Letter A - 2021

Hi all, long time, no blogging…..Good news for you! I’m back (at least for a bit) with some new storytime themes and plans for you. First up: Letter A. We’re going back through the alphabet. I think alphabet themes are great because you can read any story that has something to do with your letter. It’s freer than a stricter theme like “Bears” or “Swimming.”

BOOKS:

We read If You Ever Want to Bring an Alligator to School, Don’t! by Elise Parsley, Armadilly Chili by Helen Ketteman, illustrated by Will Terry, and Airplanes by Byron Barton.

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This is one of my virtual storytimes (which are recorded) so I don’t have any feedback on how the books were received. I really enjoyed Armadilly Chili and thought it was a fun twist on the Little Red Hen story.

RHYMES:

I found these fun rhymes on Storytime Katie (bless her heart and her website).

“Alphabet Beat”

First clap your hands. Then stomp your feet.
Everybody do the alphabet beat.
Apple, Apple, Apple – a – a – a,
Apple, Apple, Apple – a – a – a,
Wave your arms high. Swing your arms low.
The alphabet beat is the way to go.
Blue, Blue, Blue – b – b – b
Blue, Blue, Blue – b – b – b
Move to the left. Move to the right.
The alphabet beat is way out of sight.
Car, Car, Car – c – c – c
Car, Car, Car – c – c – c
Now give a high five to a nearby friend.
The alphabet beat has come to the end!

So I clapped the first three beats in each line and then stomped out the rest. I had a great time doing this and it would be lots of fun with littles all standing up.

“Way Up High In the Apple Tree”

Way up high in the apple tree (stretch arm up high)
Two red apples smiled at me (hold up 2 fingers)
I shook that tree as hard as I could (make a shaking motion)
Down came the apples, (make a downward motion)
Mmmm–were they good! (smile and rub stomach)

I busted out my red shakers for this one and just held them in my hands like apples during this rhyme.

CRAFT SUGGESTIONS:

Since storytime is virtual, I don’t have a craft ready to go, but I can definitely think of some awesome ones.

We did these A alligators the last time I did an alphabet storytime series. We’ve done apple prints which are super fun and appropriately messy. I have done other alligator crafts that I love - one with printed scales (glue foam pieces that are scale shaped onto a piece of cardboard, have the kids paint it and then print it onto the alligator) and one with a paper chain body that turned out really awesome but was a bit of a pain for the littles to make the small paper chains. (The first image is mine, the second is what my craft looked like but the image is from Instructables.)

DANCE BREAK SONG:

I’ve been including links to dance break videos in the description of my virtual storytimes since we used to do a dance at the end of every storytime. This week’s video was the classic “Aikendrum” by Raffi.

Letter R

Rapturously, we reached the rotund letter R!

BOOKS:

We read Round Robin by Jack Kent and The Magic Rabbit by Annette LeBlanc Cate.

I LOVE Round Robin.  I did have a moment of trepidation when I was thinking about how this could be thought of in relation to body image, but I still went with it.  The Magic Rabbit requires a little more work for a storytime audience, but I think it's worth it.  The pictures tell the latter half of the story and it's important to point out certain things in the illustrations that will help the kids figure out what happens later.

FLANNELBOARD:

I borrowed the Duck! Rabbit! flannelboard from Lisa Shaia at Thrive After Three.  Here are all of the pieces I made for it.  You'll have to read the book to see how they all go together.

SONG:

This is one of my new favorite kids songs: Little Red Wagon by Raffi!

It is ridiculously catchy and infectious and I found myself wandering through the library or cleaning at home singing it.  I believe that after you listen to it you too will have it stuck in your head for eternity.

CRAFT:

We made a rainbow out of the letter R.  This is probably one of the weirdest, shoved together, make it work crafts I have ever made.  The kids liked it and it was easy to do, but it's a little contrived.

Letter Q

Letter Q in the HOUSE!

BOOKS: 

We read Mooshka: A Quilt Story by Julie Paschkis and The Very Quiet Cricket by Eric Carle.

