any shark books, so VOILA – a mouth with teeth in it.  Marshmallow teeth, that is.

Some of the kids in my session were eating the “teeth,” but not all of them.  Apparently on Wednesday, while I was gone, they all mowed down.  No big deal. I had lots of extra “teeth.”  It’s not the cutest craft, but it works and it was simple.

Sports ball

This is my deviation from the science theme.  It’s the middle of the World Cup and teeball season, so I thought it would just be a disservice to not talk about sports in storytime.

BOOKS:

We read Froggy Plays Soccer by Jonathan London and Dino-Baseball by Lisa Wheeler

Froggy Plays Soccer was the best.  It’s funny and a little long, but engaging enough where kids weren’t getting too wiggly.  The repetitive FROOOOOOOOOGY! and the “Head it, boot it, knee it, shoot it, but don’t use your hands!” are parts of the London Froggy books that I really like and that keeps kids’ attention.  I didn’t realize that Dino-Baseball was kind of similar to Froggy in that it was a recap of a game.  It ended up being too long (even though it is SOOOOO cute).  I think I might pick a shorter (maybe even nonfiction) book for the next time I do sports.

SONG:

So I made this puppet ages ago.

It’s a little old lady who swallowed a fly puppet.  I haven’t had a chance to use it yet and that bums me out.  BUT! This week I made up a Little Old Lady song to go with our theme.

There was an old lady who swallowed a ball
I don’t know at all why she swallowed the ball
And that is all

There was an old lady who swallowed a mitt
What a nit wit! She swallowed the mitt
She swallowed the mitt to catch the ball
I don’t know at all why she swallowed the ball
And that is all

There was an old lady who swallowed a bat
How about that?! She swallowed the bat
She swallowed the bat to hit the mitt
She swallowed the mitt to catch the ball
I don’t know at all why she swallowed the ball
And that is all

There was an old lady who swallowed a cap
She ate it right up when it fell in her lap
She swallowed the cap to net the bat
She swallowed the bat to hit the mitt
She swallowed the mitt to catch the ball
I don’t know at all why she swallowed the ball
And that is all

There was an old lady who swallowed some cleats
Ew smelly feet! When she swallowed those cleats
She swallowed the cleats to stomp the cap
She swallowed the cap to net the bat
She swallowed the bat to hit the mitt
She swallowed the mitt to catch the ball
I don’t know at all why she swallowed the ball
And that is all

I made all the little things to go with the song.  The ball and the bat are wooden.  I cut the two ends off of a cheapy wooden candlestick from Hobby Lobby to get the bat.  The mitt is made of craft foam and the rest is felt.  I would have liked to make a 3D cap and shoes, but with summer reading I ran out of time.

CRAFT:

We made our own foam fingers! (out of construction paper because my library is poor).  The kids really liked this.  They could decorate their own and stapling them all was a breeze.  Quick and easy craft (which is good since my summer storytime numbers are growing).

Yes, I have this one on backwards.  (LOOK AT MY SWEET TATTOO!)

Socks & Shoes

Since the weather is turning, sandals are getting put away and socks and shoes are coming out.  I don’t know about you guys, but I really don’t like wearing socks or shoes.  Sandals are okay.  I can see my toes and I can feel the breeze, but socks get all sweaty from being in shoes and shoes can get tight or itchy or just bleh.  So we had to read some books about socks and shoes.

BOOKS:

We read A Flock of Shoes by Sarah Tsiang and Jenny’s Socks by Carol Murray.

I like A Flock of Shoes; it has some real promise in it.  The illustrations (by Qin Leng) are gorgeous and the text has just a hint of quirk.  I did want more quirk but I’ll settle for what it came with.  Jenny’s Socks was okay – a little too simplistic for storytime (plus it had a weird two page spread of patriotic socks – felt forced to me).

FINGERPLAY:

We did 1, 2, Buckle My Shoe with a few simple actions between the books.

