Valentine's Day 2015

This is the second year that I decided to rock Valentine’s Day as a theme.  I overall feel very meh about holiday themed storytimes.  The stories are never as good and it’s often hard to find a song or fingerplay to go along.  I stepped up my game for Valentine’s Day this year though.

BOOKS:

We read Love, Splat by Rob Scotton and Sweethearts by Jan Carr.

Both books were cute.  I have a soft spot in my heart for Splat.  He’s just so fuzzy and cute.  Sweethearts has adorable cut paper illustrations with some elements for interaction.  The kids had to find the valentine on each page.  I really struggled to find good read-aloud stories that were the right length for Valentine’s Day so I’m happy I ended up with two that worked well.

FLANNELBOARD:

I borrowed this idea from Storytime Katie.  I sewed up six little felt envelopes and puffy painted in the “address” and stamp.  I laminated pictures of each of the animals mentioned in the rhyme and put them in the envelopes so we could open them and see who sent what.

Here are the unsewn envelopes.

The rhyme goes as follows:

Six little Valentines were sent to my house,
The first one said, “I love you, From Mouse.”
Five little Valentines in my mailbox,
The second one said, “Be mine, Love Fox.”
Four little Valentines full of love,
The third one said, “You are sweet, From Dove.”
Three little Valentines just for me,
The fourth one said, “Be my honey, Love Bee.”
Two little Valentine’s mailed with care,
The fifth one said, “Here’s a hug, From Bear.”
The last little Valentine, from my friend Jay,

SONG: 

We listened and danced to “Valentine” by Laura Doherty, a very catchy upbeat song.

CRAFT: 

Pinterest is my friend.  Pinterest is the primary place where I get storytime craft ideas.  This one was a real gem.  An owl valentine.

Whoooooooooo will be your Valentine?

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!