I enjoyed Mooshka; it has such a nice story and the illustrations are gorgeous.  Growing up in North Dakota, it's so common to have Grandma's quilt at home or being happy to use Grandma's quilt while you're at Grandma's.  That might be why this appealed to me.  The Very Quiet Cricket is nice, but it's not my favorite of Carle's stories.  We were able to talk about time while reading through this book and talked about how the day changed in the illustrations as we read through.

FINGERPLAY:

We did "Six Little Ducks" which is both a fingerplay and a song - double whammie!

Six little ducks that I once knew
Fat ones, skinny ones, tall ones too,
But the one little duck with the feather on his back
He led the others with a "Quack, quack, quack!"
"Quack, quack, quack! Quack, quack, quack!"
He led the others with a "Quack, quack quack!"

Storytime Katie has another verse that I didn't know:

Down to the water they did go
Wibble wobble, wibble wobble to and fro
Home from the water they did come
Wibble wobble, wibble wobble, ho-hum-hum!

SONG:

We listened to "The Question Song" from Sesame Street.  

This is a fun song to listen to (and watch for that matter), but it wasn't as powerful in storytime as it could have been.  If I had used my brain a little better, I would have paused it after the narrator asked her question and I could poll the audience.

CRAFT:

Our craft was a quilted Q.  We had made quilts before using little squares of construction paper for our blankies storytime and I had some leftover.  I printed off Uppercase Qs on construction paper and we glued in our squares.  Some Qs were all one color and some were a plethora of colors.  Here's mine.

Letter P

We explore the letter P!  Pink perfect puppies parade around the letter P!

BOOKS:

We read Pete’s a Pizza by William Steig and Press Here by Herve Tuillet.

Both of these were fun.  I hadn’t read Pete’s a Pizza so it was super fun and delightful.  The kids LOVED Press Here.  I had them help me and pretend that they had a book in front of them too so they could press and shake and tilt without having everyone swarmed on top of me or having to take turns.

FINGERPLAY:

Our fingerplay went with Pete since that was the first book we read.  We played “Pizza Man,” borrowed from Storytime Katie.

Pat-a-cake, pat-a-cake, pizza man. (clap hands)
Make me a pizza as fast as you can. (shake finger)
Roll it, (rolling pin)
Toss it, (toss it in the air)
Sprinkle it with cheese (sprinkling motion)
Put it in the oven. (open oven and push in)
And bake it fast please!

SONG:

We listened to (and acted out) “Popcorn Calling Me” by Laurie Berkner.  The kids LOVED this song so much.  I had a storytime mom call me in the afternoon to ask what song we sang because the kids wanted to listen to it again!

CRAFT:

We made Pete the Cat headbands.  The preschoolers who knew Pete the Cat were SO excited and everyone else liked it too just because it was fun.  Here’s me in mine.  This was surprisingly easy to make, but it had a lot of little parts which were difficult for little hands.

Letter O

Ostensibly, we ostentatiously open the oracle of O!

BOOKS:

We read Do Not Open by Brinton Turkle and Overboard by Sarah Weeks.

Both of these books are wonderful for storytime.  I was a tiny bit worried that Do Not Openwould be a little too scary, but now I think it’s one of those books that helps kids get over scary stuff, like the book from my childhood How to Get Rid of Bad Dreams.

Overboard is short, cute, and fun.  I had almost every kid shouting “OVERBOARD!” with me as each item exited Baby Bunny’s hands.

FLANNELBOARD:  

I found this activity on Ian Falconer’s Olivia website.  It’s an “Olivia’s Things” activity.  I printed out all of Olivia’s things and colored them in.  I hid them around the storytime room and brought my little stuffed Olivia in.  Olivia and I had a talk and she told me that the last time she was here she had left some things in the room and asked if the kids could help find them.  After the storytime kids had found all of Olivia’s stuff, we talked about each of the items.  It was fun.