FLANNELBOARD:

We played a sock matching game.  I borrowed this idea from Miss Mary Liberry but sadly didn’t have enough time to make cool felt socks or a washing machine.  (I admit I was scrambling a bit to get this storytime together since I had only worked two days the week before, was at a conference and only had one day before storytime).  I did print off some awesome socks and laminate them.  I would do felt socks if I did this again (or something similar) because the paper plus the little felt square on the back just doesn’t stick to the flannelboard as well as a bigger piece of felt.

CRAFT:

Of course, since we played a SOCK matching game, we had to do a SHOE craft.  I found this craft via pinterest (of course).  The original craft has kids cutting out the shapes themselves, but we don’t do that because it’s too time-consuming and parents sometimes freak out when you give their three year old scissors.

The circles are binder reinforcers that we were complaining about having because we never use them.  And we drew in our shoelaces with white crayon.

Silly Stories

I try to plan all of my themes around a month in advance, so I have them all in the back of my head while I’m working on other things or am out in the stacks.  This week’s theme of Silly Stories was due in part to April Fool’s Day which landed on Tuesday storytime.  Unfortunately, we had a blizzard on Monday.  And my boss was out of town.  Luckily she is super tech savvy and we were able to text back and forth and decide to close due to the weather.  The storm ended sometime in the early early morning on Tuesday and the weather was all nice and sunny and everything BUT we had close to three feet of snow in our street.  And in all of the other surrounding streets.  It was so much snow that my husband said that he wouldn’t let me even attempt to drive to work even in the four wheel drive pick-up.  So we delayed opening until ten, thinking that the plows would be out in the morning.  Nope.  We didn’t get plowed out until 3:00 in the afternoon.  And then we spent an hour digging out the end of the driveway.  Needless to say, perhaps, we closed again on Tuesday and I missed one of my April Fools storytimes.  The kids were out in FORCE today though.

BOOKS:

Chicken Big by Keith Graves and Rhyming Dust Bunnies by Jan Thomas

The kids enjoyed Chicken Big.   I would ask them if they thought that the big chick was a squirrel or a sweater or an umbrella and they would all say noooooooooo.  Four chicken characters got to be a few too many for me to handle with voices so I think I would maybe cut one out in retelling.  Same thing with Rhyming Dust Bunnies but it was a fun short read (like most Jan Thomas books)

SONG:

We danced to “Shake My Sillies Out” by Raffi.  My new sound system is working fabulously, I am happy to report.

CRAFT:

I really wanted to do silly sculptures for this week with clay and pipe cleaners, but we have a volunteer who likes to come in and cut out shapes for storytime crafts.  Sometimes I think of other things for her to do, but this week, I relented and made up a craft to cut anyway.  We made these goofy glasses (modeled by MOI).

Shapes

Since my storytime participants are skewing young, I decided to try out an easy theme: SHAPES.  Holy moly was this an awesome storytime.  The kids were engaged and participating and didn’t have wandering attentions.

BOOKS:

We read Mouse Shapes by Ellen Stoll Walsh and Color Zoo by Lois Ehlert.

Mouse Shapes was great to start with – it was swift, narrative and had some action to it.  I tried desperately to do three different high-squeaky mouse voices.  I don’t think I was successful as I would have liked, but oh, well.

In between stories, I put a bunch of different shapes on our flannel board.  The kids helped me name all the shapes and their colors and then I said I would use my imagination and create something out of all of the shapes.  They made this:

A robot!  Thanks to SLC Book Boy for the inspiration!

Color Zoo was less of a reading than an interactive play.  I named the animals and the kids helped me remember what each animal sounded like (except the fox, because, really, who does know what the fox says?) and we named the shapes together.  One little girl would yell the shapes and then jump up and down and clap after.  It was ADORABLE.

SONG:

I used “Where is Triangle?” from Storytime Katie’s blog.  It’s sung to the tune of “Where is Thumbkin?” or “Frere Jacques.”

