Storytime, Bedtime

Holy Storytime crowd, batman! I had triple the number of little ones today! This month I have averaged about 8 people at storytime, today we had 25!

 
Everyone's favorite rhyming book recently, this is becoming a favorite character at storytime.

I asked questions about if the dark was scary and what we can do to help calm ourselves if we get scared of the dark.

We sang twinkle twinkle little star.


This one didn't go over so well. The kids were confused about the bear living in a refrigerator and why the animals were flying. So we talked about dreams and how when we use our imagination, whether we are dreaming or playing pretend that anything can happen.

We talked about what we need to do before we get ready for bed, and flowed that into:

 

This story is so adorable, well written and wonderfully short. The parents with smaller ones in laps particularly enjoyed the tickle bug page. This would work better for a one-on-one bedtime book than for use in storytime.

Craft: I borrowed this lovely idea from Confessions of a Real Librarian. I brought out crayons and tissue paper to decorate as well. I did choose to not bring out the googly eyes, we had quite a few crawlers in the room and I only had minuscule eyes left in the package, so we drew our own.

Outreach Storytime, Monkey

The schools in the county have had a 5 day weekend due to the deep freeze this winter, so I made sure to do a lot of movement activities with the preschoolers this week during outreach. Nothing says winter like -20 degree wind chills and no recess for weeks.

Opening song: If You're Ready for a Story Take a Seat

 
This is one of my favorite books lately. I love the audience participation aspect and the vocabulary.

Go bananas song- this is a boy scout camp song, the kids just go crazy once I explain to them what it means to 'go bananas'. The song is super long so I pick and choose what lyrics to sing.

Form banana, form form banana. (Arms above head in banana shape.)
Form banana, form form banana.
Peel banana, peel, peel banana. (One arm down.)
Peel banana, peel, peel banana. (Other arm down.)
Go bananas! Go, go bananas! (Jump up and go bananas.)
Go bananas! Go, go bananas!


This is such a classic, but one that doesn't get enough attention. The smallest ones can sing their ABC's but can only pick out the letter in their names, so we are working on letter recognition the next few months.

I wanted to get the kids up and moving, so I handed everyone a magnetic alphabet tile and we put ourselves in alphabetical order. Some kids had the same letter, but we sang our ABCs several times while getting into line.

 

With below zero wind chills for the last week and a half, I needed to get everyone up and moving, so I brought out the parachute as we chanted 'Five Little Monkeys Jumping On the Bed'. I have a smaller parachute, so I had one group sit under the parachute while the other group bounced our finger puppet pals.

Goodbye song: G-O-O-D-B-Y-E

Nursery Rhyme Olympics

Today marked the 2nd Annual Preschool Nursery Rhyme Olympics. I set up 7 stations around the room, this way the preschoolers can wander through each station with no time limits. This allows me to float around the room and interact with parents and give instructions, as well as ways of incorporating sneaky math into some of our activities.



Station 1: Humpty Dumpty puzzles
       I used the printable from I Heart Crafty Things and made 4 copies. I color coded the back with marker, and had the kids find match the colors first and then complete the puzzle.

Station 2: Baa Baa Black Sheep wool matching
        I took 4 small white boxes and taped a piece of construction paper to the lid. I brought out a handful of pom poms and let the kids match the pom poms to the color of the box. Once they were finished matching, they could take them out, count them by color and set the game up for the next person.

Station 3: Jack and Jill pail toss
       Rolled up blue socks become water drops to throw into an empty pail.

Station 4: Help Peter Piper pick a peck of pickled peppers
       Walk from one end of the room to the other with green pom poms balanced on a small shovel. I asked kids to guess how many pom poms they could carry each trip and how many trips they would need to carry all of the pom poms.

Station 5: Help Little Bo Peep match up her sheep
       I found a free clip art template and colored in our sheep. I also added shapes and patterns to some of the cards to make them more difficult to match. There were 10 sheep to match.


Station 6: Jump over a candlestick like Jack.
       Toilet paper tubes and gift wrap tubes became candles in this movement activity, like the one from AllKids Network. I asked the participants how tall they thought the candlestick was and we estimated how high they could jump. I left a ruler near this station so the kids could measure the height of the candlestick.