SONG:

We listened to Biscuits in the Oven by Raffi.  We did some actions to go along with it – we made our hands rise with the biscuits, we jumped and shouted, we stomped our feet, and looked both ways.  This song is super cute.

CRAFT:

I’ve been waiting for this craft for a LOOOOONG time.  We made letter O octopuses with cheerio suckers on their tentacles.  The moms were worried about the kids eating all of their craft supplies, but I didn’t have a problem with it.  I had a big box of Cheerios.

Letter N

It is necessary for newbie N to be notorious, never needing national recognition.

BOOKS: 

We read Nighttime Ninja by Barbara Dacosta and Too Much Noise by Ann McGovern.

I really really like both of these books.  Too Much Noise was particularly fun because I found a free animal noise soundboard, so every time a new animal came on the scene we played the noise.  The went MOOOOOO and the sheep went BAAAAA.  Great fun was had by all.

FINGERPLAY:

Two HUGE thumbs up to Storytime Katie for this one.  I’m super surprised I hadn’t used “Five Little Nails” before this storytime.  I’ll definitely use it again. The kids loved the BAM BAM BAM! part. (I know, big surprise.)

Five Little Nails

Five little nails, standing straight and steady
Here I come with my hammer ready!
Bam, bam, bam! That nail goes down.
Now there’s just four nails left to pound.
(count down)

SONG:

We shook our shakers and danced our little buns off to “The Bare Necessities” from The Jungle Book.

CRAFT:

We made little nests!  My mom suggested nests since she had one in her backyard.  I found this craft via Pinterest and it was perfect.

Letter L

We have languidly lounged through the alphabet until reaching the delightful letter L, long make it live in luxury.

BOOKS:

I did a little mid-week revision to the line-up this week, so I have featured all three.  We read Feathers for Lunch by Lois Ehlert, a chapter from Little Bear by Else Holmelund Minarik and The Grouchy Ladybug by Eric Carle.

I started out with Feathers for Lunch and Little Bear but wasn’t loving Little Bear after Tuesday’s storytime.  I grabbed my copy of The Grouchy Ladybug from home (because we don’t have it.  WUT?) and read that for Wednesday.  Really, though, The Grouchy Ladybug was getting a little long by the end too.  Sometimes when picking books we’re walking a thin line.  We want our storytime books to be interesting, engaging, and quality books, but we also don’t want to lose our audience halfway through a story.  I’ve found lately that Easy Reader books don’t lend themselves well to storytime for precisely the reasons they were created – they are often full of repetition and simple words (sometimes even rhyming words or words that have the same stems) because they are written to help children learn to read.  That was the problem with Little Bear.  Don’t get me wrong, I love Little Bear.  I think it’s frequently overlooked because it is “old,” but the story and characters are actually fun.  Who doesn’t want to make birthday soup or go to the moon?  I do.  Treasured classics are sometimes quite a bit longer than the picture books that are coming out or are popular now.  The Grouchy Ladybug follows the same formula as The Very Hungry Caterpillar but has more words, making it longer and a less enjoyable read aloud.  I’d love to hear what other storytime practitioners think about this and how they deal with lost attention or encourage engagement with longer or repetitive texts.

FLANNELBOARD:

I used Sarah’s template from Read Rabbit Read to make flannels for the book Lunch by Denise Fleming.  I have a little mouse finger puppet who ate ALL of the lunch.  Here’s a picture of my completed flannels.

SONG: 

I got out the shakers and we listened to “Wimoweh (The Lion Sleeps Tonight)” by Laurie Berkner.  We practiced shaking quietly and slowly and quickly and loudly before we listened to the song.

CRAFT:

We practiced lacing for our craft this week.  I cut out big construction paper letter Ls and punched holes in them and then cut out long yarn pieces.  We used half pieces of pipe cleaner (or chenille stem – whichever is your preferred craft term) and bent them in half to use as needles.  This was a great deal more difficult for the kids than I thought it would be.  Let’s face it, most of them wear velcro shoes and shoe tying is still a few years away.  I didn’t think about the intricacies involved in lacing.  You go in one hole and pull the string through and then go in another hole, but you have to reverse directions.  Down into one and then up into the other.  Maybe if I had explained a little better it would have gone more smoothly for our children.  Regardless, it was a great small motor skills exercise for everyone.