Where is triangle?  Where is triangle?
Here I am!  Here I am!
How are you today, sir?  Very well, I thank you.
Run away.  Run away.

(Repeat with circle, rectangle, square, and diamond)

CRAFT:

I gave each child a piece of white paper and a bag of different shapes and let them loose.  They made monsters and dinosaurs and birds and dogs and snowmen and all kinds of stuff.  I love love love letting them do their own thing.

This is my dinosaur.  His name is Rufus.

Back to School

I have mixed feelings about this storytime theme.  I like that it helps kids who have older siblings think about them going back to school and what goes on at school, but it isn’t as helpful or interesting for kids who don’t have older siblings or know someone who goes to school.  I guess, really, it’s useful to everyone to talk about the anxiety before starting something new and talking about buses.

BOOKS:

We read Wemberly Worried by Kevin Henkes and School Bus by Donald Crews.

Wemberly Worried is super cute.  Wemberly worries and worries and she even worries about worrying.  I really like Kevin Henkes stuff.  It hits just the right notes: a little bit funny, a little bit serious, always coming away with a good message.  School Bus is okay.  Kids love to talk about buses and look at buses, but there really isn’t much of a story here and it would be more effective as a one-on-one read where you can spend time talking about the pictures and what is happening.

SONG:

I sang and PLAYED MY UKULELE!  I found a video of a storytime lady playing it on the Storytime Underground Facebook page and thought it would be PERFECT for this storytime.

I really really really like playing my ukulele and singing so this just made my day.  We didn’t bark the ABCs because I have so many toddlers that I really just wanted them to practice singing the ABCs.  If I had done this for preschoolers or Headstart kids though, we totally would have barked the ABCs.

CRAFT:

We made paperbag backpacks and filled them with paper school supplies.

Big hit.  The kids like stuff they can carry things in.  For some reason, bags are the best.  (Must be like the cat thing with boxes….who knows?)

Recycling

When I first started doing storytime on my own (in September – which is when I started this job), I had no idea how many crafts to prepare or color sheets to copy.  Most days, I still only guess and sometimes I’m right on and sometimes I’m way over.  Our cruddy cold weather hasn’t helped either.  I’ve canceled storytime at least once this winter.  ANYWAY, I almost always have leftover pieces from storytime and I decided a while ago to do a recycling storytime where we use up all of the leftover pieces for our craft.  The week has finally come.

BOOKS:

The Dumpster Diver by Janet s. Wong (illustrated by David Roberts) and Joseph Had a Little Overcoat by Simms Taback

The Dumpster Diver is cute, but doesn’t hold kids’ attention as well, probably because the story is narrated rather than just happening.  It violates that primary writing rule: Show, don’t tell.  The illustrations are wonderful, though, colorful and eyecatching -lots of detail to attend to.  Joseph Had a Little Overcoat worked well.  It was repetitive and the kids could guess what Joseph would make next out of his overcoat.  I really wanted an easy nonfiction book about recycling, but we don’t have any (yet).  [UPDATE: We just got Compost Stew in by Mary McKenna Siddals and that was PERFECT for this theme.]

SONG:

I was lucky enough to find Five Bottles of Juice on Mollie Kay’s What Happens in Storytime blog.  The song is easy and familiar so moms can sing along and the kids really like any of the flannelboards that we do together.

Five Bottles of Juice on the Wall (Sung to the tune of 99 bottles of Beer on the Wall)

Five bottles of juice on the wall
Five bottles of juice!
Put one in the recycling bin
Four bottles of juice on the wall

(Continue until none are left)

CRAFT:

This was such a successful craft.  I did do a demo ahead of time, just because I wanted the kiddos to have an idea of what they could do, but I wouldn’t even have needed it.