Station 7: Three Little Kitten have lost their mittens craft
       I found the cutest cat craft from Krokotak and let the kids color their cat with crayons. I pre-cut all of the shapes before the program, but left the tail in a single piece so that the kids can work on cutting skills.


Inspiration for this program came from Hubbards Cupboard and So Tomorrow.

*Note: I don't know if it was because I chose to do the program on a Sunday afternoon, or if it was because we are in the middle of a deep freeze in Northern Ohio, but only 2 families came to the program this year. Last year attendance was 13.

Chinese New Year

*Note: This was my planned program. I had everything set up, but no one came due to snow.

As the kids entered into the party room, I handed them each a card. We discussed the 12 animals of the Chinese zodiac, as the kids unfolded their cards. I found the cards and the game at Activity Village. The goal of the game is to make the animal sound on your card and walk around the room to find the other person or persons that match you card.

Then we read parts from Happy new Year! by Demi. We talked about the lion dances and the lantern festival, and many of the other traditions to celebrate the spring harvest season. 

Then we made paper lanterns to prepare for our own little lantern parade . 

Outreach Storytime, Fractured Fairytales-Cinderella

I do a joint K-1-2 storytime once a month, usually the 3 classes equal about 50 kids. We meet in the hallway between the gym and the rear entrance to the school (not my choice, it is freezing!). While this is not ideal, the kids are fantastic. This year I wanted to focus on comparing and contrasting skills, so we stared with discussing the Cinderella story. We talked about characters and basic plot. Then we read Cinderella's Rat by Susan Meddaugh.


We discussed how the story and characters were different from the Cinderella story we told at the beginning. This led to a quick discussion about multiple viewpoints.

I brought out the giant post-it note pad and tried to play the ABC animals game (naming an animal that starts with each letter of the alphabet), but some of the older kids got a little too rowdy, so we didn't get to finish.

We moved into reading Seriously, Cinderella is so Annoying by Trisha Shaskan.



We talked about how different characters had different viewpoints and how a single story can be distorted depending on who is telling it.

We ran out of time before I could tell the 'piece de resistance'- the tale of Rindercella. I was introduced to this story by a worship leader in college who would tell this story at the beginning of every year to get a few laughs and introduce himself. The origins of this story come from Matthew Goldman, and is called a spoonerism tale; many of the first letters of words are mixed up. It is difficult to read, but so exciting to say out loud. It is by far my favorite story to tell with the school-age kids (I think I tell it at least once a year).

Outreach Storytime, Love

This week's outreach storytime theme is Valentines Day/Hearts/Love



Tony Chestnut song from The Learning Station.
Tony Chestnut knows I love you. 
Tony knows.
 Tony knows.
 Tony Chestnut knows I love you. 
That’s what Tony knows.



Skinnamarink from Wikipedia.
Skinnamarinky dinky dink
Skinnamarinky do,
I love you!

Skinnamarinky dinky dink
Skinnamarinky do,
I love you!

I love you in the morning,
And in the afternoon
I love you in the evening,
Underneath the moon…

Skinnamarinky dinky dink
Skinnamarinky do,
I love you!



*Note: My kids weren't quite feeling the love today. Several were fairly vocal about expressing their opposition to me interrupting their day with 'gross kissing books' and 'i don't wanna's' today.

Storytime, Purple

PURPLE PAINT song
Tune:  “Mary Had A Little Lamb”

First you paint with red paint,
Red paint, red paint.
First you paint with red paint,
Then you add some blue.

Then you mix the paint around
Paint around, paint around
Then you mix the paint around,
‘til purple you have found.
                                    Jean Warren

From Preschool Express

Tune: "Yankee Doodle"

If I had a purple penny or a purple nickle,

I'd go to the purple store and buy a purple pickle.

Purple pickles, purple peas, purple macaroni,

purple pudding, purple pies and purple pepperonis!

From: Bus Songs

*i had the kids stomp with me to the tune, and then we sang it again and jumped to the beat!

I wanted to end with "One eyed, one-horned flying purple people eater," but sadly, we ran out of time.

Craft: open ended. I gave out purple crayons and construction paper squares and let the creativity flow.