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?)