Here is both sides of the illustrious craft cart.  We did this Iron Chef style – I put all of the craft pieces on the cart and kids could come up and take what they wanted.  They repurposed things into other stuff and colored on everything.  I’m just amazed at how they immediately went to imaginative play land.  I have done some reading on different storytime blogs about process art vs. product art.  The best definition I found was from an article Katie Salo did for the ALSC blog:

Process art is when the emphasis is placed on making art and using different mediums whereas product art is when the emphasis is placed on following instructions to achieve an expected result.

For the past six months, I had been focused on product art, partially because that is what my predecessor had done and partially because I had never had a craft time in any of the storytimes I had done before.  I want to do more process art – and judging by the kids’ reactions, it’s a good idea.  It’s good for them to think outside of the box and to use their imaginations, but it’s also good for them to be able to do whatever they want (within limits) sometimes too.  I’ll post a gallery with samples of their artwork.

Rainy Days

Sooooooo, it’s April and we got a tiny bit of snow yesterday.  I really was hoping that it would be warm enough to rain on the day when we did our rainy day storytime, but no.  Oh well, we had a good time making rain in the storytime room.

BOOKS:

Bringing the Rain to Kapiti Plain by Verna Aardema (pictures by Beatriz Vidal) and Rain Romp by Jane Kurtz (pictures by Dyanna Wolcott)

Bringing the Rain was fun, but it got a little long for even my preschoolers.  I really like Rain Romp.  My best friend’s mom wrote it and it reminds me of her and of my friend and their house.  Of the two, it was the preferred story.  If I do rainy days again though, I think I’d scrap both books and pick something else.  

FINGERPLAY:

We made rain sounds in the storytime room after we listened to our stories.  We snapped our fingers (mostly moms), rubbed our hands together, tapped our thighs, clapped our hands and stomped our feet!  Then the rain started dying down and we did the sequence in reverse.  I think this could be supplemented well with a rain stick and maybe even some cookie sheets to make thunder.  

CRAFT:

We made some water-diffused art, inspired by the art in Rain Romp.  This is the EASIEST, COOLEST craft.  Kids really like it.  It’s cheap.  It’s super easy to set up.  I had coffee filters and plain white paper, washable markers, and a spray bottle filled with water.  That’s it.  The kids color on the coffee filters (with the white paper underneath so the markers don’t go through to the table) and then I come around and spray them and the kids watch the colors diffuse.  This was a great craft for scribblers too – or kids who don’t quite have the hang of all their fine motor skills.  The coffee filters with the wildest lines ended up looking awesome in the end.  Plus, the color soaked through to the white paper so everyone went home with 2 pieces of art.

Pigs

Farm animals are a thing with kids around here.  We have plastic farm animal toys that get played with, slobbered on, and sometimes stolen.  Kids always know what sounds farm animals make and what they look like (which is kind of funny – I’m willing to bet that only a minority of them have actually seen farm animals in the flesh).  But yeah, I hadn’t done a farm-yard storytime yet and we have LOTS of books about pigs.

BOOKS:

Pigs to the Rescue! by John Himmelman and The Three Ninja Pigs by Corey Rosen Schwartz

In all honesty, I chose this theme thinking that I would have volunteer read these for next week while I’m a PLA, but once I read the two books I had picked, I had to swap hats out for pigs.  The volunteers get hat books.  Pigs to the Rescue! is hilarious.  The pigs try to fill in for Farmer Greenstalk and the rest of the Greenstalk family when things go awry.  Pigs to the Rescue! is a book that really needs to have the pictures “read” as well as the text.  The second group of storytime kids I had (more preschoolers) got into it, seeing what those crazy pigs would do next.  Three Ninja Pigs is THE BEST!  I did the voices, I read the limericks, I got more into it every time I read it.  This book works for me and my storytime style.  Also any author who writes a book made entirely of limericks gets two thumbs up from me.