Letter K

Letter K was a surprisingly easy storytime to plan, but not an easy letter to alliterate.  So, without further ado…….THE LETTER K!

BOOKS:

We read Katie Loves the Kittens by John Himmelman and I Love You Blue Kangaroo by Emma Chichester Clark.

I Love You Blue Kangaroo wasn’t my favorite book for this letter, but it worked and we were able to talk about sharing and about why Blue Kangaroo wasn’t feeling good.  Katie Loves the Kittens though was adorable.  The pictures are fabulous (I looooooove those little kittens) and the story lends itself well to dialogic reading and textual predictions.

PUPPET PLAY:

I made a little kite puppet to do the action rhyme My Kite, borrowed from Miss Anna presents.

My Kite (can be sung to the tune of “The Farmer in the Dell” if you so desire)

My kite is up so high,
My kite is up so high,
Oh my, just watch it fly,
My kite is up so high

My kite is falling down,
My kite is falling down,
Oh no, it’s down so low,
My kite is falling down

The wind has caught my kite,
The wind has caught my kite,
What fun, I’m on the run,
The wind has caught my kite

I saw another post where the storytime lady had made little paper kites on popsicle sticks for all of the storytime participants, so they could follow along.  I would have loved to do this with this rhyme, but I ran out of time.

SONG:

I whipped out my ukulele for the song for this week.  I found some ukulele chords for the famous Australian nursery rhyme “Kookaburra” and away we went.  A few of the moms knew the words and could sing along with me, but for the most part it was a listening type of song.

CRAFT:

We made kangaroos with pocket joeys.  Really, this craft was TOO easy.  If I were to do this again, I would put the kangaroos on white paper and have the kids color them before we glued the pocket on.  Otherwise the kids glued on the pocket and were done.  Too easy.  But still cute.

Letter J

We jocularly joke about jumping through the alphabet.  Jamming J is up next!

BOOKS:

We read Gooey Jellyfish by Natalie Lunis and Five Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed by Eileen Christelow.

Both of these books were great.  Gooey Jellyfish is simple – like many nonfiction titles at this level it has text boxes and sidebars with extra information that extends one’s understanding.  I skip most of those when I read these books in storytime, but it’s nice to have that extra info.  I had some extra help with Five Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed since most preschoolers know that one.

FINGERPLAY:

We did “Peanut Butter and Jelly” which is a combo fingerplay and chant kind of.  I remember loving this in elementary school and most of the kids really had fun with it too.

Here’s the text I used:

First you take the peanuts and you dig ‘em, you dig ‘em, you dig ‘em, dig ‘em dig ‘em
then you crunch ‘em, you crunch ‘em, you crunch ‘em, crunch ‘em, crunch ‘em
then you spread ‘em, you spread ‘em, you spread ‘em, spread ‘em spread ‘em
Peanut, peanut butter and jelly
Peanut, peanut butter and jelly

Then you take the grapes and you pick ‘em, you pick ‘em, you pick ‘em, pick ‘em, pick ‘em
Then you squish ‘em, you squish ‘em, you squish ‘em, squish ‘em, squish ‘em
Then you spread ‘em, you spread ‘em, you spread ‘em, spread ‘em spread ‘em
Peanut, peanut butter and jelly
Peanut, peanut butter and jelly

Then you take the sandwich and you bite it, you bite it, you bite it, bite it, bite it
And you chew it, you chew it, you chew it, chew it, chew it
And you swallow it, you swallow it, you swallow swallow swallow it
MMMMMmmmmm mmmmmm mmmm mmmmm
MMMMMmmmmm mmmmmm mmmm mmmmm

SONG:

Our song for this week was “Jump Jump” by Joanie Leeds and the Nightlights.  It’s an awesome song.  Fun sound, fun actions – gets everybody up and moving around.