SONG/FLANNELBOARD:

I am learning more and more new children’s songs each day.  This one – Five Clean and Dirty Pigs – is sung to the tune of Five Green and Speckled Frogs, which I didn’t know (Thanks Jbrary!).  I made felt pieces to go with it, based on Storytime Katie’s pieces.  Here’s the song:

Five Clean and Dirty Pigs

Five pigs so squeaky clean
Cleanest you’ve ever seen
Wanted to go outside and play. Oink! Oink!
One landed in the mud
Landed with a mighty thud!
Now there are four clean squeaky pigs

(Repeat while counting down)

And my flannels:

The only problem I had with these is that you could see the brown spots faintly through the pink felt so the clean pigs weren’t as clean as they could have been.

CRAFT:

This craft was cute and simple and I tied it into body parts.  They had to glue the nose on the pig first and his nostrils so he could breathe and smell and then the eyes so he could see, ears and feet were last.  When our toddlers got down and were talking around I had them show me the parts of the pig and their parts – their eyes, ears and nose.

Picnics

Another summer-y themed storytime: Picnics.  I am not feeling awesome about this one, but I have some ideas.  I think that I should have brought a picnic blanket or tablecloth to put on the floor for the kids to sit on.  I think a book about picnic food would have been a good addition.

BOOKS:

We read One Hundred Hungry Ants by Elinor J. Pinczes (illustrated by Bonnie Mackain) and Ernest and Celestine’s Picnic by Gabrielle Vincent.

I think I should have cut out a few row swaps in One Hundred Hungry Ants but I love this book.  I especially love shouting STOP! and then pausing a few seconds.  The kids ALL are quiet then.  Ernest and Celestine’s Picnic is great, but I have to make sure I’m narrating the pictures as well as the text (since the text is all dialogue).

SONGS:

We had a two-fer song this week.  After we read One Hundred Hungry Ants, we HAD to sing “The Ants Go Marching.”  We only sang one verse (which is fine) and then continued on.  This helped a few toddlers get their wiggles out.  After the stories, I whipped out my ukulele and we sang “Down By the Bay” and I had the kids get up and shake their groove things.

CRAFT:

We wove our own picnic blankets out of construction paper strips.  I’m not sure how I feel about this craft.  There were some moms who helped their kids do the craft and patiently showed them how to go under and over and under and over, but there were others that just did the craft for their kids.  I thought that this was a low enough fine motor skills activity, but I could be wrong.  (Who knew?)

Penguins

Penguin storytime was a HUGE hit here.

BOOKS: The Emperor’s Egg by Martin Jenkins and Tacky the Penguin by Helen Lester

The Emperor’s Egg worked really well for this age group – it wasn’t too wordy or too science-y.   I did omit almost all of the small text print.  The kids were really engaged. I have a few boys who are really into nonfiction so this was right up their alley.  I thought about using Sergio Makes a Splash and Pierre the Penguin, but opted for the other two.

FLANNEL/FINGERPLAY:

I’m not sure now where I got this rhyme from (I apologize, if it’s yours please let me know so I can correct it), but the kids really liked it

Five Penguins
One penguin in the bath going for a swim
Knock knock (clap hands twice)
Splash Splash (slap knees twice)
Come on in!

We counted up to five penguins in the bath.  Here are a picture of my flannels which I free-handed from a picture of penguins on SLC Book Boy’s blog.

CRAFT:

Looped Paper Penguins.

The craft was a hit.  There were a few too many pieces for some of our younger kids, but everyone loved that the penguins could stand up at the end.  I found the picture of these guys on Pinterest and then created my own pieces.  As kids were finishing up their craft, they could come up to our giant penguin Zeke and have their height measured next to him.  They LOVED the big penguin.

You can't really tell from this picture, but Zeke is life-sized.  I made him the height of a real emperor penguin just to show kids that penguins actually are tall.  Got a little STEM in there too with  measuring and learning about penguins.

5-4-3-2-1 BLAST OFF!

In line with the science theme for the summer, we did OUTER SPACE!  Of course, this is one of my favorite topics and, of course, we didn’t have very many good storytime space books.  I made do with what we had.

BOOKS:

I Want to Be an Astronaut by Byron Barton and Sheep Blast Off! by Nancy Shaw.

I Want to Be an Astronaut  was a little slow.  There wasn’t enough action and excitement for the kids.  I needed a Three Ninja Pigs but with space.  Maybe I’ll have to write one myself. Sheep Blast Off! on the other hand was good.  I asked the kids a lot of questions about what was going on and they knew.

SONG:

We listened to Rocketship Run by Laurie Berkner and shook shook shook our shakers!  I did miss a storytime this week (of course, the one with 30 kids in attendance) so I’m not sure how that storytime was, but the Tuesday storytime was a little reluctant to dance.  I got up and shook my fanny, but they weren’t interested.

CRAFT:

Brace yourself for this awesome craft.  We made………JET PACKS!  My first plan was to go with astronaut helmets made out of paper plates and blue cellophane, but I couldn’t find any blue cellophane, so we went with jet packs instead.  They were awesome!  The kids ran around, flames blowing in the wind behind their backs.

Somewhere...Beyond the Sea

The theme of storytime this week was oceans and ocean creatures.  It fits the science-y theme of summer reading program and I’ve always had a fondness in my heart for whales.  It goes back to fifth grade where I thought that I wanted to be a marine biologist (like most girls that age, I think).  I was also reading Ring of Endless Light (and the other books in that series) and LOOOOOOOOVED them.  But anyway, storytime…

BOOKS:

We read Swimmy by Leo Lionni and Clumsy Crab by Ruth Galloway.

I love Swimmy.  It’s cute and fun and the pictures are gorgeous.  Clumsy Crab is okay.  I wish I had one about the ocean that was really funny, but there just wasn’t one in this bunch.  I’ll take any suggestions you have though for next time!

SONG/FLANNEL:

I found this book Somewhere in the Ocean by Jennifer Ward when I was searching for ocean books.  I didn’t know it when I grabbed it, but this is set to the tune of “Over in the Meadow.”  BAM.  Instant song.  I looked and looked and looked for cute clip-art marine animals to go with this for a flannel board, but I couldn’t find any. (Seriously, manatees are not included in cute clip-art.  Who knew?)  So I made my own.

I think they are super cute, but I’m biased.  The song was awesome, but I wish there was a way to incorporate more interaction into it.

CRAFT:

I recycled this craft from our Summer Reading Program.  One of our guests did a watercolor art activity with the kids – coloring with white crayon on white paper to make jellyfish that appear when painted over with watercolors.

(Full disclosure: these are examples from my summer reading program kids, not from storytime kids, but the storytime kids had a blast.  They love painting in all forms and for some of them watercolors were completely new.)

Spooky, Scary...

Monsters took over storytime this week.  Our monsters weren’t so scary though.

BOOKS: 

We read Leonardo, The Terrible Monster by Mo Willems (my favorite) and Creepy Monsters, Sleepy Monsters by Jane Yolen.

Both of these books were GREAT.  They were short, which helped the toddlers pay attention, and they had great sound effects.  There is just something about monsters that kids love.  Kelly Murphy’s illustrations are adorable, which helps to draw the parents in as well.

FLANNELBOARD:

I adapted Go Away, Big Green Monster by Ed Emberly into a flannelboard.  Our copy had been lost (stolen or ripped to pieces or something) so I borrowed another library’s copy to make the pieces.  I think I had read somewhere that this had been put to a song, but I couldn’t find it.  The kids liked yelling Go Away! at the monster, but it wasn’t as engaging as I had hoped it would be.

CRAFT:

We made squish paint monsters!  This craft is SO easy and SO fun (but messy).  So roll up those sleeves and get out the smocks if you have them.  I think we’ll need to invest in something smock like because we have had two small paint incidents this year and I really really really love to do crafts that don’t always involve construction paper and glue.  Here is one of my monsters.