CRAFT:

I have been waiting to do this craft since I very first started this job.  I pinned this a million years ago (okay maybe just a year and a half, but still!) and haven’t had a chance to use it yet. Paper bag jellyfish, everybody!  We did some watercoloring on paperbags and then I cut the tentacles and we glued on the eyes.  These are the three that I made over the course of the week’s storytimes.

Letter I

Impatiently, I ignite my imagination for the letter I.

BOOKS:

We read I Love Bugs by Emma Dodd and From Cow to Ice Cream by Bertram T. Knight.

From Cow to Ice Cream was a little over the kids’ heads.  I wish we had had a better book about ice cream, but I just couldn’t find one.  I Love Bugs was fantastic though.  Before I started reading, I talked about insects and that most bugs are insects and insects starts with I.  Emma Dodd can do no wrong in my book.

FLANNELBOARD:

For my flannel, I borrowed Ice Cream Colors from Storytime Katie.

The rhyme goes:
We have ice cream, the best in town
Let us begin with chocolate brown.
Now let us scoop up some bubble-gum pink,
It is sweet and yummy, the best, some think.
Here is ice cream minty and green,
It is the creamiest I’ve ever seen.
Yellow ice cream is lemony and tart.
We like its taste from the very start.
Scoops of blueberry would make my day,
Look at all this ice cream, hip hip hooray!
Red ice cream is a strawberry delight,
All these scoops are a magnificent sight.
Vanilla white is a popular flavor.
It tastes very good to an ice-cream craver.
Purple ice cream really gives me a kick,
Good and yummy til the very last lick.
Ice cream, ice cream, what a cool sensation.
We love ice cream in any combination!

And here are my flannels:

As you can probably see, I forgot to make a pink scoop, so we just skipped that part.

SONG:

We listened to “I Love a Parade” sung by Bob Keeshan (AKA Captain Kangaroo).  I couldn’t find a video of the version I used, but I did find this one from the Lawrence Welk show.  I think it’s doubly appropriate since I have been compared many times to Lawrence Welk by one of our elderly city council members.

CRAFT:

We made iguanas out of the letter I.  Our color sheets also had iguanas on them and all of the boys in storytime just had a blast coloring the iguanas and telling me all about them, whether or not they were deadly or poisonous or why they were different colors.

Letter H

Letter H storytime is a hippy happy hoppy holiday!  The alphabet saga continues!

BOOKS:

There is a Bird on Your Head by Mo Willems and Hipps Go Berserk! by Sandra Boynton.  TWO OF MY FAVORITE AUTHORS!

There is a Bird On Your Head didn’t work as well for storytime as I thought it would.  It might be the repetition (good for easy readers, not so much for storytime) or the fact that it reads so fast or the fact that I don’t have good separate Elephant and Piggie voices yet.  Hippos Go Berserkwas fabulous though.  I love Sandra Boynton.

ACTION SONG:

We sang Head and Shoulders, Knees and Toes and touched all of our body parts.  We had to do this one twice – once at normal speed and once at super duper fast speed!

SONG:

We listened to one of my favorite childhood songs: “Hop Up My Ladies!” sung by Elizabeth Mitchell.  I couldn’t find a good video of this, but here’s a link to the Smithsonian Folkways sitewith a sample of it.  I highly highly highly recommend the Elizabeth Mitchell & You Are My Flower album called Blue Clouds.

CRAFT:

I was inspired by Storytime Katie’s Letter H craft so we also made houses out of the letter H and a triangle roof.  I used whatever extra bright colors I had laying around – green, fuschia and gold and we filled in with crayons.  Here’s my house from my second storytime!

Letter G

Gregariously, we gallop across the grass toward G, the glamorous gal galivanting through this week’s storytime.  I never get sick of alliteration.

BOOKS:

We read The Three Billy Goats Fluff by Rachael Mortimer and Look Out, Suzy Goose by Petr Horacek.