You fold a piece of construction paper the hamburger way (my storytime moms assured me that that was still a thing) and paint heavily on one side of the paper.  Then you fold it in half while the paint is still wet and squish the paper together.  I rubbed mine a little bit and when you open it up, you have a whole piece of painted paper.  I did think at the last minute that I should have given the kids googly eyes to put on their monsters, but I forgot and there wasn’t time.  Overall though this was a success (minus paint on clothes incident).

BONUS: Here’s a coloring sheet one of our patrons made for us.

Moms

I was a week late with this one – we read books about mothers the week after Mother’s Day, but it was still special for the moms who attended.

BOOKS:

Just Like Mama by Leslea Newman and Mother, Mother, I Want Another by Maria Polushkin Robbins.

Mother, Mother… is great.  All of my toddlers helped me to figure out what sounds all the different mothers made and they giggled whenever Baby Mouse said he wanted another.  Just Like Mama is pretty.  Julia Gorton illustrated it and the pictures are unique and interested to look at.  The story, however, has too many adjectives and not enough narrative to capture my toddlers’ attention.  So I would attempt to find another book if I did this theme again.

SONG:

We listened to John Lithgow’s No One Loves You Any Better Than Your M-O-Double-M-Y and everyone got a shaker to shake during the song.  There’s a short instrumental break in the middle and we danced it out during that section.  I am always amazed how excited kids get when they get a shaker.

CRAFT:

We made flowers for our moms!

While this craft looks adorable and simple, I can tell you it was a mother trucking nightmare.  Pipe cleaners are impossible to glue on using glue sticks and we only had really old congealed school glue for a substitute.  Even once we used the school glue, the pipe cleaners still fell off.  Gluing the fingers down was also nearly impossible.  You had to hold each fingertip down for a long time and sometimes even apply more glue.  UGH.  I was covered in glue and had two falling apart crafts at the end of the second storytime.  NEVER AGAIN.

We've Got Magic to Do!

Do you ever have those weeks where you just feel like you have no storytime mojo?  That was NOT this week for me.  I had ALL of the storytime mojo (sorry if I was hogging it).  The theme was magic and that is what I did.  I had enraptured children, amused adults, and all around fabulousness!

BOOKS:

We read in this order (very important): Sausages by Jessica Souhami and Anton Can Do Magic by Ole Könnecke.

I loved both of these books.  Sausages was clever and funny.  The kids thought it was hilarious when the man got the sausages stuck to the end of his nose.  I love the cut-paper and pencil illustrations.  They were simple, but gorgeous.  Anton Can Do Magic was short and the kids could tell that Anton wasn’t really doing magic – this would be a great one-on-one read aloud for a young child and his parent/guardian.  Anton also lead well into our next activity because of Anton’s magic hat.

FINGERPLAY:

Between the two stories, we used the Magic Finger fingerplay to keep our attention.  I found this via Storytime Katie.

Magic finger in the air!
Magic finger in my hair!
Magic finger on my hip!
Magic finger on my lips!

ACTIVITY:

After Anton Can Do Magic, I pulled out my magic hat (okay, not really a magic hat, just one of the random hats I had in my closet) and told the kids I was going to pull a rabbit out of it.  I bought a set of 10 or so animal finger puppets at Ikea the last time I was there.  I threw four or five of them in the hat with the rabbit one BEFORE hand.  I said the magic words:

Magic, magic in my hat,
I can pull out a rabbit……….
ACK! What’s that?

So when I said ACK! I pulled out a different animal puppet and the kids named them.  Finally I got the rabbit.  They ATE it up.  It was soooo great.  I found this from Scott at Walls Became the World.

CRAFT:

Our craft was almost stupifyingly simple this week.  We made rabbits that pop out of hats!

The children had to glue the bunny to the popsicle stick and draw his face and that was it for the craft.  Then we cleaned up while we waited for the glue to dry and PRESTO! we played with our rabbits!

I had cut a slit into each hat so the bunny could pop through.  Another craft that is also interactive.