Both of these books were AWESOME.  I love the twist on the three billy goats gruff.  The goats worked to help the ogre, not trick him and everyone ended up happy. Look Out, Suzy Goose was super cute.  The kids helped me make the noises for each creature, especially Suzy.

FINGERPLAY:

I borrowed “The Little Black Gorilla” from Miss Anna Presents  It’s a cute rhyme and I made up mediocre actions for it.

A little black gorilla went up the banana tree  (swing arms like a gorilla)
When he reached the top, he was stung by a bee! (climb up tree and hold knee at the end)
Down came gorilla with a stinger in his knee (climb down tree)
And the little black gorilla cried,
“Mama, please help me!” (waa waa gesture)

It was really hard to actually differentiate between climbing up the tree and climbing down the tree, but oh well.  I’ll work on it (and maybe the rhyme too)

SONG:

I am a major sucker for all Laurie Berkner songs.  So I had to use “Here are My Glasses” for this storytime.  Here’s a cute video with the actions that we use in the song.

CRAFT:

For our craft this week, we made GUMBALL MACHINES! Most of the pieces were construction paper, except for the gumballs.  I found these rad shiny round color coding labels that were in bright gumbally colors at Office Max.  Perfect gumballs.  And stickers!  DOUBLE PLUS GOOD.  Everyone loves stickers.

Letter F

Letter F storytime is fascinatingly fantastic!

BOOKS:

We read Jump, Frog, Jump by Robert Kalan and Swim! Swim! by Lerch.

I was initially skeptical about Swim! Swim! but reading it at storytime changed my mind.  The kids liked the goofy fish and the things he didn’t know and the theme enabled us to talk about another F word: friendship.  Jump, Frog, Jump is good.  The kids quickly caught on to the pattern and helped me say, “Jump, frog, jump.”

FLANNELBOARD:

I had felt animals and a big barn that I’ve used for other flannelboard songs and stories, so I cobbled them together and we sang “The Animals on the Farm,” sung to the tune of “The Wheels on the Bus.”  Here’s a sample verse:

The cow on the farm goes, “Moo moo moo.  Moo moo moo.  Moo moo moo.”
The cow on the farm goes, “Moo moo moo,” all around the yard.

Substitute your various farm animals and the sounds they make and repeat ad nauseum.

SONG:

We listened to “Hurry Hurry Drive the Firetruck!” by the Old Town School of Folk Music.  I couldn’t find an exact copy on the web of this version, but here is Jbrary’s version which is just as awesome (but not quite as fast).

CRAFT:

We made fish out of the letter F.  

I think this craft is A-DOOOOOOOR-ABLE.  Cute and easy.  I have been lamenting the fact that we haven’t done any process art in a while though.  It will be coming soon.

Letter E

Every week I eagerly flex my alphabetic expertise for exciting storytime! This week: letter E.  Next week we take an alphabetic break to celebrate Valentine’s Day and Chinese New Year after that.

BOOKS:

We read Elmer by David McKee and The Ear Book by Al Perkins.

I really like Elmer. I hadn’t read it before (I know *GASP*), but it’s one I think I’ll have to add to my repetoire. It’s about difference, but it isn’t preachy or didactic.  It’s just refreshing.  The Ear Book was a good companion to this too.  It’s short and has lots of fun mouth sounds.  I did bring in my little rainstick to make the rain in the middle of the story.

FINGERPLAY:

I borrowed “Up the Hill” for our letter E fingerplay.

(Make one arm into a hill)
Here comes the turtle up the hill, creepy, creepy, creepy (crawl fingers up the arm)
Here comes the rabbit up the hill, boing, boing, boing (bounce fingers up the arm)
Here comes the snake up the hill, slither, slither, slither (slide fingers up the arm)
Here comes the elephant up the hill, thud, thud, thud (clap hand up the arm)
Here comes the elephant down the hill, boom, boom, boom CRASH (clap hand down the arm and clap hands for the crash)

We did this two times, switching arms for the second time.  I recently read an article about crossing the midline and how important it is for young children (brief summary: it is important for children to cross the imaginary middle line of their body with their arms and legs.  It helps the two hemispheres of the brain to communicate with each other and develop dominant hand and use both sides of our body simultaneously) and this is a good quick activity to help with this.  Children have to cross their body to make the animal climb up the hill and then completing the activity using opposite arms forces more midline crossing.

SONG:

It took me forever to find a song that would work for this.  I chose “Los Elefantes,” a Spanish folksong featured on Wiggleworms Love You, a great compilation by the Old Town School of Folk Music.  I really like this collection because it has a lot of what I think of as traditional children’s music.

This went okay.  I took out the shakers and we shook and shook and shook.  It went better the other day because I listened to it a million times to learn the words in English and Spanish.

CRAFT:

For our craft we made elephant ears!  And an elephant trunk.  Here I am sporting my awesome craft.

Yeah, the trunk was a little too wide for most of the kids.  They couldn’t quite see around it, but they really really liked playing with it and pretending to be elephants.  A total success in my book just because of that.

Letter D

Dutifully domineering the alphabet, we doggedly did letter D!  I feel like I really need to make big felt letters when we talk about these or print off some letters. I don’t know why on earth I haven’t yet.  We do talk about the letters when we start and talk about the sounds that each letter makes.

BOOKS: 

We read Dog’s Colorful Day by Emma Dodd and Dragons Love Tacos by Adam Rubin.

Dragons Love Tacos might have been a little long for my storytime crowd.  I think this would work superbly as a kindergarten or even early elementary read aloud.  Dog’s Colorful Day is brilliant though.  The kids helped both with the counting and with naming the colors.

ACTIVE PLAY:

I wasn’t quite sure what to call this.  It isn’t exactly a song or a fingerplay.  It’s “I’m a Mean Old Dinosaur” sung to the tune of “I’m a Little Teapot” WITH ACTIONS.

I’m a mean old dinosaur big and tall (gesture high and wide)
Here is my tail (wiggle butt)
Here is my claw (make mean claws with hands)
When I get all hungry (rub tummy)
I just growl (Roar!)
Look out kids, I’m on the prowl! (stalk around like a T-Rex)

We definitely had to do this one twice!  I borrowed this from Miss Anna presents.

SONG:

We danced to the Fruit Salad Salsa by Laurie Berkner!  I really like this song.  I made up a few actions to go with it, nothing major, just stuff that goes along with the lyrics and we danced.

CRAFT:

We made wee little ballerina puppets!  The dancers are people of color because I think they look nice and we don’t talk enough about diversity in storytime.  The kids (girls especially) loved dancing their little ballerinas all over the place.

Letter C

Cheerfully, I chose the character C for recounting comedic and cliffhanging chronicles.  Letter C was our theme for the week and we celebrated it to its fullest!

BOOKS: 

We read Mrs. Armitage, Queen of the Road by Quentin Blake and Clip-Clop by Nicola Smee.

Both of these went over well.  I personally like Mrs. Armitage better, but they both lend themselves well to dialogic reading.  They really are on opposite ends of what I use for storytime.  Mrs. Armitage, Queen of the Road is longer, has more difficult vocabulary and requires an ability to decode.  Clip-Clop is much simpler – the words are small and not really any new or specialized vocabulary, the pictures are simple and enhance the story rather than tell part of it.  It’s neat to see how the kids react to both choices. Good choices on my part, if I do say so myself.

FINGERPLAY:

I found “Drive, Drive, Drive” on Miss Anna presents and knew I HAD to use it.  It’s sung to the tune of “Row, Row, Row Your Boat.”

Drive, drive, drive your car
All around the town.
Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily,
Up the hills and down.

Turn, turn, turn the key,
Make the engine roar.
Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily,
Let’s go to the store.

Press, press, press the pedal,
Give the engine gas,
Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily,
Now we’re going fast!

Turn, turn, turn the wheel.
That is how we steer.
Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily,
Make a turn right here.

Push, push, push the brake,
Make the car slow down.
Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily,
Now we are in town!

There are some fun actions in here for kids to do with you – turn the wheel, pressing the pedal, turning the key.  Made me pretty joyful to sing it.  :D

SONG: 

What kind of letter C storytime would leave out “C is for Cookie?”  Not this one!

CRAFT:

We made a cat from the letter C!  I don’t love this one as much as I like the alligator A and the BumbleB, but it works.

I made my first two cat crafts upside down.  OH WELL.  We used cotton balls and clothespins to paint on our cat spots – fairly clean and easy to deal with at the end – toss the cotton ball and reuse the clothespin.

Letter B

B is for BAZINGA! This series is going well so far!

BOOKS:

We read Not a Box by Antoinette Portis and The Pigeon Needs a Bath by Mo Willems.

I was surprised that Not a Box went over WAY better than The Pigeon Needs a Bath.  Usually I rock through all of Mo Willems’ books and the kids are begging for more, but I think the spread with the tiny pigeon pictures just didn’t work for storytime.  In a one on one reading it would have been fine, but not so much for storytime.  Not a Box, though, AWESOME!

PUPPET PLAY:

I broke down and finally bought a Folkmanis puppet.  It’s the little bear hand puppet and I love it!  I told my boss that she should find someone to give us $500 so I could buy a bunch more.  She told me to find someone myself or write a grant (go figure).  Here’s the bear.

What a cutie.  We sang “Where is Bear” to the tune of “Where is Thumbkin” to go along with him.

Where is Bear?  Where is Bear?
Here I am! Here I am!
How are you today, sir?
Very tired, thank you.
Go to sleep!  Go to sleep!

When the song is over the first time, the kids can yell, “Wake up bear!” to wake him up and start singing again.  I borrowed this from Storytime Katie.

SONG:

I have decided to incorporate some kind of fingerplay and a song into this series of storytime.  That way I’m emphasizing singing as well as reading – two of the five skills of Every Child Ready to Read.  The song this week was “Singing in the Bathtub” by John Lithgow.  We whipped out our scarves and waved them around and then pretended they were washcloths and towels and washed our arms and legs and face.

CRAFT: 

In keeping with the letter crafts, we made bumblebees out of the letter B!

Super simple and lots of glue stick use which every toddler loves.  I don’t know if I’m going to stick with the letter as something craft theme for the whole series, but it worked for A and for B (and for C).

Letter A

New year, new storytime series! I decided that we should do an alphabet series for storytimes  So starting this week, every week (excepting some holidays and special events) we’ll cover a different letter of the alphabet.  I actually am really enjoying planning these storytime sessions because they’re a lot less restrictive than the themes.  I can choose books about ANYTHING that starts with A.  I think they’ll make for a fun 26 weeks!

BOOKS:

We read Hooray for Amanda and Her Alligator by Mo Willems and Airplanes by Byron Barton.

I didn’t read all of Amanda & Her Alligator! It was just too long.  We got through the price tag section and that was a good stopping point.  Airplanes (which is what my copy is called contrary to the picture) was a great read.   I’m always surprised how much kids like Byron Barton books because they’re so simple.  It doesn’t matter though because he has interesting subjects.

FINGERPLAY:

On Miss Anna Presents, I found a TON of alphabet storytime resources.  I took this fingerplay from the A section.

Way up high in the apple tree (stretch up)
Two little apples smiled at me (make two fists)
I shook the tree as hard as I could (shake tree)
Down came the apples (hands fall into lap)
Mmmm, they were good! (rub tummy)

SONG:

For the song portion of this storytime, we listened to Raffi’s version of Aikendrum.  Such a silly song.  I think the Headstart kids I visit would appreciate this song a little more than the toddlers did.

CRAFT:

For our craft, we made a big letter A into an alligator!  We glued little squares of green construction paper to the A outline, then added eyes and teeth.  Here’s mine.